Jeremiah 51:7, commentary and pictures

Babylon stood as an instrument in the Lord's hand whose religious influence spread through the earth and beyond her own time, in a message spoken against her long before her fall.
Her wine is false teaching about God and His government, and the drunkenness and madness of the nations is spiritual intoxication, confusion and unbelief that leaves them unable to hear solemn truth.
That corruption began in ancient Babylon as the first false religious system, spreading idolatry, nature-worship and demon-worship among the nations and molding other kingdoms by its reach.
Her doom came suddenly while her rulers felt secure in revelry, when the city was entered and Belshazzar slain, and her decline continued until she became desolate heaps testifying to the truth of God's prophetic word.
The prophecy passes from type to antitype, so ancient Babylon foreshadows a modern mystical Babylon, the great confused worldly church that still makes the nations drunk with the same wine, including unlawful union of church and state and enforcement of false religion by force.

Language and Literary Setting

Jeremiah 51:7 stands in the section of Jeremiah from chapter 46 onward that deals with the kingdoms surrounding Israel and pronounces their doom, belonging to chapters 46 to 51 as prophecies against foreign nations, especially Babylon. The 50th and 51st chapters are God's message to Babylon of impending judgment with gracious warning and proffered mercy sent through Jeremiah, uttered as God's prediction many years before its fall. That message was slighted and went unheeded, and the remaining record is that Babylon would not be healed. Its fulfillment in the fall of the head of gold before the silver empire takes its place is proved by the dispassionate testimony of heathen historians who did not know the prophecy and had no design to show its fulfillment.

The Babylon here is the literal Babylon of Jeremiah's day, a great world kingdom whose final destruction set forth in Jeremiah 50-51 is a vivid portrayal of the destruction to be visited upon modern Babylon when God finally and forever closes up all earthly accounts. In a peculiar and wonderful way that ancient city was a type of the religious world of these last days, so the doom pronounced on Babylon here reveals the fate of Babylon the great prophesied in Revelation. The Babylon repeatedly named in the Apocalypse is that modern Babylon located at the time immediately preceding and connected with the day of Christ and the end of the world. Modern Babylon is the great confused religious world, rent into hundreds of factions, at variance, weak, inconsistent and hopelessly worldly, yet seeking by federation and compromise to gain earthly power, for Babylon signifies confusion.

Babylon as a golden cup in the Lord's hand means she was an instrument in the Lord's hand whose religious influence spread throughout the earth and beyond her own time. The nations drank her wine and became spiritually intoxicated and driven mad, becoming morally and spiritually confused. Her influence was immense and reached beyond her own time, spreading its influence and principles among the nations so that Babylon's principles would shape the succeeding world empires. God would still heal Babylon, beginning with its mightiest king, Nebuchadnezzar. The same image is linked with modern Babylon, which likewise makes the nations drunk with her wine.

Her wine is false doctrine and corrupting teaching about God and His government, representing that corrupting influence and the first false religious system arising from Babylon and later systems that exalt human work and the creature in place of God's grace and Spirit. The nations made drunken and mad by it became confused and irrational, spiritually intoxicated and morally confused, and not prepared to listen to solemn truth. Drunkenness used as such a metaphor means unbelief. The Heaven-sent message about the judgment and the coming of Christ would have healed Babylon if it had been received, but because the people were drunken with false doctrines they rejected it, leaving Babylon unhealed and to be forsaken. Though Babylon's city would fall, its principles would remain, and Papal Rome as the modern Babylon does the same work by making all nations drink of the wine of her fornication, where adultery and fornication symbolize idolatry and false worship.

Babylon is distinct from the nations she intoxicates, for she makes all nations drink her wine and their drunkenness leaves them mad. Therefore the message that Babylon is fallen does not mean that the nations themselves are Babylon.

Ancient Babylon's Sin and Doom

Ancient Babylon had filled the cup of its iniquity, and chapters 50 and 51 are God's message to her of impending judgment joined with gracious warning and proffered mercy sent through Jeremiah. That message was slighted and went unheeded, so the remaining record is that she would not be healed. Her wine was false doctrine, and by making all the earth drunken with it she left the nations mad and unprepared to listen to solemn truth. The Heaven-sent message of the judgment and the coming of Christ would have healed Babylon if received, but being drunken with false doctrines the people rejected it, leaving her unhealed and to be forsaken.

Babylon was the kingdom that perverted the other kingdoms of the earth. As mother of proud cities she wielded a religious influence that molded other nations, spreading her lustful idolatry among them like wine until the whole earth was drunk. She was an instrument in the Lord's hand whose religious influence spread across the nations, and those who drank her wine became morally and spiritually confused. That influence was immense in reach and extended beyond her own time.

As a golden cup in the Lord's hand she spread her wine among the nations until they were spiritually intoxicated and mad, and her wine was her apostasy. That apostasy reached its climax when Belshazzar used the sacred vessels from God's temple to drink wine while honoring false gods. The nations' drunkenness and Babylon's apostasy were followed by her fall.

The prophecy covers not merely the fall of the city but the fall of the empire, coming suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure. It was a burden uttered by God many years before its fall, foretelling that the head of gold would fall before the silver empire took its place. Its fulfillment is proved by the dispassionate testimony of heathen historians who did not know the prophecy and had no design to show its fulfillment. The Persians took the city by entering the bed of the Euphrates where it entered and left the walls, the water having sunk while those inside gave no alarm because they were unconscious in revel and riot and drunkenness. The undefended river-gates were seized in darkness, Belshazzar king of the Chaldeans was slain in his palace on the scene of his impious revelry, and Darius the Median, being about threescore and two years old, took the kingdom.

That destruction was not completed when the Persians overthrew Babylon, for the prophecy pointed to her eventual ruin. She declined over time and became desolate, so the prophecy was literally fulfilled. The prophecies foretold her utter desolation and her fall into heaps without inhabitants. The detailed prophecy of her doom is confirmed by her later ruins, which testify to the truth of God's prophetic word. The ruins of the city by the Euphrates bear witness to the truth of that foretold doom. As a golden cup in the Lord's hand whose wine made the nations drunk and mad, her fall is connected with the fulfillment of God's judgments against her corrupt principles and the destruction of the kingdom.

God would still heal Babylon, beginning with its mightiest king, Nebuchadnezzar, even though her principles would shape the succeeding world empires. He makes the future known rather than leaving rulers blind to what will come to pass.

Spread of False Religion

Ancient Babylon was the original and first false religious system from which idolatry spread among the nations, so that pagan religions everywhere share a Babylonian origin though altered in different places and times. Papal Rome preserves that system nearly intact. Its golden cup in the Lord's hand spread its influence through the nations and made them drunk with her wine, leaving them confused and irrational.

That wine was Babylonian nature-worship and its mysteries, including rites with mixed wine and especially licentious sun-worship. As this worship spread from nation to nation it multiplied idolatry, demon-worship, and confusion, and its wine of idolatry corrupted the nations of the earth. The corrupting principles originated with Lucifer and at Babel in rebellion, self-exaltation, self-honor, self-salvation, and self-glorification. Turning from God to earthly power and government, they perverted God's plans by erecting a false system of government and a false system of education that perverted the whole world and persists to the present time.

The nations repeat those principles by building systems that claim to be gates to God but bring confusion, which is spiritual fornication. That false principle begun at Babel sprang into every false system of religion and every perversion of the true religion, cursing the nations and the world and putting to death millions of God's children, all rooted in man's rebellious attempt to seek his own glory, improve upon God's plan, put man's work in place of God's free grace and Spirit, and exalt the creature to the throne of the Creator. The same schemes, under pretense of worshiping God, exalt human authority and put human laws, traditions, and expediency in place of God's law, truth, and principles of right.

Its intoxicating mysteries and religious teachings clouded understanding, stirred passions, and led people to yield to evil and to human substitutes for God's way. Perverting God's word by replacing it with human tradition, and using civil power to enforce religious beliefs, spreads that corruption from the church to the state and leaves both under God's judgment. Departures of the church toward the world, unions of church and state, and persecution for rejecting human opinions imposed as divine all follow Babylon's pattern.

Even Zion and Israel drank from this cup, becoming contaminated by Babylonian practices and unfaithful to God. When Israel turned from God, Babylonian religion in some form displaced the faith of heavenly origin, and those principles spread from Babylon into other nations' religions and persisted in successive pagan powers. The wine also means false teaching that the dead are alive, that the body of the resurrection is obtained at death, and that the dead are nearer their friends than before.

Drinking it and becoming mad means churches and nations become drunk with rank spiritualism, loving popular fables and rejecting unpopular truth, while only those who receive the love of the truth will be saved. Babylon remains a powerful, seductive source of delusion whose poisoned wine lulls multitudes into false ways leading away from God. Like wine her religious-political apostasy made the nations spiritually drunk, mad, and morally confused, pictured by the cup and the woman, a pattern also seen in mystical Babylon.

Though ancient Babylon has passed away, greater Babylon still lives, and ancient Babylon's history and end serve as a pattern for modern Babylon.

Church-State Union and Persecution

The wine in the golden cup is the unlawful union of church and state, by which apostate religious teachers and priests entice earthly rulers and corrupt governments. That union is built on self-exaltation, self-salvation and self-honor, principles originating with Lucifer and perpetuated through unconverted people, and rooted in the rebellion and self-salvation associated with Babel. Its corrupting influence reaches the governments of the earth, spreads apostasy and corruption among the nations, and poisons them spiritually, continuing to influence nations beyond ancient Babylon.

Babylon began the persecuting church-and-state system that made the kingdoms of the earth drunk with its influence. Though its city fell and it ceased as a world empire, its principles remained and would shape the succeeding world empires, including putting humanity in God's place, altering His ways, claiming His authority and rebelling against His rule. Those principles shaped nations beyond Babylon itself, even nations that conquered it, and continued through later nations, successive world and pagan powers, and succeeding world empires in different forms. In its civil aspect that system is a lion and in its religious aspect a richly arrayed harlot, and the lion's mouth on Revelation's composite beast marks this Babylonian character throughout the system's heads.

The Babylonian plan uses force and state authority to carry out what it claims are God's decrees, imposing false religion, denying religious rights, and persecuting those who reject human opinions imposed as divine. Under pretense of worshiping God it exalts human authority and puts human laws, traditions and expediency in place of God's law, truth, free grace and principles of right, leading people into human substitutes for God's way. Its cup is poison wine that intoxicates the nations and brings madness, confusion, corrupt worship, bloodshed and death. God opposes this Christ-hostile system, defends His people, and brings judgment against it. That corruption spreads from church to state when civil power is used to enforce religious belief and when religious systems, after turning from God, seek the state's support and power, perverting God's word by human tradition and pleasing fables. Both church and state are thus left under God's judgment, and the fall of Babylon is the fulfillment of God's judgments against its corrupt principles and the destruction of the kingdom.

Type of End-Time Babylon

The prophecy is double, covering not merely the fall of the city but the fall of the empire, coming suddenly while Belshazzar and his lords felt secure, and pointing beyond the ancient city and empire on the Euphrates to antitypical Babylon, the great apostate harlot-system ruling over the nations, which alone is the Babylon of Revelation. It makes a sudden transition from type to antitype, applying primarily to literal Babylon humbled by the Medes and Persians but applying emphatically to modern Babylon and all sinners punished in the day of the Lord as portrayed in Revelation 18.

The literal Babylon of Jeremiah's day was a type of the great mystical Babylon of the present day, so the doom pronounced on Babylon here reveals the fate of Babylon the great prophesied in Revelation. That final destruction of ancient Babylon foreshadows and illustrates the final destruction of end-time Babylon. It is a vivid portrayal of the destruction to be visited upon modern Babylon when God finally and forever closes up all earthly accounts, with the Babylon repeatedly named in the Apocalypse located at the time immediately preceding and connected with the day of Christ and the end of the world.

Modern Babylon is the great confused religious world, rent into hundreds of factions, at variance, weak, inconsistent and hopelessly worldly, yet seeking by federation and compromise to gain earthly power, for Babylon signifies confusion. It is a figure for churches divided by conflicting doctrines, joined to the world and confused in belief. Though ancient Babylon has passed away, greater Babylon still lives, and its poisoned wine lulls multitudes into accepting false ways that lead away from God and bring confusion.

Babylon symbolizes nothing less than the universal worldly church, because she has intoxicated all nations, including religious bodies in the United States that are incorporated by the state though the nation disclaims a national religion. Ancient Babylon as a golden cup in the Lord's hand made all the earth drunk so that the nations drank her wine and became mad, and modern Babylon likewise makes the nations drunk with her wine. Ancient Babylon was the original source from which systems of idolatry spread among the nations, and its cup making the nations drunk is echoed in the New Testament description of Babylon, connecting ancient and New Testament Babylon as type and antitype.

Ancient Babylon acted as a golden cup that made all the earth drunken, where drunkenness as metaphor means unbelief, and Papal Rome as modern Babylon does the same work by making all nations drink of the wine of her fornication, where adultery and fornication symbolize idolatry and false worship. That image is applied to the papacy, depicted as a woman holding out a cup and fulfilling the prophecy through a similar image on a papal medal, with its wine representing spiritual fornication that deceives the nations and is associated with persecution.

A religious power can be pictured as a golden cup whose influence intoxicates nations and leads them into folly, and Catholicism's influence on Spain is portrayed as Spain having drunk from that cup for four centuries with the nation's ruin as the result.

The whole world is drunken with the wine of Babylon because it has trampled the Holy Scriptures underfoot, with Protestantism rejecting the Bible and Socialism rejecting the Bible. This drunkenness leaves the world in doubt and without religion and in a stormy cataclysm of lawlessness, causing men to turn to the Vatican and the Roman Catholic religion and the pontiff in Rome as the one consistent thing and the only assurance and hoped-for haven of safety and refuge and rest. That rush to Rome will end in finding her haven of safety to be the abyss of death, for Protestantism ought to have stood for the hope of the nations, but the only true hope and haven of safety is Christ Jesus and His Gospel as revealed in the threefold message of Revelation 14.

Babylon made all the earth drunken with her wine, which means false doctrines, so the nations are mad and not prepared to listen to solemn truth. The Heaven-sent message about the judgment and the coming of Christ and the first angel's message of the everlasting gospel and the judgment would have healed Babylon and led people out of sectarian confusion and worldliness if received. Because the people were drunken with false doctrines they rejected it, leaving Babylon unhealed and to be forsaken and remaining fallen, while those who heard the second angel's announcement that Babylon had fallen recognized their condition and left the sects.

Warning and Present Application

Jeremiah 51:7 belongs to the warning of Babylon's doom, which stands as a lesson for cities and people that forget and defy God. That warning is applied to San Francisco as well as to New York, Chicago, and other places. Babylon's fate warns that judgment may come when warnings go unheeded.

Calamity shows the consequences of wickedness and calls for repentance. San Francisco, as a modern proud and beautiful Babylon, met the same fate in earthquake ruin. This preliminary punishment was invited by open, flaunting, God-defying wickedness. The catastrophe is both the fruit of awful wickedness and the mercy of God. It stands as a lesson and warning not for San Francisco alone but for New York, Chicago, and every other place forgetting and defying God.