Jeremiah 51:64, commentary and pictures

Thus shall Babylon sink under the calamity God brings upon her and shall not rise again, and they shall be weary and exhausted, and thus far are the words of Jeremiah closing his message concerning Babylon. The sinking was signed by reading the written doom aloud, binding the roll to a stone and casting it into the midst of the Euphrates to show that Babylon would sink like the stone and become extinct. It was fulfilled when the Medes and Persians under Cyrus took the secure, feasting city in a night by the lowered river-bed, slew Belshazzar, broke the walls and burned the gates, proving the head of gold would sink and not rise before Persia took its place. That overthrow did not finish the ruin at once, for Babylon decayed gradually until it became desolate heaps without inhabitant, whose buried remains uncovered after more than twenty centuries stand as witness that the word was fulfilled literally. The ancient city foreshows mystical Babylon of the last days, so that the humbling by the Medes and Persians foretells emphatically the day of the Lord when modern Babylon shall be punished with permanent, violent and complete destruction, as when the angel casts a stone into the sea. The fall is the Lord's judgment and vengeance for idolatry, pride, oppression, luxury and persecuting power against His people, warning proud cities and fallen churches that no might or wealth can save what sows error and death, while by contrast the church of God rises to fall no more.

Words, Symbol, and Fulfillment

Babylon was to sink beneath the evil, calamity, disaster and judgment God would bring upon her, never to rise again, with her people left weary, exhausted and helpless in final ruin. The sinking is utter destruction, leaving Babylon desolate and without inhabitants. Its doom stands as a warning to places that forget and defy God. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah, for the verse is the closing statement and conclusion of his words and his message about Babylon.

The sinking was signed by a book or roll bound to a stone and cast into the midst of the Euphrates. Seraiah carried the roll to Babylon, to the bank of the Euphrates flowing through the city, bearing the written arraignment and doom. There he read it aloud openly before vast passing crowds, without arrest or charge of anarchy or disturbing practices. Then he tied a stone to it and plunged it into the river, to show that Babylon would sink like the stone, suffer overthrow and extinction, and never rise again. The same symbol of casting a stone into the water reappears when an angel casts a stone into the sea.

The prophecy foretold the downfall of not only the city but the empire, the first kingdom, the head of gold, many years before it happened, and its fulfillment in history proves the prophecy true before the silver Persian empire took its place. It was exactly accomplished in the taking of Babylon by the Medes and Persians under Cyrus after a long siege, with the particular people and circumstances foretold. Destruction came suddenly upon the city in the night while the king and people felt secure in feasting, drunkenness and revelry. The river was lowered, the Persians entered the river-bed and seized the undefended gateways, and the city fell in a night of confusion and massacre in which the drunken revelers could make no resistance.

Belshazzar, the weak, dissolute, riotous, idolatrous blasphemer, sat on the throne feasting over Babylon's greatness and drinking to gods of gold and wood and stone from the plundered gold and silver vessels of the temple at Jerusalem. A hand wrote Numbered, Weighed, Divisions, meaning God had numbered his kingdom and finished it, weighed him and found him wanting, and divided his kingdom and given it to the Medes and Persians. That same night Babylon was taken on every quarter with the cry Babylon is fallen, Belshazzar was slain in his palace on the scene of his revelry, and fire and sword went through the town. The broad walls were broken and the gates burned, and when morning came Cyrus was undisputed master of the city, proving God true and Babylon false and showing that no might or scheme or power or wealth can save a city or nation that sows within herself error, confusion, destruction and death.

The overthrow by Persia did not complete the destruction at once, for the city gradually fell into decay until it became heaps without inhabitant. Jeremiah chapters 50 and 51 foretold this utter desolation, and the ruins of Babylon by the Euphrates stand as a lasting witness to the literal fulfillment of the sentence that Babylon shall sink and not rise from the evil brought upon her. The buried cities by the Euphrates lay as heaps for more than twenty centuries until men with the Bible as a guide-book uncovered their stones, bricks, sculptures and household goods and carried them to London and Philadelphia.

Type of End-Time Babylon

The prophecy against Babylon concerns both the ancient city and the ancient empire and also Babylon as a type of mystical Babylon. The literal Babylon of Jeremiah's day was a type foreshowing the great mystical Babylon of the last days prophesied in Revelation. That mystical, antitypical Babylon is the apostate system ruling over the nations. It stands in the line of the prophecies from Jeremiah 46 onward pronouncing doom upon the kingdoms surrounding Israel, upon Egypt, Philistia, Moab, Ammon, Edom, Syria, and Babylon, and its sinking to rise no more shows the fate of Babylon the great. Its historical fulfillment was the sudden fall while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure.

The fulfillment is double, by sudden transition from type to antitype. Literally it foretells the humbling of proud Babylon by the Medes and Persians, but emphatically it foretells the day of the Lord in which modern Babylon and all sinners shall be punished. That emphatic fulfillment is the final punishment of the ungodly and of formal professors. The sinking under God's judgments with never rising again portrays the final destruction of modern Babylon, the confused religious world, in the day when God closes all earthly accounts. That end-time destruction is permanent, violent, and complete.

As a prophet in the past foretold the destruction of literal Babylon by casting a stone bound to a book into the water to show it would sink like the stone and not rise again, so the same symbol is used again when an angel casts a stone into the sea to show the destruction of modern Babylon.

Justice, Warning, and Hope

The sinking without rising is God's judgment upon Babylon for idolatry. It is His open and irreconcilable hostility to the Babylonian system of religion, His vengeance for His temple, and His defense of His people. That hostility overthrew the city and the nation in divine disfavor with a permanent fall from which there is no recovery. The doom came for pride and for union of religion with state power. It came for pride, oppression, and great wickedness after a course of conquest, wealth, luxury, ease, and vice. The chapters around the verse describe Babylon as a persecuting power against God's faithful people.

The verse belongs to a record of judgment warning joined with an offer of mercy to ancient Babylon. Babylon ignored the warning and was not healed. The warning went unheeded until doom was declared at the palace wall and judgment came.

That unheeded doom warns places and cities that forget and defy God, including New York and Chicago. It is set forth as a lesson for cities and people who defy God. Applied to San Francisco, it shows that like Babylon and Tyre a proud city openly defying God faces catastrophe as the fruit of its wickedness and as a warning to other cities.

The fallen condition is the state of churches that rejected the Advent message. The prophecy passes by sudden transition from type to antitype, so that literally it foretells the humbling of proud Babylon but emphatically it foretells the day of the Lord in which modern Babylon and all sinners shall be punished, including the final punishment of the ungodly and of formal professors. That night of fulfillment proved God true and Babylon false, when the weak, dissolute, riotous, idolatrous blasphemer feasted over Babylon's greatness and drank from the plundered gold and silver vessels of the temple to gods of gold and wood and stone, and a hand wrote that God had numbered his kingdom and finished it, weighed him and found him wanting, and divided his kingdom and given it to the Medes and Persians, and that same night Babylon was taken on every quarter with the cry that Babylon is fallen. It shows that no might or scheme or power or wealth can save a city or nation that sows within herself error, confusion, destruction and death.

By contrast with Babylon sinking to rise no more, the church of God rises to fall no more. But for such judgments of God upon the nations, states influenced by the Babylonian system would crush out the last follower of Christ and allow him no religious rights. Even after this overthrow the same system is perpetuated with the power of the state turned to its support in succeeding kingdoms.