Yeremia 51:25-26

51:25 The Lord says, ¹  “Beware! I am opposed to you, Babylon! ² 

You are like a destructive mountain that destroys all the earth.

I will unleash my power against you; ³ 

I will roll you off the cliffs and make you like a burned-out mountain. ⁴ 

51:26 No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone.

No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house.

For you will lie desolate forever,” ⁵ 

says the Lord. ⁶ 

Yeremia 51:29

51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ⁷ 

For the Lord will carry out his plan.

He plans to make the land of Babylonia ⁸ 

a wasteland where no one lives. ⁹ 

Yeremia 51:37

51:37 Babylon will become a heap of ruins.

Jackals will make their home there. ¹⁰ 

It will become an object of horror and of hissing scorn,

a place where no one lives. ¹¹ 

Yeremia 50:3

50:3 For a nation from the north ¹²  will attack Babylon.

It will lay her land waste.

People and animals will flee out of it.

No one will inhabit it.’

Yeremia 50:13

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ¹³ 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ¹⁴ 

Yeremia 50:39-40

50:39 Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there.

Ostriches ¹⁵  will dwell in it too. ¹⁶ 

But no people will ever live there again.

No one will dwell there for all time to come. ¹⁷ 

50:40 I will destroy Babylonia just like I did

Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns.

No one will live there. ¹⁸ 

No human being will settle in it,”

says the Lord. ¹⁹ 

[51:25]  ¹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:25]  ² tn The word “Babylon” is not in the text but is universally understood as the referent. It is supplied in the translation here to clarify the referent for the sake of the average reader.

[51:25]  ³ tn Heb “I will reach out my hand against you.” See the translator’s note on 6:12 for explanation.

[51:25]  ⁴ tn Heb “I am against you, oh destroying mountain that destroys all the earth. I will reach out my hand against you and roll you down from the cliffs and make you a mountain of burning.” The interpretation adopted here follows the lines suggested by S. R. Driver, Jeremiah, 318, n. c and reflected also in BDB 977 s.v. שְׂרֵפָה. Babylon is addressed as a destructive mountain because it is being compared to a volcano. The Lord, however, will make it a “burned-out mountain,” i.e., an extinct volcano which is barren and desolate. This interpretation seems to this translator to fit the details of the text more consistently than alternative ones which separate the concept of “destroying/destructive” from “mountain” and explain the figure of the mountain to refer to the dominating political position of Babylon and the reference to a “mountain of burning” to be a “burned [or burned over] mountain.” The use of similes in place of metaphors makes it easier for the modern reader to understand the figures and also more easily incorporates the dissonant figure of “rolling you down from the cliffs” which involves the figure of personification.

[51:25]  sn The figure here involves comparing Babylon to a destructive volcano which the Lord makes burned-out, i.e., he will destroy her power to destroy. The figure of personification is also involved because the Lord is said to roll her off the cliffs; that would not be applicable to a mountain.

[51:26]  ⁵ tn This is a fairly literal translation of the original which reads “No one will take from you a stone for a cornerstone nor a stone for foundations.” There is no unanimity of opinion in the commentaries, many feeling that the figure of the burned mountain continues and others feeling that the figure here shifts to a burned city whose stones are so burned that they are useless to be used in building. The latter is the interpretation adopted here (see, e.g., F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 423; W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:426; NCV).

[51:26]  sn The figure here shifts to that of a burned-up city whose stones cannot be used for building. Babylon will become a permanent heap of ruins.

[51:26]  ⁶ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:29]  ⁷ sn The figure here is common in the poetic tradition of the Lord going forth to do battle against his foes and the earth’s reaction to it is compared to a person trembling with fear and writhing in agony, agony like that of a woman in labor (cf. Judg 5:4; Nah 1:2-5; Hab 3:1-15 [especially v. 6]).

[51:29]  ⁸ tn Heb “For the plans of the Lord have been carried out to make the land of Babylon…” The passive has been turned into an active and the sentence broken up to better conform with contemporary English style. For the meaning of the verb קוּם (qum) in the sense used here see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g and compare the usage in Prov 19:21 and Isa 46:10.

[51:29]  ⁹ tn The verbs in this verse and v. 30 are all in the past tense in Hebrew, in the tense that views the action as already as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verb in v. 31a, however, is imperfect, viewing the action as future; the perfects that follow are all dependent on that future. Verse 33 looks forward to a time when Babylon will be harvested and trampled like grain on the threshing floor and the imperatives imply a time in the future. Hence the present translation has rendered all the verbs in vv. 29-30 as future.

[51:37]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “a heap of ruins, a haunt for jackals.” Compare 9:11.

[51:37]  ¹¹ tn Heb “without an inhabitant.”

[50:3]  ¹² sn A nation from the north refers to Medo-Persia which at the time of the conquest of Babylon in 539 b.c. had conquered all the nations to the north, the northwest, and the northeast of Babylon forming a vast empire to the north and east of Babylon. Contingents of these many nations were included in her army and reference is made to them in 50:9 and 51:27-28. There is also some irony involved here because the “enemy from the north” referred to so often in Jeremiah (cf. 1:14; 4:6; 6:1) has been identified with Babylon (cf. 25:9). Here in a kind of talionic justice Judah’s nemesis from the north will be attacked and devastated by an enemy from the north.

[50:13]  ¹³ tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

[50:13]  ¹⁴ sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.

[50:39]  ¹⁵ tn The identification of this bird has been called into question by G. R. Driver, “Birds in the Old Testament,” PEQ 87 (1955): 137-38. He refers to this bird as an owl. That identification, however, is not reflected in any of the lexicons including the most recent, which still gives “ostrich” (HALOT 402 s.v. יַעֲנָה) as does W. S. McCullough, “Ostrich,” IDB 3:611. REB, NIV, NCV, and God’s Word all identify this bird as “owl/desert owl.”

[50:39]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “Therefore desert creatures will live with jackals and ostriches will live in it.”

[50:39]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “It will never again be inhabited nor dwelt in unto generation and generation.” For the meaning of this last phrase compare the usage in Ps 100:5 and Isaiah 13:20. Since the first half of the verse has spoken of animals living there, it is necessary to add “people” and turn the passive verbs into active ones.

[50:40]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “‘Like [when] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns,’ oracle of the Lord, ‘no man will live there.’” The Lord is speaking so the first person has been substituted for “God.” The sentence has again been broken up to better conform with contemporary English style.

[50:40]  sn Compare Jer 49:18 where the same prophecy is applied to Edom.

[50:40]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”