God’s Judgment Against Babylon
May 10, 2020
Commentary
This passage has to do with God’s Judgements against Babylon (vv. 1-10).
Jeremiah is God’s prophet declaring God’s truth that the heathen Babylonians will be captured and punished for their sins of pride and corruption. Their God Bel (also known as Marduk) who was the chief deity of Babylon, would be crushed in pieces and put to shame (vv. 1-2). Even though the instrument in the hand of Jehovah is described as people from the north coming to make the land of Babylon desolate, yet we see judgment is clearly declared and accomplished by the vengeance of Jehovah (v. 3). All the things in which Babylon had put her trust in (her treasures, mighty men, her waters, bring about complete overthrow of her pride and her power.
God speaks regarding the Jews (vv. 4-10). They were like lost sheep that their shepherds had led them astray. Then they turned them loose in the mountains where they didn’t know how to get back to the fold. They were being devoured by their enemies because they have sinned against God. About this passage, Warren Wiersbe says, “While the immediate application is to the return of the exiles from Babylon, the ultimate reference includes the gathering of the Jew in the latter days. God warned the people to flee from Babylon so as not to be caught in the judgment that would fall. (Rev. 18:4). He would bring the Medes and the Persians against Babylon and give them victory.”
Application
God tells me what we are to flee or stay away from. (I Thess. 5:22) says to avoid or “abstain from all appearance of evil.” Lord help me to abstain from all appearance of evil because the results are tremendous (I Thess 5:23) “and the very God of peace sanctify me wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Jeremiah 50:1– 10 (NET)
1 The Lord spoke concerning Babylon and the land of Babylonia through the prophet Jeremiah.
2 “Announce the news among the nations! Proclaim it! Signal for people to pay attention. Declare the news! Do not hide it! Say: ‘Babylon will be captured. Bel will be put to shame. Marduk will be dismayed. Babylon’s idols will be put to shame; her disgusting images will be dismayed.
3 For a nation from the north will attack Babylon; it will lay her land waste. People and animals will flee out of it. No one will inhabit it.’
4 “When that time comes,” says the Lord, “the people of Israel and Judah will return to the land together. They will come back with tears of repentance as they seek the Lord their God.
5 They will ask the way to Zion; they will turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in a lasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
6 “My people have been lost sheep. Their shepherds have allowed them to go astray. They have wandered around in the mountains. They have roamed from one mountain and hill to another. They have forgotten their resting place.
7 All who encountered them devoured them. Their enemies who did this said, ‘We are not liable for punishment! For those people have sinned against the Lord, their true pasture. They have sinned against the Lord in whom their ancestors trusted.’
8 “People of Judah, get out of Babylon quickly! Leave the land of Babylonia! Be the first to depart. Be like the male goats that lead the herd.
9 For I will rouse into action and bring against Babylon a host of mighty nations from the land of the north. They will set up their battle lines against her. They will come from the north and capture her. Their arrows will be like a skilled soldier who does not return from the battle empty-handed.
10 Babylonia will be plundered. Those who plunder it will take all they want,” says the Lord.
Illustration: William Temple Made Biblical Worship Clear
William Temple made made biblical worship clear in his masterful definition of worship: “For worship is the submission of all our nature to God. It is the quickening of conscience by His holiness; the nourishment of mind with His truth; the purifying of imagination by His beauty; the opening of the heart to His love; the surrender of will to His purpose—and all of this gathered up in adoration, the most selfless emotion of which our nature is capable and therefore the chief remedy for that self-centeredness which is our original sin and the source of all actual sin.” (Warren W. Wiersbe, The Integrity Crisis, Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1991, p. 119).