เยเรมีย์ 51:32 วิจารณ์

The prophet, in this chapter, goes on with the prediction of Babylon's fall, to which other prophets also bore witness. He is very copious and lively in describing the foresight God had given him of it, for the encouragement of the pious captives, whose deliverance depended upon it and was to be the result of it. Here is, I. The record of Babylon's doom, with the particulars of it, intermixed with the grounds of God's controversy with her, many aggravations of her fall, and great encouragements given thence to the Israel of God, that suffered such hard things by her (v. 1-58). II. The representation and ratification of this by the throwing of a copy of this prophecy into the river Euphrates (Jer 51:59-64).

INTRODUCTION TO JEREMIAH 51 The former part of this chapter is a continuation of the prophecy of the preceding chapter, concerning the destruction of Babylon, Jer 51:1; the latter part of it contains a prophecy of Jeremiah sent to the captives in Babylon by the hand of Seraiah, with the copy of the above prophecy against Babylon, and an order to fasten a stone to it, and cast it into the river Euphrates, as a sign, confirming the utter and irreparable ruin of Babylon, Jer 51:59.

Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me,.... Or "us" (w); everyone of us: these are the words of Zion and Jerusalem, as appears from Jer 51:35; complaining of the injuries done them by the king of Babylon, who had eaten them up; spoiled their substance, as the Targum; took their cities, plundered them of their riches, and carried them away captive: he hath crushed me; to the earth; or "bruised" or "broken", even all her bones; see Jer 50:17; he hath made me an empty vessel; emptied the land of its inhabitants and riches, and left nothing valuable in it: he hath swallowed me up like a dragon; or "whale", or any large fish, which swallow the lesser ones whole. The allusion is to the large swallow of dragons, which is sometimes represented as almost beyond all belief; for not only Pliny (x) from Megasthenes reports, that, in India, serpents, that is, dragons, grow to such a bulk, that they will swallow whole deer, and even bulls; but Posidonius (y) relates, that in Coelesyria was one, whose gaping jaws would admit of a horse and his rider: and Onesicritus (z) speaks of two dragons in the country of Abisarus in India; the one was fourscore and the other a hundred and forty cubits long; he hath filled his belly with my delicates; with the treasures of the king and his nobles; with the vessels of the temple, and the riches of the people, which he loaded himself with to his full satisfaction. So the Targum, "he filled his treasury with the good of my land;'' he hath cast me out; out of my land, and carried me captive; so the Targum. (w) The "Cetib", or textual reading, is "us"; but the "Keri", or marginal reading, is "me", which our version follows, and so the same in the four following words, in the text. (x) Nat. Hist. l. 8. c. 14. col. 436. (y) Apud Bochart. Hierozoic. par. 2. l. 3. c. 14. col. 436. (z) Apud Strabo. Geograph. l. 15. p. 480.

CONTINUATION OF THE PROPHECY AGAINST BABYLON BEGUN IN THE FIFTIETH CHAPTER. (Jer. 51:1-64) in the midst of them that rise . . . against me--literally, "in the heart" of them. Compare Psa 46:2, "the midst of the sea," Margin; Eze 27:4, "the heart of the seas"; Margin; Mat 12:40. In the center of the Chaldeans. "Against Me," because they persecute My people. The cabalistic mode of interpreting Hebrew words (by taking the letters in the inverse order of the alphabet, the last letter representing the first, and so on, Jer 25:26) would give the very word Chaldeans here; but the mystical method cannot be intended, as "Babylon" is plainly so called in the immediately preceding parallel clause. wind--God needs not warlike weapons to "destroy" His foes; a wind or blast is sufficient; though, no doubt, the "wind" here is the invading host of Medes and Persians (Jer 4:11; Kg2 19:7).

passages are stopped--The guarded fords of the Euphrates are occupied by the enemy (see on Jer 50:38). reeds . . . burned--literally, "the marsh." After draining off the river, Cyrus "burned" the stockade of dense tree-like "reeds" on its banks, forming the outworks of the city's fortifications. The burning of these would give the appearance of the marsh or river itself being on "fire."

Permits of being taken as a continuation of the message brought to the king. מעבּרות, "crossing-places," do not here mean "fords" (Jdg 3:28); for such shallow places, where one could go through the river, are not to be found in the Euphrates. at Babylon: they mean bridges and ferries, because, in addition to the stone bridge built by Nebuchadnezzar (Herodotus, i. 186; see Duncker's Geschichte, i. S. 859), there must also have been at Babylon, throughout its large extent, other means of crossing, either by bridges of boats or ferries. נתפּשׁוּ, "they have been taken," seized by the enemy; cf. Jer 48:41. אגמּים are ponds and artificial lakes which had been formed for the protection of the city, of the waters of the Euphrates (Herodotus, i. 185; Arrian. Jer 7:17); these "they have burned with fire." Inasmuch as a burning of ponds is an impossibility, many, with Kimchi, would understand אגמים of the reeds of the marshes. But the word has no such meaning; moreover, even if it had, the burning of the reeds would have no significance for the taking of the city. Others think of the sluices and the enclosures of the artificial waters, which enclosures were constructed of wood-work; but apart from the basin of water at Sepharvaim, which could be opened by sluices, the enclosure of the ponds with wood-work is a matter of much doubt, and a burning of the wood-work is not a burning of the ponds. The expression, as Calvin long ago remarked, is hyperbolic, and not to be pressed: Propheta hyperbolice ostendit, siccata fuisse vada Euphratis ac si quis lignum exureret igni supposito; hoc quidem aquis non convenit, sed hyperbolice melius exprimit miraculum. On the whole, the picture is not to be taken as a description of the historical circumstances connected with the taking of Babylon by Cyrus; neither, therefore, is the burning of the ponds to be referred to the fact that the bed of the Euphrates was made dry through diversion of the stream (Herodotus, i. 191); but we have here a poetic colouring given to the thought that all Babylon's means of offence and defence will fall into the power of the enemy and be destroyed by them. For (according to the reason assigned in Jer 51:33 for what has been described) the Almighty God of Israel has decreed the destruction of Babylon. "The daughter of Babylon (i.e., not merely the city, but the kingdom of Babylon) is like a threshing-floor at the time when they tread it," i.e., stamp on it, make the ground into a threshing-floor by treading it hard. (Note: "The threshing-floor is an open spot in the field, carefully levelled and cleared from stones, etc., that the grain may be spread out on it for threshing." - Paulsen, Ackerbau der Morgenl. S. 123. "A level spot is selected for the threshing-floors, which are then constructed near each other, of a circular form, perhaps fifty feet in diameter, merely by beating the earth hard." - Robinson's Pal. ii. 227.) הדריכהּ might be the infinitive (Ewald, 238, d): it is simpler, however, to take it as a perfect, and supply the relative אשׁר. The meaning is, that Babylon is ripe for judgment. עוד מעט, "yet a little while" (i.e., soon), comes the time of harvest, so that the grain will be threshed, i.e., the judgment will be executed. The figure reminds us of Isa 21:10, cf. Joe 3:13, Mic 4:13, etc.