evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD.
JEREMIAH AND LAMENTATIONS sion; but yet the Prophet reminds us that no difficulty would prevent God to destroy
Babylon, because Babylon in itself was nothing. According to this sense, then, it is called a hammer. In short, the Prophet takes away the false opinion which might have otherwise disturbed weak minds, as though Babylon was wholly invincible. He shows at the same time that God executed his judgments on all nations by means of
Babylon. Thus the faithful might have been confirmed; for otherwise they must have necessarily been cast down when they regarded the formidable power of Babylon; but when they heard that it was only a hammer, and that they would not have been broken in pieces by the Babylonians had they not been armed from above, or rather had they not been driven on by a celestial power, it then appeared that the calamity which the Jews had suffered was nothing more than a punishment inflicted by God's hand. When, therefore, they heard this, it was no small consolation; it kept them from succumbing under their miseries, and from being swallowed up with sorrow and despair. But it now follows, ---
Jeremiah 51:24
24. And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith the LORD.
24 Et rependam Babyloni et omnibus habitatoribus Chaldaeae to omnia mala ipsorum quae intulerunt in Sion (contra Sion, quae fecerunt in Sion, ad verbum,) in oculis vestris, (vel, eoram oculis vestris,) dicit Jehova.
The Prophet, after having reminded the Jews that all that they had suffered from the Babylonians had been justly inflicted on account of their sins, and that God had been the author of all their calamities, now subjoins, I will render to Babylon and to the Chaldeans what they have deserved. It may, however, appear strange at the first view, that God should here threaten the Babylonians; for if their services depended on his command, they seemed doubtless to have deserved praise rather than punishment; nay, we know what the Holy Spirit declares elsewhere,
gave Egypt as a reward to my servant Nebuchadnezzar, because he has faithfully performed my work,'' (Ezekiel 29:20) for Nebuchadnezzar had afflicted the Jews, therefore he obtained this, says
Ezekiel, as his reward. It seems then an inconsistent thing when God declares that the Chaldeans deserved punishment because they had afflicted the Jews. But both declarations agree well together; for when God declared by Ezekiel that he gave
Egypt as a reward to his servant Nebuchadnezzar, he had a regard to the Jews and to their perverseness, because they had not as yet been sufficiently humbled; nay, they thought that it was by chance that they had been subdued by the Babylonians.
God then declares that he had executed his judgment on them by the hand of
Nebuchadnezzar. It was afterwards necessary that the faithful should be raised up in their extreme distress; and this was regarded by our Prophet when he said
50:23) but he would hereafter employ, as it were, a hammer, or a scatterer, in Babylon itself, --- 20. A scatterer (or a hammer) art thou to me, A weapon of war; But I will scatter in thee nations, And destroy in thee kingdoms; 21. And I will scatter in thee the horse and its rider, And I will scatter in thee the chariot and its rider; 22. And I will scatter in thee the husband and the wife,
And I will scatter in thee the old and the child, And I will scatter in thee the young man and the maid; 23. And I will scatter in thee the shepard and his flock, And I will scatter in thee the plougman and his team, And I will scatter in thee the governors and princes. The comes, naturally, a summary of the whole, --- 24. And I will render to Babylon And to all the inhabitants of Chaldea,
All the evil which they have done in Sion, Before your eyes, saith Jehova. The in the two following verse Babylon is still addressed.
is according to the Sept., the Syr., and the Targ.; ``dash against one another'' is the Vulg. --- Ed.