JEREMIAH 50-51 - BABYLON

BABYLON

“By your sorceries were all nations deceived”

(Rev. 18:23b)

Teaching from Jeremiah 50-51 and Revelation 17, 18 and 19)

By: Carolyn Sissom

Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Rev. 16:19: “And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell; and great Babylon came in remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of His Wrath.”

The passages in Jeremiah 50-51 and Isaiah 46-47 read almost word for word with Revelation 17, 18 and 19.  Jeremiah’s prophecies are the prediction of the fall and perpetual desolation of Babylon.  The prophecies in Revelation speak of ‘MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATINS OF THE EARTH.”   This mystery Babylon is the spirit of Babylon which means “confusion; Babel – from 1101 = “Baw-lal” = “to overflow with oil; by implication, to mix; to fodder = It is also rendered as “gate of Bel (Bel was the supreme deity or god in the Babylonian pantheon); gate of god; court of Baal, chaos, vanity, nothingness.”  Babylon was the most influential power on earth.  Just as the wealth of the spirit of Babylon is the most influential power on the earth today. 

In Revelation 18:  Babylon is presented in terms of the destruction of a great mercantile city---“what is here portrayed is not merely the doom of an ancient city, but the sure collapse of all human organization, commercial and otherwise, that leaves God out of its reckoning”. (Spenser)

18: “After these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was alight with His glory.  And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.  For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.”

Jer. 51:7-8:  “Babylon has been a golden cup in the Lord’s Hand that made all of the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.  Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed; howl for her; take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed.”

Next another voice from heaven calls upon the people of God to leave the doomed city in language drawn from Jeremiah 50:8; 51:6; Isa. 48:20; 52:11.  Here again we are not speaking of an ancient city today, but the financial system of the world that have left God out of their reckoning.  It is an imperial dominion which sets itself against the Lord and against his anointed (Ps. 2:2) 

Rev. 18: 4:  “And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, come out of her my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.  For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.  Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works; in the cup which she has filled fill to her double.”

Jeremiah 50:8: “remove out of the midst of Babylon, and go forth out of the land of the Chaldeans, and be as the goats before the flocks”

Jeremiah 51:6 “Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and deliver every man his soul: be not cut off in her iniquity; for this is the time of the Lord’s vengeance; he will render unto her recompense.”

This is a statement of the principle of retribution in human history which recurs throughout the Bible; with special reference to Babylon.

Jeremiah 50:15:  “Shout against her round about; she has given her hand; her foundations are fallen, her walls are thrown down; for it is the vengeance of the Lord; take vengeance upon her; as she has done, do unto her.”

Rev. 18:7-8 “How much she has glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her; for she says in her heart, I sit a queen and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. Therefore shall her plagues come in one day…for mighty is the Lord who judges her.”

Isaiah 47:9:  “But these two things shall come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; they shall come upon you in their perfection for the multitude of your sorceries, and for the great abundance of your enchantments.”

“For strong is the Lord who judges her.”(Rev. 18: 8b)  (9) “And the Kings of the earth, who committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning.  Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! For in one hour is your judgment come.  And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buys their merchandise any more; The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine line, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thymine wood and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious wood, and of brass, and iron , and marble.”

Verses 1-19 is the lament by rulers and merchants who grew prosperous by their commerce with the great city (i.e. power and principality).  This echoes the dirges over Tyre in Ezek. 16.  The fall of this city deprives them of an inexhaustible market for their wares

(17) “For in one hour so great riches is come to naught.  And every ship-master, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city?”

In Ezekiel the fall of Tyre is depicted as the foundering of a great merchant-man, laden with goods from many lands, ‘in the heart of the sea’ (Ezek. 27:25).  Here the spectators come to witness and mourn over the disappearance of a great city in a gigantic conflagration, and they keep their distance because of the intense heat.”   This sounds like an atom bomb.  This is similar in language to Abraham’s view of the burning cities of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19:27). 

(20)    “Rejoice over her, O heaven and you holy apostles and prophets; for God has avenged you on her.”

This is not the malignant delight which some take in the discomfiture of their enemies, but a call to rejoice in the judgments of God.  (Isa. 26:9) When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness”. 

This has been the theme of the whole study of Jeremiah—Judgment unto Victory.  The Day of the Lord is a day of Reversal.  The church is being loosed in the year of Jubilee!

In the judgments of God, rightly considered, the people of God can properly rejoice, but they will rejoice with trembling, remembering that His judgments begin with the Household of God. 

1 Peter 4:17: For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God; and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?  Wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator.”

Rev. 18:21:  “And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all.”

This is a heavenly action exactly like the prophetic action performed by Jeremiah in obedience to the Word God:  51: 59-64:  “The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah, the son of Neriah, the son of Maaseiah (the brother of Baruch 31:12; 45:1)…So Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all those words that are written against Babylon.  And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, ‘when you come to Babylon, and shall see, and shall read all these words; then shall you say, O lord, you have spoken against this place, to cut it off, that none shall remain in it, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.  And it shall be, when you have made an end of reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of Euphrates.  And you shall say, thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise from the evil that I will bring upon her: and they shall be weary.  Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.”

Historical Babylon fell to Persia (50:1-3).  The gods of Babylon were confounded by the prophecy of Babylon’s demise.  The disaster came out of the “north,” a reference to Cyrus the Persian who took Babylon in 539 B.C. (Dan. 7:4-5)

Then we see the return of the exiles (50: 4-7) “In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and the children of Judah together, going and weeping; they shall go, and seek the Lord their God.  They shall ask the way to Zion with their faces hitherward, saying, Come and let us join ourselves to the Lord in a perpetual covenant that shall not be forgotten.  My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their resting place.”

This happened in 536 B.C.

The prophecy of the fall of Babylon is resumed (8-16).  The vast ancient city of Babylon of a branch of the Euphrates near the modern town of Hilla, southwest of Baghdad, was excavated by the Germans under Robert Koldewey (1899-1914) and later by Heinrich Lenzen.  Its brilliant palaces, hanging gardens, temple tower, Ishtar Gate, walls and fortifications are now well known.  The Ishtar Gate has been rebuilt in Germany and is now a museum.

God’s people would be re-gathered (17-20.  Further judgments are uttered upon the nations (21-32).  The deliverance of the people of God is repeated (33-34).  Her Redeemer would be strong to save her. (Gal. 3:13-14).  Finally, Babylon’s downfall is repeated (35-46).  No nation, however mighty, can defy God with impunity!

Babylon is the last of the Judgment of the Nine nations.  Throughout the whole Book of Jeremiah, Babylon has been the instrument of God’s judgment.  Finally, on account of her own sin and corruption, that judgment must inevitably fall upon her.  The prophecy falls into two parts, the first foretelling Babylon’s doom and Israel’s deliverance.

Babylon’s judgment was because of: 

1. Her gleeful destruction of Jerusalem. (50:11)
2. Nebuchadnezzar’s cruelty unto the Jews. (50:17)
3. Babylon’s striving against the Lord. (50-24)
4. Her wanton destruction of the Temple. (50:28)
5. Her pride against God (50: 29-32)
6. Her refusal to let the captives go.(50:33)
7. Her infatuation with idols. (50:38)

Her prediction of “cast her up on heaps” was fulfilled after the destruction of Babylon.  The people dug in the ruins for bricks which resulted in mounds that exist to this day.  The prophecy of the drought upon her waters (38) was fulfilled when Cyrus ordered his troops to divert the Euphrates which was flowing through the city.  This allowed Cyrus to march into the city in the dry river bed during the night of Belshazzar’s feast. (Dan. 5).  Babylon was so completely ruined that she has no longer been inhabited by man.  Her sole inhabitants are the wild creatures taking refuge in the holes and caves of her ruins.  There are people trying to build a museum.  It will not be built because the Lord has not desired it to be so.

If we can take this prophetically to the represent judgment of the financial systems of the world,  We can expect to see Israel come in to salvation through the acceptance of the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

50:20: In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found; for I will pardon them whom I reserve.”

Revelation 19: 1-5:”And after these things, I heard a great voice of many  people in heaven, sayings, Alleluia; salvation and glory, and honor, and power unto the Lord our God. For true and righteous are his judgments: for he has judged the great whore, which did corrupt the earth with her fornication, and has avenged the blood of his servants at her hand.”

In chapter 51, the judgment of Babylon continues.  She would be mown down and winnowed like grain.  Then the remnant is addressed (6-10).  Command was issued to God’s people to flee out of Babylon.  Then we have the attack of the Medes (11-19).  Media lay northeast of Babylon.  The prophet satirizes their idolatry.  Then is prophesied Babylon’s utter ruin (20-33).  As a hammer, Babylon was God’s instrument to punish His disobedient people.  But Babylon would fall like Assyria (24-26).  As she had conquered nations, so nations would attack her!  The deliverance of God’s people is again reviewed. Babylon is described as dwelling upon many waters (51:13) because she straddled the Euphrates and was surrounded by canals, dykes and marshes.  Waters also symbolize people, or the turbulent masses of humanity.  Rev. 17:1 refers to those masses. “And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will show unto you the Judgment of the great whore that sits upon many waters; with whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.”

This same language has been used to describe other cities such as Nineveh (Nah. 3:4), Tyre (Isa. 23:15), Samaria (Ezek. 23:5) and Jerusalem (Ezek. 16:15).

Jeremiah 51:13:  “O you that dwell upon many waters, abundant in treasures, your end is come, and the measure of your covetousness.”

If prosperity is not proof of divine approval, neither does it arouse divine envy.  But godlessness brings on its own nemesis, and where godlessness is conjoined with the unconscionable exploitation of the underprivileged and the persecution of the righteous, noting but timely and whole-hearted repentance can avert the death-sentence.  Where, however, the sins of civilization reach their utmost limit and there is no further room for repentance, the judgment falls with the decisiveness of the millstone.

The collapse of godless rebellion and oppression on earth gives rise to jubilation in heaven.  For mortal men the vindication of God’s righteousness is a sobering spectacle.  For there is none who is not liable to His judgment in some degree,  If you, O lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?  But saints and angels in heaven with purified vision see this lower world in the light of God’s glory.

It is the position of this church that as the angels have been released to judge the Babylonian systems of the world that we will stand with the many people Heaven and rejoice saying,  Alleluia, Salvation and Glory and Honor and Powr unto the Lord our God for true and righteous are His judgments."

Taught by:  Carolyn Sissom

Scripture from K.J.V., Text from F. F. Bruce Bible Commentary (F.F. Bruce) and Principles of Present Truth of Jeremiah by:  Kelly Varner.  Comments and conclusions are my own.