In 1812 a slave Baptist preacher died on a southern plantation, leaving behind his pregnant wife. The young widow dedicated her unborn son to the Lord. Her continual prayer was if it be a boy, that he would do nothing else but sing the praises of Jesus. John Jasper was born on July 25, 1839. At first, he resisted the faith of his mother, but a day came when he was gloriously converted. Given his freedom in order to preach, John started a small Baptist church in Richmond, Virginia with nine members. At the time of his death in 1901, it had grown to over two thousand.[i]
Jesus is still setting people free and empowering their lives. In the life of every nation, as in every individual, there are key moments. Where will we put our trust? Will this prove to be wise or foolish? Two things will determine the answer to that question: the future and the challenges that every nation and person will face. When we put our trust in that which is false and temporal, pain, failure, and despair will be the outcome. However, if we put our trust in that which is eternal and true, even though we may at times feel despair and that we are being oppressed in the moment, wise decisions will bring about deliverance and renewed joy.
In Jeremiah chapters 50 and 51, we discover the longest of all judgment messages addressing the Babylonian Empire and its fall.
Their length suggests the importance of Babylon and the severity of its anticipated punishment, which was the central issue to the exiles. The underlying theme of these two chapters is the imminent overthrow of Babylon and the restoration of the exiles to their homeland.[ii]
God used the Babylonians as an instrument of judgment upon the nations in the Middle East.
The Babylonians did not do their bloody work motivated by the glory and will of God, but rather for their own imperialistic interests. They were oppressors of other nations to the highest magnitude.[iii]
Yet, it was God that used them to discipline His people and judge the other nations for their idolatry. Now the nation that brought God’s judgment was about to be judged for their ungodly and cruel ways, including their idolatry. Jeremiah’s message is not just a message of warning, but ultimately, it is a message of hope. The nation of Judah was scattered and in exile. How did God use this disaster to bring about a major reform in the lives of the people? How did God once again bring deliverance and freedom to the despairing and oppressed people whose consequences of rebellion had brought them to this place in their lives? How does God bring us to a place of deliverance and freedom? What are God’s means of bringing His promises of freedom and deliverance from oppression?
THE FIRST MEANS OF GOD BRINGING FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION IS BY JUDGING THE OPPRESSORS
In its earlier history, Israel was oppressed by Egypt and led out of slavery, now God was about to return the exiles to the promised land. This national portrait is a picture of our own deliverance from the oppression of sin in our lives. Satan keeps people in captivity. It is not until we surrender to Jesus that the chains of sin are broken, and we are led out of sin’s bondage.
Here in chapter 50, it begins with the announcement of God’s intentions to address this bondage and allow the people of God to return home from their exile.
A. The announcement of impending judgment upon the nation of Babylon.
This is the word the Lord spoke through Jeremiah the prophet concerning Babylon and the land of the Babylonians: ‘Announce and proclaim among the nations, lift up a banner and proclaim it; keep nothing back, but say, “Babylon will be captured; Bel will be put to shame, Marduk filled with terror. Her images will be put to shame and her idols filled with terror.” A nation from the north will attack her and lay waste her land. No one will live in it; both people and animals will flee away.[iv]
Marduk was also called Bel (which means lord). In the Babylonian mythology of the creation of the world, Marduk was the creator of the cosmos and the originator of the first humans. Thus, taking the role of the true God, but now this judgment was not only upon the people of Babylon, but the false idols and images of Marduk.
Whatever we place our trust in, either something or someone above the true God, that becomes an idol. It is to this false trust that judgment comes upon people. In our world, some of these idols are finances, science, and even political leaders. I’m not suggesting that these things are evil, but only when we replace them for our trust in God. In other words, we forsake God and look to other things to bring meaning, security, and prosperity to our lives. All created things and people will ultimately fail us. Even the best of these things will one day be no more.
In verse 3, Jeremiah states that these terrors would arise from the north. Roland Harrison explains this idea of nations attacking from the north.
For the Hebrews, the north was the location from which anything sinister originated, and hence it was used colloquially rather than as a specific geographical location on many occasions.[v]
Tremper Longman validates this idea when he states that the alliances of the Medes and Persians who attacked Babylon came from the north, but they were located to the east and southeast of Babylon. “Persian forces nonetheless attacked Babylon via Opis in the north in 539 B. C.”[vi]
God acts according to His promises as communicated through His messengers. What should our response be?
B. A new day of repentance and reconciliation.
In those days, at that time,’ declares the Lord, ‘the people of Israel and the people of Judah together will go in tears to seek the Lord their God.[vii]
Philip Ryken explains the significance of this moment in time.
True repentance is always tinged with sorrow. True penitents weep over their sins. The tax collector wept when he prayed at the temple. ‘He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”’ (Luke 18:13). Peter wept when he denied Christ. After the rooster crowed the third time, “he went outside and wept bitterly” (Matthew 26:75). God does not base his forgiveness on our tears of repentance. But since we are such great sinners, we must sometimes be touched by the anguish of our sin.[viii]
C. An Everlasting Covenant.
Jeremiah is the prophet of the New Covenant where he reminds us that God would put his laws in our minds and write them within our hearts, and God would no longer remember our sins (Jer. 31:31-34). This would be an everlasting covenant, never needing to be replaced like the first covenant. Why was this needed? Simply stated it is because we forget, which means we disobey.
They will ask the way to Zion and turn their faces toward it. They will come and bind themselves to the Lord in an everlasting covenant that will not be forgotten.[ix]
Philip Ryken explains the significance of this New Covenant.
The reason the New Covenant cannot be forgotten is because God’s own Son will always remember it. If the New Covenant depended on us, it could not last forever. We are too forgetful. The New Covenant does not depend on us, however, but on the person and work of Jesus Christ. We enter the covenant in and through him. Jesus Christ keeps covenant for his people. Therefore, the New Covenant is everlasting.[x]
D. The greater burden of responsibility of those in leadership.
Those who lead will one day be held to a greater level of accountability. Are we leading with integrity? Are we leading people to God rather than fulfilling some personal agenda? Here we have words of indictment against those in leadership positions. The leaders have led the people away from God and the result was a loss of their pasture, their homeland, their place of rest. Rather than being protected by shepherds, the people were devoured like sheep by their enemies.
My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray and caused them to roam on the mountains. They wandered over mountain and hill and forgot their own resting place.[xi]
The enemy’s response to their destruction of the people of God is that they were guilty of sin. However, other people’s sins do not excuse our sinfulness as we may plead that they were guilty and deserving of this punishment.
Whoever found them devoured them; their enemies said, ‘We are not guilty, for they sinned against the Lord, their verdant pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.’[xii]
E. A call for separation from the values of our society.
One of the reasons that God calls us out of embracing the values of sinful society is so that we are not judged for the sins of that society. In this case there is a physical fleeing, however, in our society it is not that we go off grid, but that we live with the higher values that God’s kingdom calls for. We need to ask ourselves the question, ‘Is the kingdom of God shaping our decisions?” The illustration used here is the male goats leading out of harm’s way from the approaching judgment.
‘Flee out of Babylon; leave the land of the Babylonians, and be like the goats that lead the flock. For I will stir up and bring against Babylon an alliance of great nations from the land of the north. They will take up their positions against her, and from the north she will be captured. Their arrows will be like skilled warriors who do not return empty-handed. So Babylonia will be plundered; all who plunder her will have their fill,’ declares the Lord.[xiii]
We also, as New Testament believers, are called out from embracing and living like our society.
Therefore, ‘Come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.’[xiv]
F. Judgment is retributive in nature.
In other words, we are judged in the same manner as we treat others. Jesus speaks to this issue and talks about the golden rule, that we ought to treat others as we want them to treat us (Luke 6:31).
‘Because you rejoice and are glad, you who pillage my inheritance, because you frolic like a heifer threshing grain and neigh like stallions, your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who gave you birth will be disgraced. She will be the least of the nations— a wilderness, a dry land, a desert. Because of the Lord’s anger she will not be inhabited but will be completely desolate. All who pass Babylon will be appalled; they will scoff because of all her wounds. Take up your positions around Babylon, all you who draw the bow. Shoot at her! Spare no arrows, for she has sinned against the Lord.’[xv]
Both the heifer in the pasture and the lusting stallion act for their appetite and know no restraint or boundary to their desire. Babylon has imagined it could do whatever it wanted by way of abuse and self-serving exploitation; now, however, comes the reckoning of shame and disgrace and dismantling (v. 12). Babylon’s autonomy has failed to reckon with Yahweh, and Yahweh’s anger which now retaliates against Babylon.[xvi]
G. God’s declaration of war against Babylon.
Shout against her on every side! She surrenders, her towers fall, her walls are torn down.
Since this is the vengeance of the Lord, take vengeance on her; do to her as she has done to others. Cut off from Babylon the sower, and the reaper with his sickle at harvest. Because of the sword of the oppressor let everyone return to their own people, let everyone flee to their own land. ‘Israel is a scattered flock that lions have chased away. The first to devour them was the king of Assyria; the last to crush their bones was Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.’ Therefore this is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will punish the king of Babylon and his land as I punished the king of Assyria.[xvii]
God is here commanding a future army, which historically we know to be the Persians, who came and conquered the Babylonian empire. It was the Persians who then expatriated the peoples back to their homeland. Isaiah tells us that Cyrus was God’s servant in helping his people back to their land and reestablishing the temple service.
THE SECOND MEANS OF GOD BRINGING FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION IS RELEASING THE OPPRESSED
One of the great terrors in life is the feeling of being trapped and unable to free ourselves. It is terrifying, especially when we realize that we are incapable of freeing ourselves and left to the mercy of others. Will they exploit us? Will they show us mercy and free us? Here we hear the compassionate words of our God.
A. Freed By Acting on God’s Promises.
The greatest trap is what sin does to us. It holds us in bondage. That’s the nature of addiction. However, the power of God’s grace is greater than all our sins and addictions.
But I will bring Israel back to their own pasture and they will graze on Carmel and Bashan; their appetite will be satisfied on the hills of Ephraim and Gilead. In those days, at that time,’ declares the Lord, ‘search will be made for Israel’s guilt, but there will be none, and for the sins of Judah, but none will be found, for I will forgive the remnant I spare.[xviii]
It was their sins that allowed Babylon to capture and destroy them, now God is freeing them from their captivity. When God forgives, there is the complete removal of our sin, guilt, and shame.
B. The Fall of an Empire.
‘Attack the land of Merathaim and those who live in Pekod. Pursue, kill and completely destroy them,’ declares the Lord. ‘Do everything I have commanded you.’
Merathaim and Pekod are Babylonian communities in which a word play is being utilized. Merathaim means double rebellion and Pekod, visitation or punishment. God is stating that he will punish them for their rebellion. ‘The noise of battle is in the land, the noise of great destruction! How broken and shattered is the hammer of the whole earth! How desolate is Babylon among the nations! I set a trap for you, Babylon, and you were caught before you knew it; you were found and captured because you opposed the Lord. The Lord has opened his arsenal and brought out the weapons of his wrath, for the Sovereign Lord Almighty has work to do in the land of the Babylonians. Come against her from afar. Break open her granaries; pile her up like heaps of grain. Completely destroy her and leave her no remnant. Kill all her young bulls; let them go down to the slaughter! Woe to them! For their day has come, the time for them to be punished. Listen to the fugitives and refugees from Babylon declaring in Zion how the Lord our God has taken vengeance, vengeance for his temple. Summon archers against Babylon, all those who draw the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her for her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the Lord, the Holy One of Israel. Therefore, her young men will fall in the streets; all her soldiers will be silenced in that day,’ declares the Lord.[xix]
C. The Cause of Babylon’s Fall.
It was her arrogance and oppression that brought about her demise.
“See, I am against you, you arrogant one,” declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty, “for your day has come, the time for you to be punished. The arrogant one will stumble and fall and no one will help her up; I will kindle a fire in her towns that will consume all who are around her.” This is what the Lord Almighty says: “The people of Israel are oppressed, and the people of Judah as well. All their captors hold them fast, refusing to let them go.[xx]
THE FINAL MEANS OF GOD BRINGING FREEDOM FROM OPPRESSION IS HIS REDEMPTIVE WORK
Redemption is the idea of buying back or rescuing someone or something from sin’s bondage or a detrimental situation. Who is the redeemer of those who He brought into captivity and exile?
A. God redeems His people.
Yet their Redeemer is strong; the Lord Almighty is his name. He will vigorously defend their cause so that he may bring rest to their land, but unrest to those who live in Babylon.[xxi]
Here we see the great reversal of salvation history. God is a warrior fighting on behalf of His people. Judah who had been exiled from the land, here described as rest and living currently in a state of unrest in Babylon, is now going to be restored back to their land of rest, while Babylon will lose their land and be in a state of unrest.
‘A sword against the Babylonians!’ declares the Lord— ‘against those who live in Babylon and against her officials and wise men! A sword against her false prophets! They will become fools. A sword against her warriors! They will be filled with terror. A sword against her horses and chariots and all the foreigners in her ranks! They will become weaklings. A sword against her treasures! They will be plundered. A drought on her waters! They will dry up. For it is a land of idols, idols that will go mad with terror. So desert creatures and hyenas will live there, and there the owl will dwell. It will never again be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation. As I overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighboring towns,’ declares the Lord, ‘so no one will live there; no people will dwell in it.’[xxii]
We have the example of Sodom and Gomorrah that God overthrew and left desolate, so will it be for Babylon. Babylon, the ancient city, was never rebuilt upon its original foundations.
B. The future destruction and judgment to come.
‘Look! An army is coming from the north; a great nation and many kings are being stirred up from the ends of the earth. They are armed with bows and spears; they are cruel and without mercy. They sound like the roaring sea as they ride on their horses; they come like men in battle formation to attack you, Daughter Babylon. The king of Babylon has heard reports about them, and his hands hang limp. Anguish has gripped him, pain like that of a woman in labor. Like a lion coming up from Jordan’s thickets to a rich pastureland, I will chase Babylon from its land in an instant. Who is the chosen one I will appoint for this? Who is like me and who can challenge me? And what shepherd can stand against me?’ Therefore, hear what the Lord has planned against Babylon, what he has purposed against the land of the Babylonians: The young of the flock will be dragged away; their pasture will be appalled at their fate. At the sound of Babylon’s capture the earth will tremble; its cry will resound among the nations.[xxiii]
This is an amazing reversal. Here Jeremiah is quoting from an earlier prophecy from 6:22-24 where the names and situation are completely reversed. Rather than “daughter Zion” being the victim of the scourge from the north, it is now Babylon that will experience this destruction.
The poem deftly makes the strong one into the weak one and portrays for us the total reversal of power in public history. …We are permitted to watch while the great king of Babylon, a syllable at a time, is reduced to frailty, intimidation, weakness, and dysfunction. …When this chapter is finished, it is clear that the purpose of Yahweh and the role of Babylon are no longer compatible. …Jerusalem is invited to look beyond the Babylonian episode to the future intended by God.[xxiv]
Because He lives, I can face tomorrow.
Because He lives, all fear is gone.
Because I know, He holds the future.
And life is worth the living, just because He lives.
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[i] Michael and Sharon Rusten, The One Year Christian History, (Carol Stream, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 2003), 414-15.
[ii] Frederick Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations, The New American Commentary, Vol. 16, (Nashville, TN: Broadman and Holman Publishers, 1993), 407-408.
[iii] Tremper Longman, New International Biblical Commentary, Jeremiah, Lamentations, (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), 304.
[iv] Jeremiah 50:1-3, The New International Version of the Bible, Zondervan, 2011.
[v] R. K. Harrison, Jeremiah & Lamentations, Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries, Vol. 19, (Downers Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 1973), 184.
[vi] Tremper Longman, Jeremiah, Lamentations, 305.
[vii] Jeremiah 50:4.
[viii] Philip Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope, (Wheaton, IL: Crossways Books, 2001), 697.
[ix] Jeremiah 50:5.
[x] Philip Ryken, Jeremiah and Lamentations: From Sorrow to Hope, 698.
[xi] Jeremiah 50:6.
[xii] Jeremiah 50:7.
[xiii] Jeremiah 50:8-10.
[xiv] 2 Corinthians 6:17.
[xv] Jeremiah 50:11-14.
[xvi] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming, (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), 466-67.
[xvii] Jeremiah 50:15-18.
[xviii] Jeremiah 50:19-20.
[xix] Jeremiah 50:21-30.
[xx] Jeremiah 50:31-33.
[xxi] Jeremiah 50:34.
[xxii] Jeremiah 50:35-40.
[xxiii] Jeremiah 50:41-46.
[xxiv] Walter Brueggemann, A Commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and Homecoming, 472-73.
