41 Behold, a people comes from the north; and a great nation and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
The Prophet again shows whence destruction was to come on the Babylonians. He does not indeed mention Cyrus, as Isaiah does (Isaiah 44:28; 45:1), nor does he mention the Persians; but he evidently points out the Medes, when he says that a people would come from the north He adds, a great nation and many or powerful kings; and lastly, from the sides of the earth. It is indeed certain that the war was carried on under the banner and command of Cyrus and Darius. Cyrus was the chief, but Darius, on account of his age, was deemed the king. To whom then does Jeremiah refer, when he says many kings, if we so render the words? even to the satraps or princes, of whom a great number Darius brought with him; for Cyrus came from remote mountains, and from a barbarous nation; but the kingdom of Darius was very wide. There is then no doubt but that he brought with him many kings, who yet obeyed his authority. But we may take rvym, rebim, in the sense of being strong. However this may be, the Prophet means that the Chaldeans would have to carry on war, not with one nation or one king, but with many nations and with many kings, or certainly with mighty kings. Hence he mentions the sides of the earth, by which phrase he reminds us that the army would come, not from one country but from remote parts; and though the distance might be great, yet the Prophet says, that they would all come together to attack the Chaldeans. We now see that what afterwards happened is represented as in a picture, in order that the event itself might confirm the Jews, not only in the truth announced by Jeremiah, but also in the whole law and worship of God; for this prophecy was ratified to the faithful when they found that Jeremiah, a faithful interpreter of the law, had thus spoken. And then his doctrine availed also for another purpose, even that the people might know that they rebelled against God when they obstinately resisted the holy Prophet; for we know that they were extremely disobedient. They were then proved, by what happened, to have been guilty of having contended with God in their pertinacious wickedness and contempt. There was afterwards given them a sure ground of hope; for as Jeremiah had spoken of the destruction of Babylon, so, on the other hand, he had promised a return to the Jews. They had then reason to look for restoration, when they saw fulfilled what Jeremiah had spoken. By the word raised, he expresses something more than by the word come: he says that people would come, and adds, that they would be raised up or roused; he intimates that they would not come of themselves, but by the hidden influence of God, because this war was not carried on merely by men. Cyrus indeed, led by insatiable avarice and ambition, was guided by his own inclination to undertake this war; and he made no end of his cruelty, until he at length miserably died, for he never ceased to shed innocent blood everywhere. But yet the Lord made use of these kings and nations to destroy Babylon: they were in reality the scourges of God, and accordingly he says, that they were roused from the sides of the earth, that is, from the most distant places.
An application to Babylon of the doom against Jerusalem Jeremiah 6:22-24.
The coasts of the earth - See the Jeremiah 6:22 note.
Behold, a people shall come from the north - This and the two following verses are nearly the same with Jeremiah 6:22-24. But here, destroyers against Babylon are intended; there, destroyers against Jerusalem.
Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from (c) the ends of the earth.
(c) Meaning, that the Persians would gather their army from many nations.
Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation,.... The Modes and Persians, whose country lay north of Babylon: See Gill on Jeremiah 50:9;
and many kings shall be raised up from the coasts of the earth; the kings of Ararat, Minni, and Ashchenaz, Jeremiah 51:27; and of the Armenians and other nations that Cyrus had subdued and brought with him in his army against Babylon, as Xenophon (s) relates. Ten kings shall be raised up against mystical Babylon, and hate her, and burn her with fire, Revelation 17:12.
(s) Cyropaedia, l. 5. c. 15.
(Compare Jeremiah 6:22-24). The very language used to describe the calamities which Babylon inflicted on Zion is that here employed to describe Babylon's own calamity inflicted by the Medes. Retribution in kind.
kinds--the allies and satraps of the various provinces of the Medo-Persian empire: Armenia, Hyrcania, Lydia, &c.
coasts--the remote parts.
The agents who execute the judgment. - Jeremiah 50:41. "Behold, a people shall come from the north, and a great nation, and many kings shall be raised up from the most distant sides of the earth. Jeremiah 50:42. Bow and javelin shall they seize: they are cruel, and will not pity; their voice shall sound like the sea, and they shall ride upon horses, [each one] arrayed like a man for the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon. Jeremiah 50:43. The king of Babylon hath heard the report concerning them, and his hands have fallen down: distress hath seized him, writing pain, like [that of] the woman in childbirth. Jeremiah 50:44. Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the glory of Jordan to a habitation of rock; but in a moment will I make them run away from her, and will set over her him who is chosen: for who is like me, and who will appoint me a time [to plead my defence]? and what shepherd [is there] that will stand before me? Jeremiah 50:45. Therefore hear ye the counsel of Jahveh which He hath taken against Babylon, and His purposes which He hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Assuredly they shall drag them away, the smallest of the flock; assuredly [their] habitation shall be astonished at them. Jeremiah 50:46. At the cry, 'Babylon is taken,' the earth is shaken, and a cry [for help] is heard among the nations.
Jeremiah 51
Jeremiah 51:1-4
"Thus saith Jahveh: Behold, I will stir up against Babylon, and against the inhabitants of [as it were] the heart of mine opponents, the spirit of a destroyer. Jeremiah 51:2. And I will send against Babylon strangers, and they shall winnow her, and empty her land, because they are against her round about in a day of evil. Jeremiah 51:3. Against [him who] bends let the bender bend his bow, and against [him who] lifts up himself in his coat of mail: and do not spare her young men; devote to destruction all her host, Jeremiah 51:4. That slain ones may fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and those that are pierced through in her streets."
The greater portion of this strophe consists of quotations from former utterances. Jeremiah 51:41-43 are taken from Jeremiah 6:22-24, and Jeremiah 51:44-46 from Jeremiah 49:19-21; here they are applied to Babylon. What is said in Jeremiah 6:22-24 concerning the enemy out of the north who will devastate Judah, is here transferred to the enemy that is to destroy Babylon. For this purpose, after the words "and a great nation," are added "and many kings," in order to set forth the hostile army advancing against Babylon as one composed of many nations; and in consequence of this extension of the subject, the verb יערוּ is used in the plural, and אכזרי is changed into אכזרי המּה. Moreover, the mention of the "daughter of Babylon" instead of the "daughter of Zion" is attended by a change from the directly communicative form of address in the first person ("We have heard," etc., Jeremiah 51:43) into the third person ("The king of Babylon hath heard," etc.). In applying the expression used in Jeremiah 49:19-21 regarding the instrument chosen for the destruction of Edom, to the instrument selected against Babylon (Jeremiah 51:44-46), the names "Babylon" and "and land of the Chaldeans" are substituted for "Edom" and "the inhabitants of Teman" (Jeremiah 49:20); but beyond this, only the last verse is changed, in accordance with the change of circumstances. The thought that, in consequence of the fall of Edom, the earth trembles, and Edom's cry of anguish is heard on the Red Sea, is intensified thus: by the sound or cry, "Babylon is taken," the earth is shaken, and a cry is heard among the nations. The conquest of Babylon, the mistress of the world, puts the whole world in anxiety and fear, while the effects of Edom's fall extend only to the Red Sea. The Kethib ארוצם, Jeremiah 51:44, seems to come from the verb רצץ, in the sense of pushing, so that it is not a mere error in transcription for אריצם. Moreover, such changes made on former utterances, when they are repeated and applied to Babylon, show that these verses are not glosses which a reader has written on the margin, and a later copyist inserted into the text, but that Jeremiah himself has applied these earlier words in his address against Babylon. The two passages are not merely quite appropriately arranged beside one another, but even present in their connection a thought which has not hitherto been met with in the address against Babylon, and which does not recur afterwards. The enemy that is to conquer Babylon is certainly pointed out, so early as v. 9, as an assemblage of great nations out of the north, but not more particularly characterized there; but the nations that are to constitute the hostile army are not further designated till Jeremiah 51:11 and Jeremiah 51:27. The second quotation, Jeremiah 51:44-46, adds the new thought that the appearance of this enemy against Babylon is owing to a decree of the Lord, the execution of which no man can prevent, because there is none like Jahveh. The figurative description of the enemy as a lion coming up out of the thicket of reeds at the Jordan, frightening the herd feeding on their pasture-ground, and carrying off the weakly sheep, is appropriate both to Nebuchadnezzar's expedition against Edom, and to the invasion of Babylonia by the Medes and their allies, for the purpose of laying waste the country of the Chaldeans, smiting the inhabitants of Babylon, and conquering it. Even the expression נוה permits of being applied to Babylonia, which was protected by its canal system and the strong walls of its capital.
*More commentary available at chapter level.