Jeremiah against the nations;- Babylon 1

Jeremiah and Ezekiel are the prophets of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. To balance out their prophesies of judgement, both prophets have a collection of compensating prophesies against the enemies of Israel, with promises of hope for the future. The climax of Jeremiah is a two-chapter diatribe against Babylon, for obvious reasons. Though Ezekiel has nothing at all on Babylon, which will be because he doesn’t get past seeing Babylon as an agent of the Lord’s judgement.

Jeremiah is looking forwards to the fall of Babylon and the restoration of Israel to the land. The two themes alternate in ch50.

V2 declares that Babylon has been taken, and her gods Bel and Merodach have been put to shame.

V3. A nation (of the Medes and the Persians” has come against her “out of the north”.

Vv4-5 Then the people of Israel and Judah will come together, weeping with penitence and joy, seeking the Lord and asking the way to Zion, vowing to “join ourselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant which will never be forgotten”.

Vv6-7 A reminder of how God’s people became lost sheep, because their shepherds led them astray. Their enemies who punished them were only doing God’s work.

Vv8-10 His people should now flee from the midst of Babylon, because the great coalition from the north would be coming up against her.

Vv11-16 A poetic taunting addressed to Babylon, especially the warriors of Babylon. They may neigh like stallions, but Babylon their mother will be put to shame. She will become a wilderness, the last of the nations., left uninhabited. From v14, a summons to those who live round about Babylon, to set themselves in array against her. A prophetic claim that they may shout for joy, because she “has surrendered”. This is the vengeance of the Lord.

Vv17-20 A prose summary of the whole prophetic narrative. Israel has been a hunted sheep, devoured first by the Assyrians and then by Nebuchadnezzar. So the Lord will punish the king of Babylon as he punished the king of Assyria. Then he will restore even the kingdom of Israel to their old pastures in Bashan, Gilead, Ephraim and Carmel. In those days no sin or iniquity will be found in either kingdom. Presumably the restoration of Judah is not mentioned in this paragraph because Judah is not yet in exile.

Vv21-27 resume the theme of “summoning the world to battle against Babylon, interrupted by the prose passage. Babylon has been caught in a snare, because she strove against the Lord.

V28 “Hark! They flee and escape from the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the Lord our God, vengeance for his temple.” This prose verse must come from the Exile period, relating to the approach of the historic fall of Babylon.

Vv29-30 Prose. The summoning of archers against Babylon because she has proudly defied the Holy One of Israel.

Vv31-32 Poetry. “Behold I am against you, O proud one, says the Lord God of hosts.” Her day has come.

Vv33-34 Prose. Israel and Judah are both oppressed, because those who hold them captive refuse to let them go. But their Redeemer is strong, who will plead their cause. He will give unrest to the inhabitants of Babylon in order to give rest to the remainder of the earth.

Vv35-38 Poetry. Summoning the sword against the Chaldeans; namely all the inhabitants of Babylon, her princes and wise men, her diviners, her warriors, her horses and war-chariots and mercenary soldiers, and all her treasures. And let there be a drought upon her waters. Because she is a land of idols.

Vv41-43 Poetry. The king of Babylon is terrified by reports of a mighty nation stirring in the north.

I take together the two last prose passages, vv39-40 and vv44-46, because I have just realised how much the combination echoes the prose prophecy against Edom, ch49 vv17-22.

V39 Babylon will be abandoned and uninhabited for all generations, occupied only by wild beasts such as hyenas and ostriches. That will be the Arabian ostrich, “hunted to extinction in the middle of the twentieth century” (Wiki). The city will share the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. This prophecy has certainly been fulfilled, because the location is now an archaeological site. Baghdad is about seventy miles away (or two thousand, if you believe some of the sites which Google offers).

V40 Comparison with the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, repeating ch49 v18

V44 The Lord compares himself with a lion coming up from the jungle of the Jordan against a strong sheepfold, ready to appoint anyone he chooses over that land. Repeating ch49 v19

V45 “Hear the plan which the Lord has made”, to drag away the little ones from the fold. Repeating ch49 v20, except that “Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans” replaces “Edom and the land of Teman”.

V46 The sound of Babylon’s fall will make the earth tremble, and her cry will be heard among the nations. Repeating ch49 v21, except that the fall of Edom will be heard only at the Red Sea.

Actually, on consideration, the fall of Babylon is much more likely to be a great shock to the earth. On that basis, I would regard the Babylon prophecy as the original template which was modified to create the version for Edom.

N.B. I go into hospital on Monday for some keyhole surgery, which means there will be no thread next week, anyway.
Hopefully, normal service will be resumed by the following Friday

a reply to: DISRAELI

good luck with op, Disraeli.

originally posted by: DISRAELI
N.B. I go into hospital on Monday for some keyhole surgery, which means there will be no thread next week, anyway.
Hopefully, normal service will be resumed by the following Friday

May the Lord bless you, and keep you, and heal you. May he also surprise you with something special He has planned for those who love and obey him.

Thank you for your good wishes, everybody. In fact it's happening in a small hospital without "special treatment" beds becasue they're not expecting complications, so I'm confident that things will be fine.

I'm back, folks, but only just last night, so I wasn't in a condition to resume life yet.

It's been a bit of a saga. "Fun and games", as my mother would have said. The operation itself went fine. Biggish abdomen operation, but already pain-free. The problem lay in getting home afterwards. Bringing science into the medical service has evidently made them obsessive about "getting the numbers right." The night shift panicked whenever my oxygen levels dropped to what is probably their normal night-time state. I was being made to go through all sorts of hoops before they would release me. and because responsibility in their system evidently rests on "the senior doctor on the spot at the time", the targets would change from one day to another.

Yesterday morning was my first morning after being transferred to a hospital in another small town, for the sake of a machine which the first hospital did not possess. Being in a new hospital was actually a good move in itself, a much more relaxing atmosphere. Then the consultant who came in to inspect me turned out to be a very forthright speaker. "You're obviously fit enough to go home. There's no real reason to keep you here." He said that if I had a bit of soft diet and had one more bowel movement, they could let me go.. "This could have been done yesterday. I don't know why the man sent you here. Defensive politics, i suppose." That is, nobody wanting to take responsibility for sending someone home without getting the numbers right. This struck me as a situation created by God. The previous day, I had persuaded an old friend to visit me there to collect something and go on to my house. If they were able to discharge me that day, she could take me home instead. In effect, I had quite accidentally arranged my own lift home at exactly the right time, which is the way God tends to work with me.

So I did what he asked and then claimed the promise. Unfortunately the great man himself had now moved on to the next location in his schedule, and local responsibilty had shifted down to more players of defensive politics. They denied my request, because I wasn't meeting a new set of conditions they had thought up. So I had to play the "right to discharge myself" card, which was only possible because she was already coming anyway. It turns out that I wasn't the only one. I've just heard on the phone that while she was waiting for me to finish dressing, she witnessed another exit scene of the same kind, invloving a married couple with an angry-looking wife. Two patients lost by self-discharge on the same day. That can't be good for the political prestige either. I imagine there will have been internal rows this morning at least.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Good to hear you got aout in .99% of a peace. If I be your doctor I would have quoted Romans 13 at you!

a reply to: glend
I was being fully obedient to the great man who spoke in the morning. I wasn't really rejecting medical advice; just preferring his to theirs. And the gamble seems to be paying off. He was right.