Jeremiah 51 - Bible Study, Explanation, and Application
Jeremiah 51 Bible Study
INTRO AND TIMELINE:
Jeremiah was a priest who lived in Anathoth (3 miles from Jerusalem). His ministry was directed towards the people of Judah, immediately before and during their exile in Babylon. His work as a prophet dates from 627 BC through the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 586 BC.
Jeremiah is the longest book in the English Bible by word count. The book has 52 chapters.
Jeremiah prophesied under the following Kings of Judah:
Manasseh (687-642 BC)
Amos (642-640 BC)
Josiah (640-609 BC)
Jehoiakim (initially known as Eliakim, 609-598 BC)
Jehoiachin (also known as Jeconiah or Coniah, 598-597 BC)
Zedekiah (His reign ended when Babylon conquered Judah, (597-586 BC)
RICHES AND RIGHTEOUSNESS
Wealth, influence, and a life filled with success doesn’t necessarily mean you are in God’s good favor.
It’s easy to assume when things are going well that God is smiling down on us.
But money and success are poor gauges of our true spiritual condition.
Babylon had power beyond compare and riches beyond counting, their successes on the battlefield are well documented, and yet God’s judgement on them was just over the horizon.
On the other hand, Jeremiah wasn’t rich (as far as we know) and his life was marked with difficulty.
Don’t stop considering your spiritual condition when blessings start coming your way, that may be the time you need to consider it most!
OUTLINE:
JUDGMENT ON BABYLON CONTINUED (51:1-58):
Jeremiah 51 is a continuation of God’s prophecy promising to punish the Babylonian Empire.
God said He would winnow Babylon.
“When the corn is trodden out with the feet of cattle, or crushed out with a heavy wheel armed with iron, with a shovel they throw it up against the wind, that the chaff and broken straw may be separated from it. This is the image used by the prophet; these people shall be trodden, crushed, and fanned by their enemies.” (Clarke)
Jeremiah told anyone who would listen to flee the city, just as he told the people of Jerusalem to flee before God’s vengeance struck.
Babylon had been a great tool in the hand of God, like a golden cup, but their sins would not be excused just because they had been useful to God.
Babylon’s downfall would be a blessing to God’s people, it would give them freedom, allowing them to return to the Promised Land.
It would be the Medes and Persians that would overthrow Babylon. God stirred up the kings of the Medes for this specific purpose according to verse 11.
God was going to send the Medes, like a plague of locust to swarm on Babylon, and they would raise a shout of victory over the city.
God could orchestrate this because He was the creator and controller of the natural world. Babylon and its ridiculous idols had no power to stop the real God of heaven.
God addressed His “hammer and weapon of war” in verses 20-23. Most interpreters understand this hammer as a reference to Cyrus the Great, the one who would lead the Medes and Persians in the fight against Babylon.
God would use His hammer to crush Babylon for their sins, for the sake of His Temple (51:11), and for all the evil they did in Zion.
The people of Judah cried out to the Lord, saying, “Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me; he has crushed me; he has made me an empty vessel; he has swallowed me like a monster; he has filled his stomach with my delicacies; he has rinsed me out” (51:34).
God told the people He heard their cry and would avenge them.
Jeremiah pictured Babylon on fire, its houses burning, its warriors trembling, and its king being informed of its downfall.
God said He would bring this about by making a feast, getting Babylon drunk, and then making them sleep “a perpetual sleep and not wake up” (51:39).
The city would become a land of draught and desert, and no one would want to live there.
JEREMIAH’S WORDS TAKEN TO BABYLON (51:59-64):
This prophecy was given by Jeremiah to Seraiah in the 4th year of King Zedekiah.
Seraiah was to take the scroll that contained these words and read it in Babylon when Judah was taken captive and exiled.
Afterwards, he was to tie a rock to the scroll and sink it in the Euphrates River, saying, “Thus shall Babylon sink, to rise no more” (51:64).
BIBLE COMPREHENSION:
In Jeremiah 51:39 and 51:57, God said he would make a feast for the officials of Babylon, and when they were drunk, cause them to sleep a sleep of death.
This part of Jeremiah’s prophecy aligns perfectly with the historical account of the downfall of Babylon recorded in Daniel 5.
Daniel 5:1-2 – King Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand. Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.
In approximately 539 BC, the king of Babylon, Belshazzar, held a feast and mocked the God of Judah by drinking from the gold vessels that once belonged to the Temple in Jerusalem.
That very night, the Medes and Persians killed Belshazzar and took Babylon.
They feasted, got drunk, and then slept the perpetual sleep of death, just as Jeremiah prophesied 60 years earlier.
