Chapter 16: Jeremiah's Grandest Ode
Chapter 16: Jeremiah's Grandest Ode
(JEREMIAH 51).
God spake and gave us the word to keep;
Bade never fold the hands, nor sleep
'Mid a faithless world—at watch and ward,
Till Christ at the end relieve our guard.
By His servant Moses the watch was set:
Though near upon cock-crow, we keep it yet.
BROWNING.
IT WAS A very deserted Jerusalem in which Jeremiah dwelt, after king Jehoiachin, his household and court, princes and mighty men of valour, had been carried off to Babylon. It was impossible to take ten thousand of those that constituted the bone and muscle of the State, without leaving an attenuated and weakened residuum. Still, the fertility and natural resources of the land were so considerable as to give hope of its comparative prosperity, as a trailing vine dependent on Babylon (Ezek. xvii).
Mattaniah, the third son of Josiah—who was a boy of ten years of age when tidings came of the awful catastrophe at Megiddo, but who was now in his twenty-first year—was called to the throne by the conqueror, and required to hold it under a solemn oath of allegiance, which was asseverated and sanctioned by an appeal to Jehovah Himself. It was as though the heathen monarch thought to make insubordination impossible on the part of the young monarch, since his word of honour was ratified under such solemn and august conditions—conditions which under similar circumstances the heathen king would probably have felt binding and final. Alas! how often heathen men have attached an importance to religious appeals which has shamed religious professors! And how often they must have marvelled that we could so lightly disregard them (2 Chron. 36:13; Ezek. 17:13).
At the instance of his conqueror, the young king took the name Zedekiah, "the righteousness of Jehovah." It was an auspicious sign; every encouragement was given him to follow in the footsteps of his illustrious father. And throughout his reign he gave evident tokens of desiring better things; but he was weak and irresolute, lacking the strength of purpose necessary to assert himself for good amid the confused counsels that agitated his court. He respected Jeremiah, but did not dare publicly to espouse his cause, showing him his royal favour by stealth.
Meanwhile the kingdom was violently agitated by rumours from every side, which encouraged the hope that ere long the power of Babylon would be broken, and the exiles return. These thoughts were rife among the exiles themselves, as we have seen; they were diligently fostered by the false prophets, who gladly fell in with the current of the popular wish; and there seem to have been various political considerations which favoured the expectation of a speedy reversal of conditions that chafed the proud Jewish heart beyond endurance.
About this time there was a revolt in Elam against Babylon. What if this should spread until the empire itself became disintegrated! But Jeremiah, by the voice of God, said: "It shall not be; the bow of Elam shall he broken; her king and princes destroyed, her people scattered toward the four winds of heaven" (xlix. 34-39).
Then there was the seething discontent of the neighbouring peoples, who, though they had accompanied the invader as allies, were eager to regain their independence, and desired to draw Judah into one vast confederacy, with Egypt as its base. "No," said Jeremiah; "it must not be; Nebuchadnezzar is doing the behest of Jehovah; all the nations are to serve him, and his son, and his son's son" (xxvii. 6, 7). Perhaps it was at Jeremiah's suggestion that Zedekiah at this time made a journey to Babylon, to pay homage to his suzerain, and assure him of his fidelity.
All through the troubles that followed, Jeremiah pursued the same policy. He asserted that the state of the captives in Babylon, as compared with that of the remnant at Jerusalem, was as good figs to bad (xxiv.); when Pharaoh's army produced a temporary diversion, and compelled the Chaldeans to draw off, he said that they would certainly return, set fire to palace and temple, and burn the city (xxxvii.); and his policy was so well known among the Chaldeans that in the final overthrow they gave him his life, and allowed him to choose where he would dwell (xl.).
Often it must have seemed to his choicest friends as though his advice were pusillanimous and wanting in the courage of faith. Did he really favour Babylon above Jerusalem? Was he traitorous to the best interests of his people? But if they ever entertained such questionings, they must have been suddenly and completely disillusioned, when he summoned them to hear the tremendous indictment he had composed against Babylon in the early months of Zedekiah's reign, together with the graphic description of its fall. A copy of this prophecy was entrusted to Seraiah, the chief chamberlain, who went in the train of Zedekiah to Babylon, with instructions that he should read it privately to the exiles; and then, weighting it with a stone, cast it into the midst of the Euphrates with the solemn words, that must have thrilled the bystanders, "Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again, because of the evil which God will bring upon her, and her might shall wax faint" (li. 59-64).
I. THE PROPHECY OF THE FALL OF BABYLON. – The Glory of Babylon. In glowing imagery Jeremiah depicts her glory and beauty. She had been a golden cup in the sand of Jehovah; his battle-axe and weapons of war. Her influence was carried far and wide. She dwelt by rimy waters, rich in treasure, and the wonder of the earth. Like a mighty tree, she stretched her branches over the surrounding lands. Queen of the nations, she was at ease, and thought to see trouble no more. " Is not this great Babylon," her greatest monarch cried, "which I have built for the royal dwelling-place by the might of my power, and for the glory of my majesty?"
The Divine Controversy.—The Almighty had used her for great purposes of disintegration, doing among the nations much the same sort of work that the icebergs did among the rocks of the primitive world, or that the frosts do each winter in pulverizing the dust of the earth. But she had abused, for unrighteous and selfish ends, the power which God had entrusted to her. Her execution of the Divine purpose, her administration of the Divine decrees, had been cruel in the extreme. The track of her armies had been marked with ruthless and wanton bloodshed. She had floated to the eminence of another Ararat, on the waters of another flood, an ocean of human suffering. And therefore Jehovah set nets for her, and caught her as a wild beast. He opened his armoury and brought out the weapons of his wrath
But God was especially against Babylon for her treatment of his people. The inhabitants of Zion are introduced, crying, "The king of Babylon has devoured us, he bath crushed us, and hath filled himself with our delicacies. The violence done to me and mine be upon Babylon." Therefore the Most High would take up their cause, and take vengeance on their behalf. "As Babylon caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the earth; for the Lord is a God of recompenses, He shall surely requite."
The Summons to her Foes.—The standard is reared, and around it, at the sounding of the trumpet, the nations gather. The wild tribes of Ararat and Armenia are there, the kings of the Medes, the governors thereof, and all the lands of her empire. The sure-footed shaggy horses of the mountaineers are like the rough locusts, that fill the land with their countless multitudes. Sacrifices are offered to propitiate the gods of battle; and the tide of invasion begins to flow against and around the massive walls of the city. The very earth trembles beneath the weight of the armaments, and the tread of the troops. "Behold!" the prophet cries, "a people cometh from the north; and a great nation, and many kings shall be stirred up from the uttermost parts of the earth. They lay hold on bow and spear; they are cruel, and have no mercy; their voice roareth like the sea, and they ride upon horses; every one set in array, as a man to the battle, against thee, O daughter of Babylon" (ii. 41, 42, R.V. ).
The Attack.—The archers invest the city -on every side, so that none may escape, They are bidden to shoot at her, and not spare their arrows. Now the battle-shout is raised, and an assault is made against her walls. See! she submits; she gives her hand in token; her bulwarks are fallen; the bars of her gates are broken through; her walls are thrown down; the mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight; their might has failed; they have become as women. Lo, the fire breaks out amid her dwelling-places. The messengers, running with similar tidings from different quarters of the city, come to show the king of Babylon that the fords are in the hand of the foe, and that the city is taken.
The Overthrow of the City.—Then the captured city is given up to the savage soldiery. Nameless wrongs are inflicted on the defenceless and weak. There is plunder enough to satisfy the most rapacious. Her granaries are despoiled; her treasuries ransacked; her stores winnowed. All the captive peoples who had been held by her in cruel bondage go free, and especially the Jews. "Let us forsake her," they cry, "and let us go every one into his own country; for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies."
And now her cities become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass through; but the jackals dwell there, and it lies waste from generation to generation, as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighbour cities thereof.
Such were the predictions of Jeremiah concerning the greatest city which perhaps the world has ever seen, and which was then rising to the zenith of her power and glory. Seventy years were to pass before his words would be fulfilled; but history itself could hardly be more definite and precise. Those who can compare this prophecy with the story of the fall of Babylon, and with the researches of Layard, will find how exactly every detail was repeated, even to the burning of the reeds in the river-bed, the meeting of post with post on the night of its fall, the deep stupor with which the fumes of wine had dazed the brave men of Babylon, and the utter desolation which for centuries has reigned over her site.
"They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, of brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick, upon the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean was slain, and Darius the Mede took the kingdom."
II. BABYLON THE GREAT.—In every age of the world, Babylon has had its counterpart. Over against the line of Seth, with its reverence for God, was that of Cain, where arts and science were cradled and nurtured. Babel's tower cast its shadow over the primitive races of mankind. Over against Shem was Ham; over against Abraham, Chedorlaomer; over against Israel, Nineveh; over against Jerusalem, Babylon; over against the Church, Rome; over against the New Jerusalem, Babylon the Great; over against the Bride of the Lamb, the scarlet woman, riding upon the beast. Where God has built up his kingdom, the devil has always counterfeited it by some travesty of his own.
Jeremiah comforted his heart amid the desolations which fell thick and heavily on his beloved fatherland, by anticipating the inevitable doom of the oppressor. And his words, read amid the exiles of Babylon, as they sat beside the rivers, and wept, and hanged their harps upon the willows, may have inspired that marvellous outburst of faith, and patriotism, and undying hatred—
O daughter of Babylon, thou art to be destroyed;
Happy shall he be that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us.
Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the rock.
In the same way, throughout the persecutions of the empire, when paganism made her awful attempts to stamp out Christianity; and afterwards amid the horrors of Inquisition, when the Roman Catholic Church sought to extinguish the true light of the Gospel, which in no age has been without witnesses—the suffering children of God have turned to the Book of Revelation to read the doom of that anti-Christian power which, under the guise of paganism or of papalism, always sets itself against God, and is set on by the undying hatred of the devil. Her fate is described in words that strongly recall those of Jeremiah. She too had the golden cup, and was drunk with blood, and reigned over the kings of the earth. She too is destroyed by a combination of those that had owned her sway. A voice is heard bidding God's people come out from her, lest they be involved in her overthrow. It is rendered unto her as she rendered, and double is mingled into her cup. As Seraiah cast a stone into the Euphrates, so a strong angel casts a great millstone into the sea, saying, "Thus with a mighty fall is Babylon, the great city, cast down, and shall he found no more." And her site becomes the haunt of demons, and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird; the voice of harpers and minstrels for ever silenced; the light of the household lamp for ever quenched; the voice of the millstone for ever still.
Prophetic students have always identified this great persecuting power with Rome, the city of the seven hills; and if this interpretation be correct, without doubt, in the millennial age, her site will be as desolate as that of Babylon has been for more than two thousand years. But one is disposed to enlarge the scope of the prophecy, and to believe that every form of anti-Christian power, whether systems of false philosophy, or structures of ancient superstition, or gigantic wrongs, like the drink traffic and the opium trade, shall wither and die before the all-conquering might of Emmanuel, who was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. He must reign till all enemies are put beneath his feet. Then shall be heard in heaven the voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of mighty thunders, saying, "Hallelujah! for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth."
Let us strengthen our confidence in the certain prevalence of good over evil, of the Church over the world, and of Christ over Satan, as we consider the precise fulfilment of Jeremiah's predictions concerning the fall of Babylon. "So let all thine enemies perish, O Lord: but let them that love Thee be as the sun when he goeth forth in his might."
III. OUR OWN BABYLON. —Each heart has its special form of sin, to which it is liable, and by yielding to which it has been perpetually overthrown. How bitter have been your tears and self-reproach! How you have chafed and foamed beneath the strong iron bit of your tyrant! How hopeless your struggles to escape from the tormenting net, whose meshes refused to break, whilst every plunge only entangled you more tightly in its folds!
But there is a deliverance for you, as for those weak and misguided but suffering Jews. How exactly your life history is delineated in theirs! They were the children of God; so are you. They might have lived in an impregnable fortress of God's covenant protection; so might you. They forfeited this by their disobedience and unbelief; so have you. They tried to compensate for the loss of God's keeping power by heroic resolutions and efforts, and by alliance with neighbouring peoples; so have you. They utterly failed, and were crushed as a moth in a child's hand; so has it been with you. They almost renounced hope; this, too, is your case—you hardly dare hope for deliverance. But as God saved them by his own right hand, so will He save you. And as Babylon was so utterly quelled that it ceased to be an object of alarm; so God is able so entirely to deliver you that you shall no more fear or be afraid—you shall see the bodies of your task-masters dead upon the sea-shore.
Accept these rules, if you would have this blessed deliverance.
1. Put out of your life all known sin. Are there vows that never ought to have been made? Recall them! Are there wrongs that lie back in the past which can be righted? Right them! Are there secret habits and practices which eat out your heart? Be willing to be set free, and deliberately tell God so. So far as you are concerned, put away the idols that have provoked God to jealousy.
2. Entrust the keeping of your soul to God. You cannot control it, but He can. He made you, and must be able to keep you. One of his angels has power enough to bind the devil; surely then the Lord of all angels can deliver you from the accursed demons that make sport of you. If Christ in his human weakness cleared the Temple, He must be able to drive the foul things from your heart, and when once they are out, it will be easy for Him to keep them out. In his Ascension, He was raised above all the principalities and powers of darkness, and you were raised with Him, too, if you only knew it; certainly the living Christ can tread your lion and dragon beneath his feet. You cannot, but He can. Put the case deliberately, thoughtfully, calmly into his hand. Do not say, "I will try"; but " I will trust." Do not look at your faith, but at Him. Do not cry, "Help me! " for that implies that you are going to do some and He some, and your part will inevitably vitiate all; but cry, "Keep me!" thus throwing the entire responsibility on Him.
3. Reckon that the Almighty Saviour accepts your deposit at the moment of your making it. As it leaves your hand, it passes into his. Be sure that He has undertaken it all for you. Do not try to feel that He has, but reckon that He has. Do not go over and over the act of committal, to see whether it was rightly done. Make it as well as you can, or ask Him to take what you but in effectively transfer. Never doubt that He reads your motive and desire, even though you fail to do as you would; and that He accepts the eager willing for the perfect doing. Then steadfastly resist every suggestion to doubt Him. Dare to say a hundred times a day, "Jesus is able to keep that which I have committed to Him: I am a worm, weak, witless, worthless; but the Son of God has me in his safe keeping; He hath delivered, He doth deliver, and I am persuaded that He will yet deliver." You may have no glad emotion, no pean of victory, no share of ecstasy; never mind, lie still, and trust Him. The lion may roar all around, but the weary tired sheep will lie within the fold, absolutely safe, because the Shepherd interposes his mighty keeping between it and every dreaded ill.