What does Jeremias Chapter 51 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Fanners, cup and Creator imagery precede announced repayment. Named nations, messengers and repeated flight warnings accompany ruin. A fourth-year book instruction remains distinct from performed action.

Chapter breakdown

Jeremias 51 announces a pestilential wind, fanners, slain and wounded, with Israel and Juda not forsaken despite sin. Flight precedes golden-cup intoxication, sudden collapse and a balm appeal answered by failed cure and departure. Declaring justices in Sion leads to sharpened arrows and filled quivers: kings of Medes are raised for temple vengeance. Standards, watches and ambushes, rich waters and locust-like men precede the Creator’s earth, heavens, rain, lightning and wind. Breathless cast idols contrast with Jacob’s portion and Israel’s sceptre. Weapons dashed together and breaking nations, horsemen, chariots, both sexes and ages, shepherds, husbandmen and rulers precede repayment of Sion’s evil.

The destroying mountain is rolled down and burnt, with no corner or foundation stone taken. Ararat, Menni, Ascenez, Taphsar and Media receive a summons; stinging-locust horses and troubled land accompany failed warriors, burned dwellings, broken bars, meeting messengers, captured fords and burned marshes. Babylon is a threshing floor awaiting harvest. Jerusalem’s devouring-dragon complaint receives promised vengeance and dried sea and spring. Heaps and dragons, lions, drink and endless sleep, slaughtered lambs, Sesach’s surprise, overwhelming sea, desolate cities and Bel disgorging what he swallowed precede renewed flight. Yearly rumors, iniquity and ruler upon ruler are mentioned without certifying military coups. Praise, reciprocal slain, remembrance of Jerusalem, sanctuary shame, idol visitation and spoilers from above precede noise, captured warriors, weakened bow, sleeping leaders and destroyed broad wall and high gates.

In Sedecias’s fourth year Saraias son of Nerias son of Maasias goes with him to Babylon, called chief over the prophecy. Jeremias writes the announced evil in one book and commands reading there, a declaration of perpetual desolation, a stone tied to the book and casting into the Euphrates, saying Babylon will sink and not rise. The instructions are not narrated as already performed. Battle-axe, volcanic peak, Euphrates springs, heavy stone, diplomatic embassy and influence on a later New Testament text are not supplied.

The story inside

Opening: Fanners, cup and Creator imagery precede announced repayment. Development: Named nations, messengers and repeated flight warnings accompany ruin. Conclusion: A fourth-year book instruction remains distinct from performed action.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Fanners, cup and Creator imagery precede announced repayment.
2
Named nations, messengers and repeated flight warnings accompany ruin.
3
A fourth-year book instruction remains distinct from performed action.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 89490–89505
51:1. Thus saith the Lord: Behold I will raise up as it were a pestilential wind against Babylon and against the inhabitants thereof, who have lifted up their heart against me. 51:2. And I will send to Babylon fanners, and they shall fan her, and shall destroy her land: for they are come upon her on every side in the day of her affliction. 51:3. Let not him that bendeth, bend his bow, and let not him go up that is armed with a coat of mail: spare not her young men, destroy all her army. 51:4. And the slain shall fall in the land of the Chaldeans, and the wounded in the regions thereof.
Lines 89517–89524
51:8. Babylon is suddenly fallen, and destroyed: howl for her, take balm for her pain, if so she may be healed. 51:9. We would have cured Babylon, but she is not healed: let us forsake her, and let us go every man to his own land: because her judgment hath reached even to the heavens, and is lifted up to the clouds.
Lines 89535–89547
watch: set up the watchmen, prepare the ambushes: for the Lord hath both purposed, and done all that he spoke against the inhabitants of Babylon. 51:13. O thou that dwellest upon many waters, rich in treasures, thy end is come for thy entire destruction. 51:14. The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying: I will fill thee with men as with locusts, and they shall lift up a joyful shout against thee. 51:15. He that made the earth by his power, that hath prepared the world by his wisdom, and stretched out the heavens by his
Lines 89551–89556
he lifteth up the clouds from the ends of the earth, he hath turned lightning into rain: and hath brought forth the wind out of his treasures. 51:17. Every man is become foolish by his knowledge: every founder is confounded by his idol, for what he hath cast is a lie, and there is no
Lines 89688–89700
51:52. Therefore behold the days come, saith the Lord, and I will visit her graven things, and in all her land the wounded shall groan: 51:53. If Babylon should mount up to heaven, and establish her strength on high: from me there should come spoilers upon her, saith the Lord. 51:54. The noise of a cry from Babylon, and great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans: 51:55. Because the Lord hath laid Babylon waste, and destroyed out of her the great voice: and their wave shall roar like many waters: their voice hath made a noise:
Lines 89718–89737
prophecy. 51:60. And Jeremias wrote in one book all the evil that was to come upon Babylon: all these words that are written against Babylon. 51:61. And Jeremias said to Saraias: When thou shalt come into Babylon, and shalt see, and shalt read all these words, 51:62. Thou shalt say: O Lord, thou hast spoken against this place to destroy it: so that there should be neither man nor beast to dwell therein, and that it should be desolate for ever. 51:63. And when thou shalt have made an end of reading this book, thou shalt tie a stone to it, and shalt throw it into the midst of the Euphrates: 51:64. And thou shalt say: Thus shall Babylon sink, and she shall not rise up from the affliction that I will bring upon her, and she shall be utterly destroyed. Thus far are the words of Jeremias.