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.

Jeremiah 51:11-23.  Again we continue the message to/against Babylon. Yesterday we saw that God was going to send a destroyer to “pay back” Babylon. The main issue was the bad influence Babylon had had on mankind for centuries. Way back in Genesis 11 Babylon, or Babel as it was called there, was a place of rebellion and self-exaltation. God had told Adam that he and his descendants were to “fill the earth”. He repeated this instruction to Noah after the flood (Genesis 9:1). Instead of “filling the earth” the descendants of Noah seem to have followed his great-grandson, Nimrod as he established a kingdom who’s capital was Babel. There in Babel the descendants of Noah decided to settle and stay together. The figured that they would build a city with a tower that would reach all the way to Heaven and that they would make a “name for themselves” there. They also were very clear that they did not want to be “scattered all over the earth”. It seems that this idea of man being the “top dog” in the universe was the main legacy of Babel or Babylon down to the time of its destruction.

In verse 11 we see a contrast to this “we will control our own destiny” attitude. Nebuchadnezzar had been king of Babylon when Jerusalem was conquered and the Jews were taken as exiles back to Babylon. His son, Nabonidus, was technically king at the time of our story today but he had moved away from the capital and the day to day job of running the kingdom. Nabonidus’ son, Belshazzar was running the nation from the capital of Babylon. At one point in his time as ruler Nebuchadnezzar had become very proud of the kingdom he had built. God caused his to go crazy for a while and live like a beast in the fields, even eating grass. Eventually Nebuchadnezzar came to his senses and honored the one true God, Yahweh, as the source of his power. At the time of the destruction of Babylon Belshazzar was showing a great deal of disrespect for Yahweh. Daniel, one of the exiles and a messenger for God, explained a miraculous warning given to Belshazzar about the coming destruction of his kingdom. It was because of his knowing disrespect for Yahweh that his kingdom would be taken from him (Daniel 5:21-23). This happened at a party Belshazzar was having in Babylon in spite of the fact that the city was under siege by Median troops. Belshazzar was so sure of himself and the fortification of his city that he continued to party after the warning. That very night the city was invaded and he was killed by the Median troops and Cyrus became king of Babylon (Daniel 5:30).

IN verse 11 we are told that Yahweh was the one responsible for Cyrus deciding to invade the city. The verse uses the plural for the kings of the Medes because, like many large nations of ancient history, Cyrus’ kingdom was made up of many smaller kingdoms. As he conquered an area he would usually leave their king in power but would require obedience and loyalty from them. If a king defected or rebelled he would be re-conquered and replaced. We saw this sort of thing in Nebuchadnezzar’s dealings with Judah. The reason God stirred up the “kings of the Medes” to destroy Babylon (and its influence) was because of the “temple”. In the ancient world people honored all sorts of gods, the inventions of their hands and minds. This “worship” often centered around a place, a building or temple built for that purpose. Usually these building would have some sort of statue in them representing the particular god. The temple was a place to remember and honor the “god”. What these people remembered though is a mystery or a myth since their “gods” were only in their minds and had no real existence nor power. The one true God, Yahweh, also had a temple and it too was a place to remember. It was different though, there was no image of Yahweh in it (in fact that was forbidden in the first ten rules that God gave to Moses). What was in the Temple in Jerusalem were real historic objects fro real historic events that involved Yahweh’s power. There were the two stone tablets that had the ten commandments on them, there was a branch that Moses’ brother had held during the Israelite’s escape from Egypt that had miraculously formed flowers, and there was a jar of manna (the miraculous food that literally rained down from heaven each day while the Israelites lived in the wilderness before entering the land promised to them). The temple in Jerusalem also had many things that were used to remember other historic events in the life of the Israelite nation. It was all about remembering the historic actions of the one true God, Yahweh, not a place of wishful thinking and attempts to manipulate a “god” that was an invention of their own minds. Because of the destruction of this true temple (and the attitude so clearly represented by the Babylonian leadership (see what Belshazzar was doing in Daniel 5)) God was going to destroy Babylon.

In verses 12-14 we see a brief description of the invasion of the city. It would be invaded by many soldiers. Locusts are insects like a grasshopper that swarm in huge numbers. When they enter a field they usually eat everything in the field leaving only bare stalks. Here the locusts represent the Median army. The important thing to see though is the source of the invasion, or power behind it, is Yahweh. When God says he “swore by himself” it is the most serious kind of promise.

Verses 15-16 give a short description of some of God’s true power. In Romans 1:19-20 Paul tells his readers that when we look at the physical universe around us it is very clear that it was make by a powerful loving creative organized being. In our world today many of not most people try to tell us that the universe came from an explosion of compressed matter, the Big Bang. And that everything that is “evolved” from the mess left by the explosion. Some scientists have begun to reject that idea because they recognize that the universe is intelligently designed. Most of these scientists are rejected and made fun of by the rest of their scientific community and many non-scientists as well.

In verse 17 we see God’s response to those who deny him, “They are stupid and know nothing.” What is worse is that these same people then turn around and make of useless powerless gods to honor. Although the message here is about Babylon being destroyed for its rejection of God, in verse 18 the rest of us are warned that if we reject God that one day our destruction will come and our fake gods will be destroyed with us.

Verse 19 is kind of interesting because it might go with verses 17-18 or it might link to verses 20-23. It certainly links to the verses before it because it says “the portion of Jacob is not like these”. Jacob was the birth name of Israel. God changed his name to Israel and promised that he would become a great nation. Israelites are descendants of Jacob or Israel (see “What’s in a Name”). A “portion” is a part of something given to someone. In this verse it is God’s way of describing himself, we see that in the parallel description in the verse where the “portion of Jacob” is also called the “maker of all”. If that is not clear enough he even gives his personal name, Yahweh (LORD). Often God adds descriptions to point out some part of his being. In this verse he identifies himself as Yahweh of hosts. Host is a way of saying army and often refers to armies of angles. Here it could be that, but more likely it is referring to human armies, it is God’s way of saying he is in control of what is going on on earth. So Yahweh is not like powerless manmade “gods”.

Bible experts don’t agree on who the “you” is in verses 20-23. Since this is a message about the destruction of Babylon and Cyrus and the Median army were going to be the specific nation used by God to destroy Babylon,, many experts think that the “you “ is Cyrus or his army. It is interesting though that verse 19 specifically brings the Israelites to the front of the picture. The talk by God in verses 12-18 doesn’t really have a link to the Israelites. But remember back in verse 11 that this all started because of the temple. It is important to remember that God chose the Israelites to help the world understand about him. If we see God’s existence and some of him in the creation, we get more of the picture from his dealings with the Israelite people, that story is told in the Old Testament part of the Bible (see “The Old Testament Connection”). By bringing up “Jacob” in verse 19 I think God is bringing the message back to the real point of the temple, teaching mankind about sin (disrespect, disobedience and rebellion toward God) and the solution for our broke relationship with him. And notice that verse 20 says “with you I shatter nations”. It’s not “nation” like just Babylon but “nations”. It seems like the “you” in verse is dealing with more that just punishing Babylon, all of the “shattering” going on seems to be about destroying all those things that get between us and God.

In verse 20 we see nations mentioned maybe what keeps some of us from God is national or ethnic loyalty. In verse 21 there seems to be some sort of military connection perhaps all of the things we chose to fight over, all the reasons for wars, are what keep us from God. In verse 22 we see words that might describe our personal lives; man and woman, adult and child. Sometimes we can get so caught up in our day to day personal lives that we forget God. Verse 23 seems to describe work and that too can get between us and God. We need to be careful not to become “monks” though. God created our lives, our feelings, our socialness. In Ecclesiastes Solomon tells us to enjoy life but to remember that we need to honor God in all we do (Ecclesiastes 5:18, 11:9, 12:13). God doesn’t want us to stop living but he wants us to live in a why that honors him. And remember it is God that created all the color, taste, beauty, and goodness in the universe. We honor God when we enjoy the world in the way he created it to be enjoyed. But when we put any of the things he has created above him then we are in trouble and looking for God to correct us. Babylon had worshipped mankind for a long lime and the time had come for God to teach the world what happens when you ignore him.

I’m so glad that God warns us. Even the message to Babylon was a warning, though it was sure to happen (Jeremiah even uses a past tense in verse 14 that literally says “I have filled you with men…”) it was a warning. God knew that Belshazzar would reject the warning and so he knew that he would allow the Medes to invade. What God knows we will do doesn’t mean he made us do it, it means that he could see our actions before we did them. That’s how it goes when you are not limited by time and space; when you are omniscient (all knowing). I’m also glad that God teaches us. The creation, the Israelites, the Bible. God wants us to know how the universe really works how our relationship with him really works; about the betrayal, the brokenness, the consequences and especially about the solution. God clearly wants us back on good terms with him. God loves us very much. The down side is that he won’t force us to love him, we can walk away, but away is a very bad place for a very long time (forever).

God thank you for your love. Thank you for allowing us the opportunity to respond to your love. Thank you for “chances”. Help us learn and respond positively before it is too late. I know you will ultimately deal with evil in our world; our universe, but as individuals we need to decide now, we don’t have until the ultimate end. Thank you for letting me be a part of your forever family help me show many people the way to peace with you forever. Thank you for Jesus.