tions; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.
JOHN CALVIN but includes others which followed. For Babylon soon after revolted and suffered a grievous punishment for its perfidy, and was then treated with great contempt.
Afterwards, Seleucus tried in various ways to destroy it, and for this end Seleucia was built, and then Ctesiphon was set up in opposition to Babylon. Babylon then was by degrees reduced to that solitude of which the Prophet here speaks. Pliny says that in his time the temple of Bel was there, whom they thought to have been the founder of the city; but he afterwards adds that the other parts of the city were deserted. If Jerome, as he says, visited it, we ought; to believe what he had seen; and he says that Babylon was a small ignoble town, and ruins only were seen there.
There is, then, nothing unreasonable in this prophecy, for it ought not to be restricted to one calamity only; for God ceased not in various ways to afflict Babylon until it was wholly laid waste, according to what our Prophet testifies. According to this view, then, he says that Babylon would become a mountain of burning, or a burnt mountain, 448 for ruins only would remain; and in the same sense he immediately adds, ---
Jeremiah 51:26
26. And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the LORD.
26. Et non tollent ex to lapidem ad angulum, et lapidem ad fundamenta; quia solitudines perpetuae eris, dicit Jehova.
He confirms the former verse, that when Babylon was destroyed, there would be no hope of restoration. It often happens, that those cities which have been wholly destroyed are afterwards built up again; but God says that this would not be the case with Babylon, for it was given over to perpetual destruction. By corner and foundations he understands the strength of the buildings, he then says, that there was no hope that the stones would be again fitted together, for the building of the city, for Babylon would become a perpetual waste or desolation.
We have, indeed, said, that the walls of Babylon were not made of stones but of bricks: but the Prophet simply speaks according to the common manner, in order to show that its ruin would be for ever. 449 We have also said elsewhere that a difference is commonly made by the prophets between the people of God and the reprobate, that God promises to his Church a new state as a resurrection from death, but that he denounces on the unbelieving perpetual desolation. This course is now followed by our Prophet when he says, that the desolations there would be for ever, because there is no hope of pardon or of mercy to the unbelieving. It afterwards follows, ---
Jeremiah 51:27
27. Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and
Ashchenaz; appoint a captain against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough
448Blayney views "the mountain" differently, as a metaphor for a nation, or a prince, rising above others in power: and "the rocks" he considers to be the strongholds of this mountain. — Ed.
449Though the reatest part of the walls and towers was built of bricks, yet there were stones no doubt used. Some understand, by "stone," a king or prince, and consider that an intimation is given that Babylon would not hereafter have a king or its own, but be tributary. — Ed.