Jeremiah 50:21-32--Judgment on Babylon (Part 3)

Jeremiah 50:21-32
English Standard Version

21 “Go up against the land of Merathaim,
    and against the inhabitants of Pekod.
Kill, and devote them to destruction,
declares the LORD,
    and do all that I have commanded you.
22 The noise of battle is in the land,
    and great destruction!
23 How the hammer of the whole earth
    is cut down and broken!
How Babylon has become
    a horror among the nations!
24 I set a snare for you and you were taken, O Babylon,
    and you did not know it;
you were found and caught,
    because you opposed the LORD.
25 The LORD has opened his armory
    and brought out the weapons of his wrath,
for the Lord GOD of hosts has a work to do
    in the land of the Chaldeans.
26 Come against her from every quarter;
    open her granaries;
pile her up like heaps of grain, and devote her to destruction;
    let nothing be left of her.
27 Kill all her bulls;
    let them go down to the slaughter.
Woe to them, for their day has come,
    the time of their punishment.

28 “A voice! They flee and escape from the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, vengeance for his temple.

29 “Summon archers against Babylon, all those who bend the bow. Encamp around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her according to all that she has done. For she has proudly defied the LORD, the Holy One of Israel. 30 Therefore her young men shall fall in her squares, and all her soldiers shall be destroyed on that day, declares the LORD.

31 “Behold, I am against you, O proud one,
    declares the Lord GOD of hosts,
for your day has come,
    the time when I will punish you.
32 The proud one shall stumble and fall,
    with none to raise him up,
and I will kindle a fire in his cities,
    and it will devour all that is around him.

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The LORD commands that ones He has chosen who will go up to punish and judge Babylon to go against all of its cities and make war.  They are to kill and devote to destruction that inhabitants and towns and possessions of the Babylonians (this sounds much like the LORD's command to the Israelites concerning the Canaanites, but no one bats an eye that the LORD commanded the Greeks and the Persians, the Greeks and the Romans to to this to Babylon).

The world thought of the kingdom of Babylon as a hammer that smashed and destroyed everything, but not the LORD said "the hammer" would be destroyed.  The LORD is going to open His armory of heavenly weapons and He will wage war and lead His heavenly host into battle against Babylon as well.  With the destroyer of Babylon on the same side as the LORD, victory is certain.  The kingdom that once horrified all other nations because they feared its brutality will now be a horror show because people will fear the LORD and what happens to nations that engage in such wickedness and trust in false gods for their salvation and mistreat His people Israel and Judah.

The LORD commands the invaders to take all of Babylon's stockpiles of grain and to kill all of its cattle (wealth was still largely measured in agricultural teams in the Near East/Middle East).  The LORD will allow a messenger to escape and run to Jerusalem to declare His victory over the Chaldeans and Babylonians.  The LORD will be recognized and worshiped for His orchestration of the battle and He will win the victory and receive the glory.

The LORD calls on the nations that have been abused by Babylon to take up arms against her and surround her with archers so they can pick off anyone who flees.  He calls on the others to be as brutal and merciless to Babylon as Babylon was to them.  Yet, the greatest crime the LORD sites is that Babylon has defiled the LORD (probably referring to desecrating the holy objects of the Temple and using them to have drunken orgies to celebrate their false gods).  We read in the book of Daniel that it is on the very night that Belteshazzar holds this party that the kingdom is taken away from him and the Medo-Persian armies invade.  The Babylonians were so proud they did not imagine they needed defenses where the River came into their gates and city because they thought it provided a natural defense.  The Medo-Persians were able to divert the river and then march right into the capital city.

The message given to the Babylonians here is very similar to what the LORD told Daniel to tell the king on that day "Your days are numbered" and "your time is up."  There will be no one that can save these proud Babylonians from the hand of the LORD, especially not their false gods.  The LORD would put all of them to shame, destroy them all and burn everything down that they were so proud of (like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon that were one of the Ancient Wonders of the World).  The spirit of Babylon remains as the spirit of antichrist and as a spiritual kingdom of those who follow the devil and his false messiahs.  It is a kingdom of spiritual darkness that is proud and opposed to the LORD and His people, but it will fall in the end and be utterly destroyed by the LORD.  Those who believe there is salvation in the spiritual kingdom of Babylon are sadly mistaken and should take a lesson from what the LORD did to physical Babylon--a kingdom that no longer exists.