Attributed commentary excerpt
Keil & Delitzsch on Jeremiah 50:21
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Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
The pride and power of Babylon are broken, as a punishment for the sacrilege he committed at the temple of the Lord. Jer 50:21. "Against the land, - Double-rebellion, - go up against it, and against the inhabitants of visitation; lay waste and devote to destruction after them, saith Jahveh, and do according to all that I have commanded thee. Jer 50:22. A sound of war \[is\] in the land, and great destruction. Jer 50:23. How the hammer of the whole earth is cut and broken! how Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! Jer 50:24. I laid snares for thee, yea, and thou hast been taken, O Babylon; but thou didst not know: thou wast found, and also seized, because thou didst strive against Jahveh. Jer 50:25. Jahveh hath opened His treasure-house, and brought out the instruments of His wrath; for the Lord, Jahveh of hosts, hath a work in the land of the Chaldeans. Jer 50:26. Come against her, \[all of you\], from the last to the first; open her storehouses: case her up in heaps, like ruins, and devote her to destruction; let there be no remnant left to her. Jer 50:27. Destroy all her oxen; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. Jer 50:28. \[There is\] a sound of those who flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of Jahveh our God, the vengeance of His temple." The punishment of Babylon will be fearful, corresponding to its crimes. The crimes of Babylon and its punishment Jeremiah has comprised, in Jer 50:21, in two names specially formed for the occasion. The enemy to whom God has entrusted the execution of the punishment is to march against the land מרתים. This word, which is formed by the prophet in a manner analogous to Mizraim, and perhaps also Aram Naharaim, means "double rebellion," or "double obstinacy." It comes from the root מרה, "to be rebellious" against Jahveh and His commandments, whence also מרי, "rebellion;" Num 17:1-13 :25, Eze 2:5, Eze 2:7, etc. Other interpretations of the word are untenable: such is that of Frst, who follows the Vulgate "terram dominantium," and, comparing the Aramaic מרא, "Lord," renders it by "dominion" (Herschaft). Utterly indefensible, too, is the translation of Hitzig, "the world of men" (Menschenwelt), which he derives from the Sanskrit martjam, "world," on the basis of the false assumption that the language of the Chaldeans was Indo-Germanic. The only doubtful points are in what respect Babylon showed double obstinacy, and what Jeremiah had in his mind at the time. The view of Hitzig, Maurer, Graf, etc., is certainly incorrect, - that the prophet was thinking of the double punishment of Israel by the Assyrians and by the Babylonians ( Jer 50:17 and Jer 50:33); for the name is evidently given to the country which is now about to be punished, and hence to the power of Babylon. Ngelsbach takes a twofold view: (1) he thinks of the defiance shown by Babylon towards both man and God; (2) he thinks of the double obstinacy it exhibited in early times by building the tower, and founding the first worldly kingdom ( Gen 10:8.), and in later times by its conduct towards the theocracy: and he is inclined rather to the latter than to the former view, because the offences committed by Babylon in early and in later times were, in their points of origin and aim, too much one and the same for any one to be able to represent them as falling under two divisions. This is certainly correct; but against the first vi…
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