Jeremiah 51:34-44. A few more days and we will be done with the message/warning to or about Babylon. Remember that Babylon had been the main enemy of the people of Judah. Over a period of almost 20 years Babylon had oppressed the people of Judah and Jerusalem. Then the people of Judah were taken as captive for another 50 years (some of the captives had been in Babylon since the first invasion in 605 BC). We don’t know when Jeremiah wrote these particular words but Babylon had definitely been a problem for the Jewish people. In addition, as we saw yesterday, Babylon had been a bad influence on the world for centuries, so it is fitting that the condemnation and warnings are as long as they are.

One other little fact to remember is that Jeremiah was not one of the captives taken to Babylon, he was one of the people who remained in Jerusalem in 586 when Nebuchadnezzar invaded for the final time. After the governor that Nebuchadnezzar left in control was assassinated, the remaining Jews fled to Egypt, forcing Jeremiah to go with them. In Egypt he warned them that even there Nebuchadnezzar could reach them. In 568 BC Nebuchadnezzar did fight a successful campaign against Egypt. It is uncertain when Jeremiah died but it is pretty certain he didn’t live to see the overthrow of the Babylonian empire (Jeremiah first ministered in 627 BC putting his birth perhaps 16 years earlier around 643 BC. Cyrus conquered Babylon in 539 BC. It seems pretty unlikely that Jeremiah lived to be over 100 years of age.)

Verses 34-35 are sort of a prayer for judgment on Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom. At the time of the destruction Nebuchadnezzar was dead (562 BC). The king at the time was technically Nabonidus but his son Belshazzar was actually in charge in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar had been married to a woman named Nitocris. Evidently after his death either Nabonidus’ father or Nabonidus himself married her. This connection may be why Belshazzar is called the son of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 5. Of course he might have been a “son” in the sence that he followed in the prideful footsteps of Nebuchadnezzar (though not in in Nebuchadnezzar’s turn back to God). Although Jeremiah may have been using Nebuchadnezzar as a symbol of the evils of Babylon in this “prayer” it seems more likely that the words were written while Nebuchadnezzar was still alive. Some translations use plural pronouns in these two verses but the pronouns are actually singular. The reason they uses plurals in some translations is because Jeremiah is speaking for all the people of Judah in these verses.

In verses 36-40 the LORD (Yahweh, the one true God) answers Jeremiah’s prayer. God says he will stand up for the Jewish people and get vengeance for them. I think it is important that God is the one who presents the evidence because this isn’t some twisted personal revenge thing but a fair look at the actions of Babylon and a fair punishment handed out by God.

Verse 36 also contains what seems to be a prophetic hint at how God was going to overthrow Babylon. Part of the pride of Babylon involved the strength of the city itself. Babylon was surrounded by two walls the outside wall was twelve feet thick and the inner wall was twenty-one feet thick (evidently they used to race chariots next to each other on the top of the inner wall) with twenty-three feet between the walls. There was also a moat surrounding the city. Towers were build every sixty feet along the wall to protect the city from invasion. The city was basically impregnable. One concern for a city under siege was water. The Babylonians had that covered too, the Euphrates River flowed under the wall and through the city providing a consistent source of water. And of course the Babylonians also felt protected by their “gods”. In the end of verse 36 God says he will dry up the sea and the fountains in Babylon. Some Bible experts think the “sea” is a reference to a reservoir that Nitocris built. In Isaiah 18:2, 19:5 the Nile is called a “sea” and the reference here may be to the Euphrates River. That would be very interesting since Cyrus’ general diverted the flow of the Euphrates River in order to use the river bead to gain entrance to the city in 539 BC. According to verse 37 the ultimate end of Babylon would be total destruction and abandonment. Jeremiah wrote these words 20 to 30 years (at least) before the invasion by Cyrus and another 200 years before the total destruction that eventually came to pass. This points out two things. The accuracy of prophets of the one true God and the way prophecy in the Bible compresses time; sometimes events that span decades or centuries are brought together and sound like one event.

Verses 38-39 point out the prideful “we can do it” attitude that Babylon represented. In verse 38 the Babylonians growl and roar like Young lions, like cubs. I think the young and cub parts point out their powerlessness; “all bark and no bite”. Verse 39 takes me back to the conquest in 539 BC. If you read the history in Daniel 5 you will see that Belshazzar was having a part with his powerful buddies while the city and nation were under siege. In this party they even got out the sacred cups that they had taken from the temple in Jerusalem and used them for their drunken party. When God used a totally scary miracle to warn Belshazzar about the destruction coming his way Belshazzar seems to be totally out of it giving Daniel (the prophet who explained God’s message to him) a robe and place of power in his kingdom. Total pride right before a total defeat. In verse 39 we see a drunken party and then death (perpetual sleep). In Daniel 5:30 we are told that that very night Belshazzar was executed and the Medes became rules of the kingdom.

In verse 40 God tells us that he will bring them down like lambs, rams, and goats to be slaughtered. In the life of the Jewish people they were commanded to make certain animal offerings to God. The point of the offerings varied but generally they were there to remind the people of the consequences for sin. From the beginning death, both physical and spiritual, were the consequences for our disobedience and disrespect toward God (remember death in the Bible has the idea of separation). Here in verse 40 we see the Babylonians being their own sacrifices for their consistent rejection of the one true God, Yahweh.

Verses 41-44 get a little deeper into the reasons behind the destruction of Babylon. Jeremiah uses some contrasts from the destruction to make his point. In verse 41 we see that the kingdoms of the world basically worshipped Babylon. With the overthrow of Babylon the nations were horrified. In verses 42-43 God describes the destruction of Babylon using the idea of both a flood and a drought, sometimes authors use contrasting ideas to show how complete something is. A story might say they have everything you need from “A to Z”. In Psalm 103 we are told that God will remove our sins from us as far as the “east is from the west”. Here flood and drought may be used in a similar way to describe complete and total destruction.

Verses 41 and 44 bring home the reasons for this destruction. First in verse 41 we were told that the nations were horrified. We need to remember that God loves people and when people are misled about our broken relationship with him and his solution (Jesus) God takes it very seriously. For centuries Babylon had been a symbol and leader in making mankind think we could get back to God on our own (Nebuchadnezzar rebuilt the original tower from Genesis 11 (but not all the way to heaven)). IN verse 44 God punishes Bel. Bel means “lord” and was a name applied to Marduk the “god” of the Babylonian Empire. Here we see the real lord of the universe making the false god throw up what he has eaten. The second half of the verse gives us a hint about shat that was; the nations that had run to Babylon. The verse ends with the ultimate insult to Bel. Even the wall of Babylon has fallen down. The end of a verse is often reserved for the most important ideas, by ending the verse with a mention of the fallen wall, the wall becomes the focus of the sentence and not Marduk; the god is eclipsed by a pile of rocks.

I like it that God predicted things before they happened that helps me believe in the word that these prophets spoke. I also like it that God uses ironic things in the messages. The city that was the focus of so many people had become a joke to them. God that had devoured was now forced to “throw up” what he had eaten. Even the idea of these massive protective walls destroyed is ironic. The details show me God cares and pays attention and the irony shows that God understands how we think and wants to communicate to us in meaningful ways. Finally I like it that God takes sin seriously, he hate it because it separates us from him.

God thank you for keeping an eye on the world. Thank you for keeping the bad influences in check. We do live in a messed up world, one that we messed up. And there are still plenty of chances to ignore you. Help me never ignore you. Don’t let me be distracted by anything that can come between you and me. Help many people turn to you from the distractions of the world.

Jeremiah 51:24-33. Still more of the message to and about the destruction of Babylon. Remember from a couple of days ago that Babylon had been an influence on the world for many centuries, and not a good one. More recently Babylon had been the nemesis of the Jewish people. Nebuchadnezzar spent almost two decades trying to bring Judah under submission. Then for the last 50 years the Jewish people had lived in exile in Babylon, some longer. Since the beginning of chapter 50 we have seen Jeremiah’s prediction and description of the overthrow of Babylon.

It is interesting that in yesterday’s reading we saw that the Jewish people would have a part in the overthrow of Babylon. Historically the nation was conquered by Cyrus king of the Medes and the Persians. The takeover of the actual city was relatively peaceful. Often taking a city involved setting it on fire but that did not happen in Babylon. Most of the people were fed up with the government and welcomed the invaders, though I’m sure there was some resistance. In verses 25 and 26 the LORD (Yahweh, v. 25) tells Babylon that he will destroy them and make them like a burned out mountain that will be “desolate” forever.

The Hebrew word that is translated “desolate” in interesting it comes from a word that can mean “wasted, destroyed, or desolate”, but it can also mean, “astonished or amazed”. Sometimes when we see images of destruction on the news or Youtube we are kind of horrified; astonished. When that tsunami happened in Indonesia, or the one in Japan a couple of years ago, most of us were shocked and amazed at the destruction and loss of life.

Two more little pieces of the puzzle. In verse 26 God tells the Babylonians that not even a cornerstone will be taken from Babylon after it’s destruction. In the ancient near east (what we call the Middle East) of that time most permanent structures were built out of stone. For the best buildings stones would be cut from large masses of stones, cliffs probably, and stacked up like giant bricks. A corner stone was a stone that was carefully shaped so that it was very square (think 90 degrees not square like a cube). The edges of the stone would be used to line up two walls to the building to make sure the building was “square”. Quarried stones would be expensive and corner stones even more so. When cities were conquered, as I said, they were often burned. The wooden parts of building would be destroyed as well as much of the stuff inside. Also invading armies would push the stone off of each other literally “leveling” the city. Days, weeks, months, or years later people would come back and start rebuilding the city (probably because the location had some sort of advantage, a hill, a spring of water, or something else). They would often rebuild right on top of the rubble from the earlier city but I’m sure if quarried stones were sitting around un-burried, or even part of buildings, that the stones and parts would be reused.

Finally notice in verse 25 that God describes Babylon as the “destroying mountains that destroys the whole earth”. I think this is the key to this part of the prophecy. Remember that the city of Babylon was not destroyed when it was conquered by Cyrus. The city lost its importance at that time but sort of just fell apart over the next two hundred years. It eventually was just a heap of rubble filled with weeds and desert animals. It was never rebuilt and the stones and cornerstones were never reused. We need to keep in mind that the history in the Old Testament has a purpose (see “The Old Testament Connection”). It is God s story of how we all defected from him, how he was offended and banished us all, and how he loves us so much had a plan to bring us back home to him again. Someone once said the first step in solving a problem is recognizing that there is a problem. It is also important to know what solutions wont work. We have a problem, a broken relationship with God. And there is only one solution, Jesus. The Old Testament is God’s way of helping us see the problem, it’s consequences, and the solution as well as the things that wont work (again see “The Old Testament Connection”). Babylon had been leading mankind down a path of self reliance. “We can reach up to God” they had said (Genesis 11). That sort of attitude has kept many people from accepting the only way back to God, the Messiah (chosen one or coming one) of Israel; Jesus. Babylon was destroying people all over the world in the worst way possible, not physically (though they had done plenty of that too) but spiritually.

I explained in an earlier post that prophets in the Bible often saw things that spanned a great deal of time but would describe them in a vision that almost made it seem like it all was happening at once. Think of a photo or painting of some beautiful mountain range or a huge canyon like the Grand Canyon. You look at the picture and all of the stuff is in one “plane” the surface of the paper. Now because you live in a real 3-D world you “see” the picture in sort of a 3-D way but it is really only in that one plane, the surface of the paper. For the prophets it was sort of the opposite, often they would look at a vision of events that were spread out over centuries of even millennia but they would describe them all in one “plane” of time. It’s not that they were trying to trick us that is just the way it looked to them and they didn’t have anyway of knowing other wise. We live mostly in the here and now and are not used to seeing time all at once like God does. Even in our own manmade movies directors will use little tricks to tell us time is passing, a before and after shot of a clock or a calendar or even a shot of a clock with the hands moving really fast or pages of a calendar being ripped off as the scene change. Prophets were not seeing made up movies with convenient clocks or calendar (not that they would understand either one) they were seeing real event all piled up on each other.

Part of what Jeremiah was seeing was God dealing with the “big picture” of Babylon’s long term bad influence on the world but God is not just about the “big picture” he is concerned about the details too. The nation of Israel was a detail, you and I are details. Last week in our Sunday Jr. High class we learned that God knows all the details of each of our lives and even know how many hairs are on each of our heads. God cares about and loves each of us and all of us. In verse 24 we see God’s care for the Jewish people. Zion is another name for the mountain that Jerusalem was built on. Some times it is used in place of the name Jerusalem and it can also represent the people that lived there. The word can also be used of the larger group, the people of the who kingdom of Judah, not just the people of the capital city and can even be extended out farther to include all Israelites or Jews. Part of the point of the destruction of Babylon is what Babylon did in Jerusalem (remember the mention of the destruction of the Temple in verse 11) and to the Jewish people.

Verses 27-32 describe the downfall and destruction of Babylon, both as a city and as a nation. In verse 27 we see some of the member kings of the new Medo-Persian Empire of Cyrus. In that verse horns are blown, in that day that was how armies were assembled for battle. We also see that the army is “consecrated” for the invasion. In the ancient near east armies would often perform religious rituals before going into battle, they would ask their “gods” to be present and help them win. Of course their “gods” were false and powerless but they would go through the motions anyway. In this case the one true God is “consecrating” them. That word means to dedicate or make special, make no mistake when God makes you special for a job you will have the power to do it. Verse 29 makes this point very clear when it says that the land (of Babylon) shakes and wiggles because the purposes of Yahweh to deal with Babylon are a sure deal. In verse 30 we see that the soldiers of Babylon are paralyzed with fear and we doo see some destruction. We also see destruction in verse 32 where the tall grasses along the river are burned. Often in an invasion people and soldiers would flee, one place that a person could hide was in the tall grass along a river bank. There would be no hiding from the Medes (or God) the grass had been burned.

Remember we don’t have news video of the overthrow of Babylon or even personal cell phone videos, we have a few descriptions from history, including those in the Bible. Although Babylon itself fell in a basically peaceful way there had been plenty of fighting leading up to it’s invasion. Certainly other cities had been burned and destroyed and maybe even the grasses around Babylon itself. On the other had we certainly have some of that long range sort of look at the destruction of Babylon in these verses too. Remember that the details in the Old Testament history are included to help us understand about sin (disobedience and disrespect toward God), it’s consequences (a broke relationship with God; a separation from him (the meaning of death is “separation”)), and God’s solution (Jesus “dying” in our place opening up the possibility of getting back together with God). What is important to the story are the spiritual details not necessarily a “blow by blow” list of the physical details.

Today’s reading ends with one more description of destruction, sort of. In verse 33 Yahweh God of the armies tells us that the “daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor that has been stamped firm.” A threshing floor was a place where wheat was threshed. Wheat is a grass (very big grass but still a grass). A stalk grows up and eventually a “head” grown out of the top. The head is filled with dozens of tiny seeds all together each of them wrapped up in a covering with more little bits of plant between them. Its sort of like corn on a cob but the cob is almost not even there. Just like you have to pull leaves off of corn on the cob in order to eat the corn wheat needs to be uncovered and the little bits of stuff around and between the seeds needs to be removed. Keep in mind that wheat seeds are a little bigger that the sprinkles on a donut. You cold probably separate them one at a time by hand but it would take forever. In olden times the wheat plants would be cut in the field and gathered together in bunches (sheaves). The bunches would be allowed to dry out for a while and then brought to a threshing floor. The plants would be spread out on the floor where they would be “beaten” with something like a leaf rake or other tool. The beating would cause the wheat seeds to come apart from each other and from the useless parts of plant around them (the chaff).   Since the seeds are heavier than the chaff the “threshers” would then toss the whole mess up in the air. They would need a little bit of wind at this time. The breeze would blow the chaff away and the seeds would fall back to the threshing floor where they could eventually be swept up and put in baskets. The threshing floor needed to be hard and smooth so the wheat could be gathered up. The down side is that a dirt floor packed this hard would not be useful for growing plants. So in a way the “daughters of Babylon” are like this hard unproductive dirt floor, you might say they were barren of desolate. But the verse ends with a wheat harvest, at that time the floor becomes pretty useful, it is valuable.

The key here is the word “daughter”. This verse is about the “daughter” or “offspring” (think “descendant”, great-grandchildren or great great-grandchildred).   In other words people born in Babylon, individuals. At the actual time of the destruction of Babylon the people of Babylon both individually and as a group were pretty useless when it came to helping other understand the “sin” problem and it’s solution. But eventually their would be a time when something good would happen in relationship to these people. Of course the helping the world wee the consequences of walking away from God for ever could be the good that came out of the destruction of Babylon. Babylon is no more and that is what happens when you insist on rejecting God. But there are probably descendants of those people who had been a part of that nation living on the earth today and each and every one of them as an individual has the opportunity to turn to God. Back in the original conquest of the land the Israelites took over the city of Jericho. At one point they had sent spies into the city to get “intel”. The spies had been helped by a woman named Rahab. Rahab had risked a great deal to help the spies but she knew the Israelites were the people of the one true God and she wanted to be on their side. God miraculously opened the city to attack and commanded the Israelites to completely destroy the city and its inhabitants (I know it sounds so brutal and unfair but God knows the influence any given group of people can have and he decided that the people of Jericho must go). There was one inhabitant that was allowed to live along with her family, Rahab. Why? Because Rahab had responded to God, even in a city filled with people who had or would reject him. It is interesting that Rahab even winds up in the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:5). Some bible experts think the reference to harvest in Jeremiah 51:33 is telling us that not only were the people of Babylon like a trampeled useless floor but that they would be harvested and all their valuable wheat would be removed leaving them with only chaff. That cold be or what we might see here is the same thing we have seen so often in Jeremiah, hope in the middle of punishment. You see the same sort of thing in the book of Revelation when God is looking for people to turn to him in the middle of the greatest punishment history has ever seen. God knows where we have been, who our ancestors were but we each stand before God accountable for our actions alone (2 Chronicles 25:4). And the only hope of each of us is Jesus. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s perfect standard (Romans 3:23). But Jesus paid for the sins of ever human that will ever live (1 John 2:2). The question isn’t if I’m guilty but if I will turn my guilt over to Jesus and let him pay for me. I have, will you? God is the God of many chances. Give him you life today and let him turn your trampled life into something useful.

God thank you for caring about the little pieces of the picture. Thank you for caring about me. Just like a beautiful picture is made up of many beautiful colorful little pixels the beautiful eternity you have in store will be made up of many beautiful colorful individuals. Help us each find the color and beauty you have for our lives. Fit us into the beautiful picture of Heaven you are building. Thank you for loving me, for loving us. Let us show others the way and not mislead them. Let my life be productive soil, don’t let my descendants have a hard trampled great great-grandpa as in their past. Let me be a source of life and love for you to all I know and all who know me.