Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 51:29

And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon, to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant.

The literal translation is:

Then the earth quaked and writhed;

For the thoughts of Yahweh against

Babel have stood fast;

To make Babel a waste without inhabitant.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 29. And the land shall tremble] It is represented here as trembling under the numerous armies that are passing over it, and the prancing of their horses.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

That is, Babylon, or the land of Chaldea, shall tremble and sorrow; for God hath determined to destroy it, and to leave it wholly desolate, so as none should dwell in it.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

29. land shall tremble . . . everypurpose of . . . Lord shall be performedelegant antithesisbetween the trembling of the land or earth, and thestability of “every purpose of the Lord” (compare Ps46:1-3).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

And the land shall tremble and sorrow,…. The land of Chaldea, the inhabitants of it, should tremble, when they heard of this powerful army invading their land, and besieging their metropolis; and should sorrow, and be in pain as a woman in travail, as the word f signifies:

for every purpose of the Lord shall be performed against Babylon; or, “shall stand” g; be certainly fulfilled; for his purposes are firm and not frustratable:

to make the land of Babylon a desolation without an inhabitant; this the Lord purposed, and threatened to do; see Jer 50:39.

f “et parturiet”, Schmidt. So Ben Melech. g “stabit, [vel] stant”, Schmidt.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

On the advance of this mighty host against Babylon, to execute the judgment determined by the Lord, the earth quakes. The mighty men of Babylon cease to offer resistance, and withdraw dispirited, like women, into inaccessible places, while the enemy sets fire to the houses, breaks the bars, and captures the city. The prophet views all this in spirit as already present, and depicts in lively colours the attack on the city and its capture. Hence the historic tenses, , , , etc. is used of the permanence, i.e., of the realization of the divine counsels, as in Jer 44:23. On the singular, see Ewald, 317, a. “To make the land,” etc., as in Jer 4:7; Jer 18:16, etc. “They sit (have taken up their position) in the strongholds” (Mountain fastnesses), i.e., in inaccessible places; cf. 1Sa 13:16; 2Sa 23:14. is but to be regarded as a Kal form from ; on its derivation from , see on Isa 41:17. “They have become women;” cf. Jer 50:37. The subject of the verb is the enemy, who set fire to the dwellings in Babylon. “Runner runs against runner,” i.e., from opposite sides of the city there come messengers, who meet each other running to tell the king in his castle that the city is taken. The king is therefore (as Graf correctly remarks against Hitzig) not to be thought of as living outside of the city, for “in this case would have no meaning,” but as living in the royal castle, which was situated in the middle of the city, on the Euphrates. Inasmuch as the city is taken “from the end” ( ), i.e., on all sides, the messengers who bring the news to the king’s fortress must meet each other.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

The Prophet no doubt endeavored to remove all doubts from the minds of the godly, which would have otherwise weakened confidence in his doctrine. It might have occurred to the minds of all, that the whole world would sooner come to nothing than that Babylon should fall. Though it were so, says the Prophet, that the whole earth trembled, yet Babylon will be destroyed. Hence, he says, Tremble shall the land and be in pain, even because confirmed, etc. There is here a striking contrast between the moving of the earth and the stability of God’s purpose. The verb means properly to rise, but it is taken in many places in the sense of confirming or establishing, and necessarily so in this passage. he then says, Tremble shall the land, (92) even because confirmed shall be the thoughts of God respecting Babylon

But he mentions thoughts in the plural number, as though he had said, that whatever God had appointed and decreed would be unchangeable, and that the whole earth would sooner be shaken than that the truth of God should lose its effect. Then this verse contains nothing else but a confirmation of the whole prophecy. But the Prophet shows, that if even all the hindrances of the world were in favor of the perpetuity of Babylon, yet what God had decreed respecting its destruction, would be fixed and unchangeable. It afterwards follows, —

(92) The “earth” here is evidently the land of Chaldea or Babylon, —

And tremble shall the land and be in pain; For confirmed respecting Babylon shall be the purposes of Jehovah, To set the land of Babylon a waste, Without an inhabitant.

—

Ed

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(29) And the land shall tremble and sorrow.The verbs in the Hebrew are in the past tense, the prophet seeing, as it were, the very event which he portrays passing before him in his vision.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

29. The land shall tremble The Hebrew of this passage is more expressive than the common English Version: Then the earth quaked and trembled. For the purposes of Jehovah against Babylon have stood fast To make Babylon a waste without inhabitant.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments