CHAPTERS 50 and 51 pronounce judgment upon the Gentile empire which God had permitted to rise to pre-emince when the house of Israel had sinned so deeply, and without repentance, that He could not continue to own them as His people. Chapter 25:12-14, in the call for subjection to Nebuchadnezzar’s rule, had briefly promised the fall of his empire when seventy years should have passed over the captive Jews in Babylon, and the last two verses of Daniel 5 tell of the slaughter of Belshazzar, the young Babylonian ruler, with the government passing to Darius the Mede, who served under Cyrus, the conquering Persian, with the title of king of Babylon. (See 2 Chronicles 36:22, 2322Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah might be accomplished, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, 23Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, All the kingdoms of the earth hath the Lord God of heaven given me; and he hath charged me to build him an house in Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? The Lord his God be with him, and let him go up. (2 Chronicles 36:22‑23); Ezra 1; Isaiah 44: 28, 45:1-4, Daniel 9:1, 21In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans; 2In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. (Daniel 9:1‑2)).
Babylonia as a kingdom, and presently under Nebuchadnezzar as an empire, was a revival of the very ancient Chaldean monarchy which had been destroyed by the Assyrians when they rose to power. When Assyria fell, the Chaldeans or Babylonians (the same people) took a large part of her territory; thus the names of “Chaldea” and “the Chaldeans” are found frequently in the references to the Babylonish empire or kingdom and people, in the books of Jeremiah and Daniel.
When Babylon fell, the Babylonian religion passed into eclipse, for the conquering Persians and Medes despised the idols of Babylon, among the chief of which were Bel and Merodach (verse 2 in our chapter).
Verse 3: The nation to rise out of the north was Media, northern neighbor of Babylonia proper (the ancient Chaldea). Media and Persia had practically the same language and the same religion; and Persia, formerly subject to Media, had, under Cyrus, acquired supremacy over Media and other lands a few years before the Babylonian empire came to an end.
Babylon’s site is now, as verses, 3, 13 and 39 and other passages (Isaiah 13, Jeremiah 25) foretold, a waste, uninhabited and uninhabitable marshy land. The judgment of God was, however, concerned not alone with the putting down of Babylon, but also with the return to Canaan of His erring and now, to some extent at least, repentant people (verses 4-8, 17, 19, 20, 33, 34). Some of the children of Israel—part of “the lost ten tribes” as they are called—returned with the children of Judah when Cyrus opened the way for the Jews to go back to Jerusalem. Thus we find a member of the tribe of Asher in Jerusalem when the infant Jesus was brought there according to the custom of the Jewish law (Luke 2:3636And there was one Anna, a prophetess, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser: she was of a great age, and had lived with an husband seven years from her virginity; (Luke 2:36)).
God had committed power to Nebuchadnezzar (chapter 27:5, 6) but that power had been misused; the Babylonians had treated the Jews cruelly (see verse 17) and defended their severity on the ground that the captives had sinned against Jehovah (verse 7). They did not know that God was taking notice of every act of cruelty done to His people, and would visit the Gentile empire for it.
Nor was this the only cause for the destruction of Babylon: the captors of the Jews delighted in the ruin of God’s heritage (verse 11); they had rebelled against Him (verse 21, for “Merathaim” read “the land of double rebellion” or “of apostasy”) as verse 24 also shows, and verse 29 which speaks of their acting proudly against Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel.
In verses 31 and 32 Babylon is called “pride”, as the marginal note indicates; verse 33 acids to the charges against the Gentile power, that they refused to let the children of Israel and of Judah go, and verse 38 that they were “mad after frightful idols” (N. Tr.). We may also turn to Isaiah 47:6-106I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. 7And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. 8Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: 9But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. 10For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. (Isaiah 47:6‑10) for other grounds for the cutting off, after so brief a history, of the Babylonian empire.
Verse 12: “Your mother” is evidently a reference to ancient Chaldea (see Isaiah 17:1, 61The burden of Damascus. Behold, Damascus is taken away from being a city, and it shall be a ruinous heap. (Isaiah 17:1)
6Yet gleaning grapes shall be left in it, as the shaking of an olive tree, two or three berries in the top of the uppermost bough, four or five in the outmost fruitful branches thereof, saith the Lord God of Israel. (Isaiah 17:6)), in a figurative sense put to shame by the excesses of Babylon. The true sense of the latter part of the verse is “she is become hindmost (or the last) of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land and a desert.”
In verse 17 Israel is a hunted sheep, and in the end of verse 20 pardon is for those whom God will “leave remaining”—a remnant of the nation. “Pekod” in verse 21, is not the name of a town or district, but the Hebrew word for “visitation”, referring to the judgment of Babylon.
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