Yeremia 50:13

50:13 After I vent my wrath on it Babylon will be uninhabited. ¹ 

It will be totally desolate.

All who pass by will be filled with horror and will hiss out their scorn

because of all the disasters that have happened to it. ² 

Yesaya 21:1

The Lord Will Judge Babylon

21:1 Here is a message about the Desert by the Sea: ³ 

Like strong winds blowing in the south, ⁴ 

one invades from the desert,

from a land that is feared.

Yeremia 25:12

25:12 “‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation ⁵  for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon ⁶  an everlasting ruin. ⁷  I, the Lord, affirm it! ⁸ 

Yeremia 51:26

51:26 No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone.

No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house.

For you will lie desolate forever,” ⁹ 

says the Lord. ¹⁰ 

[50:13]  ¹ tn Heb “From [or Because of] the wrath of the Lord it will be uninhabited.” The causal connection is spelled out more clearly and actively and the first person has been used because the speaker is the Lord. The referent “it” has been spelled out clearly from the later occurrence in the verse, “all who pass by Babylon.”

[50:13]  ² sn Compare Jer 49:17 and the study note there and see also the study notes on 18:16 and 19:8.

[21:1]  ³ sn The phrase is quite cryptic, at least to the modern reader. Verse 9 seems to indicate that this message pertains to Babylon. Southern Mesopotamia was known as the Sealand in ancient times, because of its proximity to the Persian Gulf. Perhaps the reference to Babylon as a “desert” foreshadows the destruction that would overtake the city, making it like a desolate desert.

[21:1]  ⁴ tn Or “in the Negev” (NASB).

[25:12]  ⁵ tn Heb “that nation.”

[25:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “the land of the Chaldeans.” See the study note on 21:4 for the use of the term “Chaldeans.”

[25:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “I will visit upon the king of Babylon and upon that nation, oracle of the Lord, their iniquity even upon the land of the Chaldeans and I will make it everlasting ruins.” The sentence has been restructured to avoid ambiguity and to conform the style more to contemporary English.

[25:12]  sn Compare Isa 13:19-22 and Jer 50:39-40.

[25:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[51:26]  ⁹ tn This is a fairly literal translation of the original which reads “No one will take from you a stone for a cornerstone nor a stone for foundations.” There is no unanimity of opinion in the commentaries, many feeling that the figure of the burned mountain continues and others feeling that the figure here shifts to a burned city whose stones are so burned that they are useless to be used in building. The latter is the interpretation adopted here (see, e.g., F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 423; W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:426; NCV).

[51:26]  sn The figure here shifts to that of a burned-up city whose stones cannot be used for building. Babylon will become a permanent heap of ruins.

[51:26]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”