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51. Message About Babylon1 This is what the LORD says:
“See, I will stir up the spirit of a destroyer
6 “Flee from Babylon!
9 “‘We would have healed Babylon,
10 “‘The LORD has vindicated us;
11 “Sharpen the arrows,
15 “He made the earth by his power;
17 “Everyone is senseless and without knowledge;
20 “You are my war club,
24 “Before your eyes I will repay Babylon and all who live in Babylonia Or Chaldea; also in verse 35 for all the wrong they have done in Zion,” declares the LORD.
25 “I am against you, you destroying mountain,
27 “Lift up a banner in the land!
33 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says:
“Daughter Babylon is like a threshing floor
34 “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon has devoured us,
36 Therefore this is what the LORD says:
“See, I will defend your cause
41 “How Sheshak
Sheshak is a cryptogram for Babylon. will be captured,
45 “Come out of her, my people!
49 “Babylon must fall because of Israel’s slain,
51 “We are disgraced,
52 “But days are coming,” declares the LORD,
54 “The sound of a cry comes from Babylon,
58 This is what the LORD Almighty says:
“Babylon’s thick wall will be leveled
59 This is the message Jeremiah the prophet gave to the staff officer Seraiah son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went to Babylon with Zedekiah king of Judah in the fourth year of his reign. 60 Jeremiah had written on a scroll about all the disasters that would come upon Babylon—all that had been recorded concerning Babylon. 61 He said to Seraiah, “When you get to Babylon, see that you read all these words aloud. 62 Then say, ‘LORD, you have said you will destroy this place, so that neither people nor animals will live in it; it will be desolate forever.’ 63 When you finish reading this scroll, tie a stone to it and throw it into the Euphrates. 64 Then say, ‘So will Babylon sink to rise no more because of the disaster I will bring on her. And her people will fall.’” The words of Jeremiah end here. THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
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This verse is usually explained, as though the Prophet pointed out how men glide into errors and fancies, even because they seek to be wise according to their own notions; and Paul, in the first chapter to the Romans, assigns it as the cause of idolatry, that men become vain in their own wisdom, because they follow whatever their own brains suggest to them. This doctrine is in itself true and useful; for men have devised idols for themselves, because they would not reverently receive the knowledge of God offered to them, but rather believed their own inventions: and as mere vanity is whatever man imagines according to his own thoughts, it is no wonder that those who presumptuously form their own ideas of God, become wholly foolish and infatuated. But it is evident from the context, that the Prophet means here another thing, even that the artificers who cast or forge idols, or form them in any other way, are wholly delirious in thinking that they can, by their own art and skill, make gods. A log of wood lies on the ground, is trodden under foot without any honor; now when the artificer adds form to it, the log begins to be worshipped as a god; what madness can be imagined greater than this? The same thing may be said of stones, of silver, and of gold; for though it may be a precious metal, yet no divinity is ascribed to it, until it begins to put on a certain form. Now when a melter casts an idol, how can a lump of gold or silver become a god? The Prophet then upbraids this monstrous madness, when he says, that men are in their knowledge like brute beasts, that is, when they apply their skill to things so vain and foolish. But he mentions the same thing twice, according to the common usage of the Hebrew style; for we know that the same thing is often said twice for confirmation by the prophets. After then having said that men are infatuated by knowledge, he adds, that they were made ashamed by the graven image There seems to be an impropriety in the words; for פסל, pesal, “graven,” does not well agree with צרף, tsareph, “the caster,” or founder; but the Prophet, stating a part for the whole, simply means, that all artificers are foolish and delirious in thinking that they can by their own hand and skill cast or forge, or in any way form gods. And to prove this he says, that there is no spirit or breath in them; and this was a sufficient proof; for we know that God is the fountain of life, and hence he is called by Moses “the God of the spirits of all flesh.” (Numbers 16:22) Whatever life, then, is diffused through all creatures, flows from God alone as the only true fountain. What, then, is less like divinity, or has less affinity to it, than a lump of gold or of silver, or a log of wood, or a stone? for they have no life nor rigor. Nothing is more fading than man, yet while he has life in him, he possesses something divine; but a dead body, what has it that is like God? But yet the form of a human body comes nearer to God’s glory than a log of wood or a stone formed in the shape of man. It is not, then, without reason that the Prophet condemns this madness of all the heathens, that they worshipped fictitious gods, in whom yet there was no spirit. It follows, — |
