*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Here, by another figure, Jeremiah expresses what he had said of the destruction of Babylon, even that in the middle of the slaughter, they would have no strength to resist: they would, at the same time, perish amidst great confusion; and thus he anticipates what might have been advanced against his prophecy. For the Babylonians had been superior to all other nations; how then could it be, that a power so invincible should perish? Though they were as lions, says the Prophet, yet that would avail nothing; they will indeed roar, but roaring will be of no service to them; they will roar as the whelps of lions, but still they will perish. We now, then, understand the object of this comparison, even that the superior power by which the Babylonians had terrified all men would avail them nothing, for nothing would remain for them in their calamity except roaring. [1] It follows, --
1 - Taking this verse is connection with the following, Gataker and Lowth give somewhat another view, -- that the Babylonians roared like lions and shouted with exultation before the city was taken. It is said by Herodotus, that "they ascended the walls, and capered, and loaded Darius and his army with reproaches." They roared with rage at their enemies, and excited themselves as whelps when beginning to hunt for themselves, full of life and animation, -- Together as young lions shall they roar. And rouse themselves as whelps of lionesses. There is a v wanting before the last verb, which is supplied by the Vulg., Syr., and the Targ.; and it is rendered necessary by the tense of the verb. -- Ed
Yell - Or, growl.
They shall roar together like lions,.... Some understand this of the Medes and Persians, and the shouts they made at the attacking and taking of Babylon; but this does not so well agree with that, which seems to have been done in a secret and silent manner; rather according to the context the Chaldeans are meant, who are represented as roaring, not through fear of the enemy, and distress by him; for such a roaring would not be fitly compared to the roaring of a lion; but either this is expressive of their roaring and revelling at their feast afterwards mentioned, and at which time their city was taken; or else of the high spirits and rage they were in, and the fierceness and readiness they showed to give battle to Cyrus, when he first came with his army against them; and they did unite together, and met him, and roared like lions at him, and fought with him; but being overcome, their courage cooled; they retired to their city, and dared not appear more; See Gill on Jeremiah 51:30;
they shall yell as lions' whelps. Jarchi and other Rabbins interpret the word of the braying of an ass; it signifies to "shake"; and the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "they shall shake their hair"; as lions do their manes; and young lions their shaggy hair; and as blustering bravadoes shake theirs; and so might the Babylonians behave in such a swaggering way when the Medes and Persians first attacked them.
The capture of Babylon was effected on the night of a festival in honor of its idols.
roar . . . yell--The Babylonians were shouting in drunken revelry (compare Daniel 5:4).
The inhabitants of Babylon fall; the city perishes with its idols, to the joy of the whole world. - Jeremiah 51:38. "Together they roar like young lions, they growl like the whelps of lionesses. Jeremiah 51:39. When they are heated, I will prepare their banquets, and will make them drunk, that they may exult and sleep an eternal sleep, and not awake, saith Jahveh. Jeremiah 51:40. I will bring them down like lambs to be slaughtered, like rams with he-goats. Jeremiah 51:41. How is Sheshach taken, and the praise of the whole earth seized! How Babylon is become an astonishment among the nations! Jeremiah 51:42. The sea has gone up over Babylon: she is covered with the multitude of its waves. Jeremiah 51:43. Her cities have become a desolation, a land of drought, and a steppe, a land wherein no man dwells, and through which no son of man passes. Jeremiah 51:44. And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed, and no longer shall nations go in streams to him: the wall of Babylon also shall fall. Jeremiah 51:45. Go ye out from the midst of her, my people! and save ye each one his life from the burning of the wrath of Jahveh. Jeremiah 51:46. And lest your heart be weak, and ye be afraid because of the report which is heard in the land, and there comes the [= this] report in the [= this] year, and afterwards in the [= that] year the [= that] report, and violence, in the land, ruler against ruler. Jeremiah 51:47. Therefore, behold, days are coming when I will punish the graven images of Babylon; and her whole land shall dry up,
(Note: Rather, "shall be ashamed;" see note at foot of p. 311. - Tr.)
and all her slain ones shall fall in her midst. Jeremiah 51:48. And heaven and earth, and all that is in them, shall sing for joy over Babylon: for the destroyers shall come to her from the north, saith Jahveh. Jeremiah 51:49. As Babylon sought that slain ones of Israel should fall, so there fall, in behalf of Babylon, slain ones of the whole earth."
This avenging judgment shall come on the inhabitants of Babylon in the midst of their revelry. Jeremiah 51:38. They roar and growl like young lions over their prey; cf. Jeremiah 2:15; Amos 3:4. When, in their revelries, they will be heated over their prey, the Lord will prepare for them a banquet by which they shall become intoxicated, so that they sink down, exulting (i.e., staggering while they shout), into an eternal sleep of death. חמּם, "their heat," or heating, is the glow felt in gluttony and revelry, cf. Hosea 7:4., not specially the result or effect of a drinking-bout; and the idea is not that, when they become heated through a banquet, then the Lord will prepare another one for them, but merely this, that in the midst of their revelry the Lord will prepare for them the meal they deserve, viz., give them the cup of wrath to drink, so that they may fall down intoxicated into eternal sleep, from which they no more awake. These words are certainly not a special prediction of the fact mentioned by Herodotus (i. 191) and Xenophon (Cyrop. vii. 23), that Cyrus took Babylon while the Babylonians were celebrating a feast and holding a banquet; they are merely a figurative dress given to the thought that the inhabitants of Babylon will be surprised by the judgment of death in the midst of their riotous enjoyment of the riches and treasure taken as spoil from the nations. In that fact, however, this utterance has received a fulfilment which manifestly confirms the infallibility of the word of God. In Jeremiah 51:40, what has been said is confirmed by another figure; cf. Jeremiah 48:5 and Jeremiah 50:27. Lambs, rams, goats, are emblems of all the classes of the people of Israel; cf. Isaiah 34:6; Ezekiel 39:18.
They - The Babylonians, upon the taking of their city.
*More commentary available at chapter level.