Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Jeremiah 51:36
Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.
36. Jehovah replies favourably to the demand for vengeance on Babylon.
her sea her fountain ] either the Euphrates (cp. the word “sea” as applied to the river Nile in Isa 18:2; Isa 19:5; Nah 3:8) or, better, the great lake or reservoir, four hundred and twenty furlongs in circumference, made by queen Nitocris (Herod. I. 185), or that constructed by Nebuchadnezzar (see Records of the Past, 2nd series, III. 116).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Her sea – Probably the great lake dug by Nitocris to receive the waters of the Euphrates.
Her springs – Her reservoir; the whole system of canals dug Jer 51:13. The wealth of Babylonia depended upon irrigation.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 36. I will dry up her sea] Exhaust all her treasures.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Men had need take heed how they give cause of appeals to God against them, especially the appeals of such as are a people that have a covenant relation to God. God in those cases ordinarily showeth himself a swift witness and judge, and gives a speedy judgment in such causes.
Behold, saith God,
I will plead thy cause, not with words, but actually with my judicial dispensations, therefore it is expounded by taking vengeance. The vengeance which God threateneth is expressed metaphorically under the notion of
drying up her sea, and making her springs dry, which signifies the depriving her of all necessaries, not only of the abundance of her men, riches, treasures, but of her springs. Thus I had rather expound it, than as referring to the particular stratagem by which Cyrus took Babylon, viz, by drying up in some measure the river Euphrates, that is, turning it into other channels.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
36. plead . . . cause (Jer50:34).
seathe Euphrates(Jer 51:13; Jer 50:38).Compare Isa 19:5, “sea,”that is, the Nile (Isa 21:1).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Therefore thus saith the Lord,…. In answer to the prayers of the inhabitants of Zion and Jerusalem, imprecating divine vengeance on Babylon:
behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; not by words only, but by deeds, inflicting punishment on their enemies:
and I will dry up her sea; the confluence of waters about Babylon; the river Euphrates, the channel of which was drained by Cyrus, by which means he took the city; and this may figuratively design the abundance of riches and affluence of good things in Babylon, which should now be taken from her:
and make her springs dry; deprive her of all the necessaries of life; and stop up all the avenues by which she was supplied with them; and cut off all communication of good things to her.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
Then follows a clearer explanation, when God promises that he would be the avenger of his chosen people, and that whatever the Jews had suffered would be rendered to Babylon: Therefore thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will litigate thy quarrel. By this passage we are taught to present our complaints to God, if we wish him to undertake our cause; for when we are silent, he will in his turn rest, as he considers us unworthy of being helped. But if we cry to him, he will doubtless hear us. Then we must remember the order of things, for the Prophet says on the one hand, Let Jerusalem cry, let the daughter of Sion say; and on the other hand he says, Therefore God will come and hear the cry of his people.
He says, first, Behold, I will plead thy cause, and then, I will vindicate or avenge thy vengeance. These are hard words to Latin ears; but yet they contain more force and power than if we were to follow the elegance of the Latin tongue. It is then better to retain the genuine terms than to study neatness too much.
In short, God promises to be the defender of his people, and by using the demonstrative particle, he doubtless removes every doubt, as though the thing was now present. We know that more than seventy years had elapsed since God had spoken thus; for as it has been already stated, it was not after the taking of the city that Jeremiah prophesied against the Chaldeans: but though God suspended his judgment and vengeance for seventy years after the destruction of the city, yet this was said, Behold, I, as though he brought the faithful to witness the event; and this was done for the sake of certainty.
Now, we hence learn, that though God humbles his people, and suffers them even to be overwhelmed with extreme miseries, he will at length become the avenger of all the wrongs which they may have endured; for what has been said of the destruction of the people has a reference to us; nay, what is here said, has not been left on record except for our benefit. And further, let us learn, as I have before reminded you, to prepare our minds for patience whenever God seems to forsake us. Let us, at the same time exercise ourselves constantly in prayer, and God will hear our groans and complaints, and regard our tears.
It is afterwards added, I will make dry her sea; for Babylon, as it has been already stated, was surrounded by the streams of the Euphrates; and there was no easy access to it. The Prophet then compares the fortifications of Babylon to a sea and a fountain. For who would have thought that the Euphrates could be dried up, which is so large a river, and has none equal to it in all Europe? Even the Danube does not come up to the largeness of that river. Who then would have thought it possible that such a river could be made dry, which was like a sea, and its fountain inexhaustible? God then intimates by these words, that such was his power, that all obstacles would vanish away, and that he was resolved at the same time to execute his judgment on the Babylonians. It afterwards follows, —
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(36) I will dry up her sea . . .The nouns have been variously interpreted, some commentators referring it to the sea of confluent nations, and finding the wealth of Babylon in the springs that fed its greatness; others to the Euphrates, or to the sea-like alluvial plain, intersected by canals and streams in which the city stood, often flooded by the river, so that it became as an actual sea (Herod. i. 184), or specially to the large lake described in the Note on Jer. 51:32. So in Isa. 21:1 Babylon is described as the desert of the sea. The Hebrew word for springs is in the singular, her reservoir. Probably the literal and figurative meanings run into one another, and the drying up describes the exhaustion of the power of which the sea was the symbol. In Rev. 16:12 we have apparently an allusive reference to the language of this prediction.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
36. Her sea The Euphrates river. The distinction between seas and rivers was by no means so clearly drawn in ancient times as now. Hence Jonah speaks of a nahar (river) in the sea. Springs, in this passage, are the smaller streams which water and fertilize the country. Indeed, the literal import of the original is, her digging, and so it very exactly suits the artificial canals dug for this purpose.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
YHWH Promises That They Will Be Avenged ( Jer 51:36-40 ).
God acknowledges the justice of their plea, and assures them that He will take vengeance on their behalf. Evil cannot be allowed to triumph, and therefore Babylon, that representative of all evil, must reap what she has sown. Babylon must be destroyed. This is in the end God’s verdict on all that is evil, and we must remember that to Jeremiah and Israel/Judah Babylon represented all that was anti-God, with its enforcement of the worship of its own gods and its destruction of God’s Temple. It had to be destroyed.
Jer 51:36-37
“Therefore thus says YHWH,
Behold, I will plead your cause,
And take vengeance for you,
And I will dry up her sea,
And make her fountain dry,
And Babylon will become heaps,
A dwelling-place for jackals,
An astonishment, and a hissing,
Without inhabitant.”
YHWH promises that He will take up the cause of His people, first as defending counsel, and then as the exacter of retribution. He will ‘dry up her (Babylon’s) sea and make her fountain dry.’ This probably refers to the River Euphrates and all the multiplicity of channels which had been built for irrigation purposes or for defence of the city, which would make Babylon look as though it was in the midst of the sea, especially when the river was at its highest (compare the description of the River Nile as ‘the sea’ in Isa 18:2; Isa 19:5). Indeed the rise of the river would often turn Babylon into a sea as the waters overflowed its banks. But the main idea is that He will take away the means of her sustenance, dependent at it was on water. And whilst the Euphrates itself did not dry up as far as we know, certainly all the channels which were fed from it did cease to exist. Babylon would no longer be established on waters, and as a consequence it would not survive. Indeed it would become ‘heaps’, the mounds or ‘tels’ that grew up when a city was destroyed and nature was left to take its course.
The picture is of a ruined and desolate city, inhabited by jackals, which has become an astonishment to the world, which would draw in its breath and hiss when it saw what had happened to great Babylon. That once well populated city would be deserted. This did not happen as a result of Cyrus’ invasion, for he preserved its main buildings, but the destruction was completed by Xerxes as a result of later rebellion, and whilst Alexander the Great planned to restore the city he died before he could do so. Babylon did therefore finally literally become ‘heaps’. Note how the same judgment had previously been exacted on Jerusalem (Jer 9:11; Jer 19:8; Jer 25:9; Jer 25:18). What Nebuchadrezzar had done to Jerusalem would now be done to Babylon (Jer 50:15; Jer 50:29).
Jer 51:38-40
“They will roar together like young lions,
They will growl as lions’ whelps,
When they are heated, I will make their feast,
And I will make them drunk,
That they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep,
And not wake,
The word of YHWH,
I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,
Like rams along with he-goats.”
In vivid terminology YHWH describes the demise of the leading citizens of Babylon. They will roar together like young lions (compare Amo 3:4), prowling around and feasting, having made a prey of nations, until they are fully ‘heated’ in their pride. Then YHWH will make a feast for them, resulting in more drinking, leading on to drunkenness, as they drank of the cup of YHWH’s wrath (Jer 25:15-28, and note that Sheshach in Jer 51:26 = Babylon). Then in their drunken revelry death would come suddenly to them, and they would sleep a perpetual sleep and not awake. It is no doubt intended ironically that Babylon will drink of her own golden cup (Jer 51:7). We could have no better description of the feast to which Belshazzar called for a thousand of his lords, a feast which ended in death as the city was taken (Daniel 5). Herodotus confirms that on the night of the taking of Babylon the city was engaged in feasting and revelry. Thus the roaring young lions would become as lambs, rams and he-goats to the slaughter.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jer 51:36. Her sea That is to say, her river [Euphrates]
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Jer 51:36 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.
Ver. 36. Behold, I will plead thy cause. ] Not so much verbally as really. Here is a present answer to Israel’s cry.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
dry up. Referring to the act of Cyrus (by Gobryas). Compare Jer 51:31, above.
sea = the river Euphrates. So called from its breadth.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I will plead: See note on Jer 50:33, Jer 50:34, Psa 140:12, Pro 22:23, Pro 23:11, Isa 43:14, Isa 47:6-9, Isa 49:25, Isa 49:26, Mic 7:8-10, Hab 2:8-17
take: Deu 32:35, Deu 32:43, Psa 94:1-3, Rom 12:19, Heb 10:30, Heb 10:31, Rev 19:1-3
and I will: Jer 50:38, Psa 107:33, Isa 44:27, Rev 16:12
Reciprocal: Job 38:16 – the springs Psa 35:1 – Plead Psa 119:154 – Plead Isa 19:5 – General Isa 51:22 – pleadeth Jer 50:15 – for it Jer 51:13 – dwellest Lam 3:58 – thou hast pleaded Eze 30:12 – I will make Eze 31:4 – waters Mic 7:9 – until Zep 3:19 – I will undo
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Jer 51:36. The invasion of Babylon by means of the Euphrates Elver is predicted by the phrase dry up her sea. Strong says the original for sea is sometimes defined as “a large river. By the ingenuity of Cyrus (the Persian commander) the river was rendered powerless as a defence for Babylon.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Jer 51:36-39. Thus saith the Lord, I will plead thy cause This is, as it were, Gods answer to the prayers and imprecations of the Jewish people, mentioned in the two foregoing verses. I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry This some think is spoken figuratively, meaning, I will exhaust her multitudes of people, and dry up all those sources from whence she derived her immense wealth and power. But this was literally fulfilled in Cyruss draining the river, and thereby gaining an entrance into the city. All great waters are called seas in the Hebrew language. And Babylon shall become heaps See note on Jer 50:39-40. They shall roar together like lions, &c. This is either expressive of their grief and anguish of mind, or else the prophet describes the revels and riotous noise which they made upon the night of that public festival in which the city was taken: see below. In their heat I will make their feasts Or, I will supply them with drink, as Blaney renders , observing, that all the ancient versions give the word that sense, and that it agrees with the use of it, Dan 1:8; Dan 1:10; Dan 1:16. And I will make them drunken I will suffer them to give a loose to joy in their feasts, and to be intoxicated with wine: God is frequently said in Scripture to do those things which he permits to be done. Or the words may be taken figuratively, as signifying, While they are feasting I will prepare for them another cup to drink, namely, that of my fury and indignation. History informs us that Babylon was taken at a time when the Babylonians were so engaged in feasting and revelling, and so intoxicated with liquor, that the gates leading down to the river, which used to be shut every night, were left open, which gave a free passage to Cyrus and his army into the city. That they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep That, in the midst of their jollity and security, they may sleep the sleep of death.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
51:36 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy {u} cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.
(u) Thus the Lord esteemed the injury done to his Church as done to himself because their cause is his.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Because of what Babylon had done to Judah, the Lord promised to act as her defense attorney and to get Babylon to pay full damages. He would dry up her broad river, the Euphrates, the source of her agricultural fertility.
"The LORD’s promised victory over ’her sea’ and ’her fountain’ recalls the LORD’s victory over sea at creation and in the Exodus (Exo 15:8; Psa 74:13-14; Psa 89:9-10; Isa 27:1)." [Note: Smothers, p. 371.]
"Many expositors understand these words metaphorically, as referring to the sea of nations surging in Babylon (Jer 51:42; Jer 51:55), and view the treasures and riches as the fountain from which the sea of nations sprang up (Hitzig); but the context demands a literal interpretation, inasmuch as in Jer 51:37 the subject treated of is the laying waste of the country." [Note: Keil, 2:307.]