Jer 50:1 | KD | STEP | The genuineness of this prophecy has been impugned by the newer criticism in different ways; for some quite refuse to allow it as Jeremiah’s, while others consider it a mere interpolation. Hitzig ( Exeg. Handb . 2 Aufl.) considers that this oracle, with its epilogue, , is not to be wholly rejected as spurious, as has been done by Von Cölln and Gramberg; he is so much the less inclined to reject it, because, although there is many an interpolated piece here and there (?), yet no independent oracle has hitherto been found in Jeremiah that is wholly interpolated. "In fact," he continues, "this oracle shows numerous traces of its genuineness, and reasons for maintaining it. The use of particular words ( ; , , , , , ), and the circle of figures employed ( , , ), as well as the style ( , , ), especially in turns like ; the concluding formula, ; the dialogue introduced without any forewarning, , - all unmistakeably reveal Jeremiah; and this result is confirmed by chronological data." These chronological data, which Hitzig then extracts from particular verses, we cannot certainly esteem convincing, since they have been obtained through a method of exegesis which denies the spirit and the essential nature of prophecy; but his remarks concerning Jeremiah’s use of words and his circle of images are perfectly well-founded, and may be considerably corroborated if the matter were more minutely investigated. Notwithstanding all this, Ewald has again repeated, in the second edition of his work on the Prophets, the assertion first made by Eichhorn, that this prophecy is spurious. He does not, indeed, deny that "this long piece against Babylon has many words, turns of expression, and thoughts, nay, even the whole plan, in common with Jeremiah; and since Jeremiah is often accustomed in other places also to repeat himself, this might, at the first look, even create a prepossession favouring the opinion that it was composed by Jeremiah himself. But Jeremiah repeats himself in a more wholesale style, and is not unfaithful to himself in his repetitions: here, however, the Jeremianic element peers through only in single though very numerous passages, and the repeated portions are often completely transformed. What, therefore, appears here as Jeremianic is rather a studied repetition and imitation, which would require here to be all the stronger, when the piece was intended to pass as one of Jeremiah’s writings." Ewald goes on to say that Babylon appears already as directly threatened by Cyrus; and the whole view taken of Babylon as a kingdom utterly degenerated, and unable any longer to escape the final destruction, - the prophetic impetuosity shown in rising up against the Chaldean oppression, - the public summons addressed to all the brethren living in Babylon, that they should flee from the city, now irrecoverably lost, and return to the holy land, - the distinct mention of the Medes and other northern nations as the mortal enemies of Babylon, and of the speedy and certain fall of this city; - all this, says Ewald, is foreign to Jeremiah, nay, even conflicting and impossible. For particular proof of this sweeping verdict, Ewald refers to the name שׁשׁך ( , as in ) for Babylon, לב for כּשׂדּים, , and similar circumlocutions for Chaldean names, Jer 51:21. He refers also to certain words which are quite new, and peculiar only to Ezekiel and later writers: סגן, פּחה, , , ; גּלּוּלים, ; בּדּים as a designation of false prophets, ; also to החרים, to devote with a curse, , ; , which in the rest of Jeremiah occurs only Jer 25:9. Further, he refers to the headings found in and , which are quite different from what Jeremiah himself would have written; and lastly, to the intimate connection subsisting between ; , and Isa 34:6., between and , and between 51:60ff. and Jer 34:16. But all these considerations are much too weak to prove the spuriousness of the passage before us. The connection with Isa 34 quite agrees with Jeremiah’s characteristic tendency to lean on older prophecies, and reproduce the thoughts contained in them (we merely recall the case of the prophecy concerning Moab in Jer 48, against whose genuineness even Ewald has nothing to say); and it can be brought to tell against the genuineness of this oracle only on the groundless supposition that Isa 34 originated in exile times. The headings given in and contain nothing whatever that would be strange in Jeremiah: is not a title at all, but the commencement of the account regarding the charge which Jeremiah gave to Seraiah when he was going to Babylon, with reference to his carrying with him the prophecy concerning Babylon; and the heading in almost exactly agrees with that in (see the exposition). Of the alleged later words, החרים and גּלּוּלים are derived from the Pentateuch, בּדּים from Isa 44:25. סגן and פּחה certainly were not known to the Hebrews till the invasions of Judah by the Assyrians and Chaldeans; but he latter of the two words we find as early as in the address of the Assyrians in , and the former in : thus, not a single one of the words alleged to have been first used by Ezekiel is peculiar to him. Finally, of the circumlocutions used for the names "Babylon" and "Chaldeans," Ewald himself confesses that שׁשׁך in may be Jeremiah's; and he has yet to give proof for the assertion that the names cited are merely circumlocutions in which a play is made on words that did not come into vogue till after Jeremiah’s time. And as little has been even attempted in the way of establishing the opinion he has expressed regarding what is Jeremianic in the prophecy, - that it is a studied repetition and imitation, - or the assertion that Babylon is represented as being directly threatened by Cyrus. In the Old Testament Scriptures, Cyrus is represented as the king of Persia, which he was; but this prophecy says nothing of the Persians. Thus, the learned supplementary matter with which Ewald seeks to support his general assertions is by no means fitted to strengthen his position, but rather shows that the proper argument for rejecting this oracle as spurious is not to be found in the nature of this particular prophecy, but in the axiom openly expressed by Eichhorn, von Cölln, Gramberg, and other followers of the "vulgar rationalism," that Jeremiah could not have announced the destruction of Babylon by the Medes, because at his time the Medes had not yet appeared on the scene of history as a conquering nation; for, according to the principles of rationalism, the prophets could merely prophesy of things which lay within the political horizon. It has not escaped the acute observation of Hitzig, that the genuineness of this prophecy could not be shaken by such general assertions; hence he has adopted Movers’ hypothesis of numerous interpolations, in order thereby to account for the use made of portions of Isaiah, which, on dogmatic grounds, are referred to the exile. But for this assumption also there are wanting proofs that can stand the test. Besides the general assertion that Jeremiah could not have repeated earlier prices word for word, the arguments which Movers and Hitzig bring forward from the context, or from a consideration of the contents, in the case of isolated verses, depend upon false renderings of words, conjectures of a merely subjective character, and misunderstandings of various kinds, which at once fall to the ground when the correct explanation is given. The germ of this prophecy lies in the word of the Lord, , "When seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and make it everlasting desolations;" and its position with regard to the other prophecies of Jeremiah against the nations has already been given in outline in the statement of , "And the king of Sheshach (Babylon) shall drink after them." Just as these utterances ( , ) stand in full accord with the announcement that, in the immediate future, all nations shall be given into the power of the king of Babylon, and serve him seventy years; so, too, the prophecy against Babylon now lying before us not only does not stand in contradiction with the call addressed to Jeremiah, that he should proclaim to his contemporaries the judgment which Babylon is to execute on Judah and all nations, but it rather belongs to the complete solution of the problems connected with this call. The announcement of the fall of Babylon, and the release of Israel from Babylon, form the subject of the prophecy, which is more than a hundred verses in length. This double subject, the two parts of which are so closely connected, is portrayed in a series of images which, nearly throughout, are arranged pretty loosely together, so that it is impossible to summarize the rich and varied contents of these figures, and to sketch a correct plan of the course of thought and of the divisions of the oracle. Hence, too, the views of expositors with regard to the division of the whole into parts or strophes widely differ; we follow the view of Ewald, that the whole falls into three main parts ( , on to , and 51:27-58), every one of which begins with a spirited exhortation to engage in battle. These three main portions again fall into ten periods, of which the first three ( , , and ) form the first main division; the four middle ones form the second main portion ( , to , , and ); while the following three form the last (vv. 27-37, 38-49, and 50-58). We further agree with what Ewald says regarding the contents of the first two parts in general, viz., that in the first the prevailing view is the necessity for the deliverance of Israel, and that in the second, the antithesis between Babylon on the one hand, and Jahveh together with Israel, His spiritual instrument, on the other, is fully brought out; but we do not agree with his remark concerning the third part, that there the prevailing feature is the detailed description of the condition of Israel at that time, for this does not at all agree with the contents of 51:27-58. Rather, the address rises into a triumphant description of the fall of Babylon, in which the Lord will show Himself as the avenger of His people. On the whole, then, the prophecy is neither wanting in arrangement nor in that necessary progress in the development of thought which proves unity of conception and execution. The title, "The word which Jahveh spake concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet," follows in choosing אשׁר דּ instead of the usual אשׁר היה, and deviates from that passage only in substituting "by the hand of Jeremiah" for "to Jeremiah," as in Jer 37:2. The preference of the expression "spake by the hand of" for "spake to," is connected with the fact that the following prophecy does not contain a message of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, that he might utter it before the people, but a message which he was to write down and send to Babylon, Jer 51:60. The apposition to "Babylon," viz., "the land of the Chaldeans," serves the purpose of more exactly declaring that "Babylon" is to be understood not merely of the capital, but also of the kingdom; cf. , , and 51, 54.

‏ Jeremiah 50:1

Against Babylon - Jeremiah 50-51

The genuineness of this prophecy has been impugned by the newer criticism in different ways; for some quite refuse to allow it as Jeremiah’s, while others consider it a mere interpolation. ^{▼▼With regard to the special attacks and their refutation, see details on Keil’s Manual of Introduction to the Old Testament translated by Prof. Douglas, in Clark’s F.T.L. vol. i. p. 342ff.. To the list there given of the defenders of this prophecy (of whom Kueper, Hävernick, and Nägelsbach in the monograph entitled der Prophet Jeremias und Babylon, 1850, have thoroughly discussed the question), we must add the name of Graf, who, in the remarks prefixed to his commentary on Jer 50f., has thoroughly examined the arguments of his opponents, and reached this result: "The prophecy contains nothing which Jeremiah could not have written in the fourth year of Zedekiah; and the style of writing itself exhibits all the peculiarities which present themselves in his book. This prophecy is therefore as much his work as the prophecies against the other foreign nations." Only the passage Jer 51:15-19, a repetition of Jer 10:12-16, is said to proceed from another hand, because it stands out of all connection with what precedes and what follows it (but see the exposition); while he has so fully vindicated, as genuine portions of the prophecy, other passages which had been assumed as interpolations, even by Nägelsbach in his monograph, that the latter, in treating of Jeremiah in Lange’s Bibelwerk see Clark’s Translation, p. 419, has renounced his former doubts, and now declares that it is only the passage in Jer 51:15-19 that he cannot regard as original.}

Hitzig (Exeg. Handb. 2 Aufl.) considers that this oracle, with its epilogue, Jer 51:59-64, is not to be wholly rejected as spurious, as has been done by Von Cölln and Gramberg; he is so much the less inclined to reject it, because, although there is many an interpolated piece here and there (?), yet no independent oracle has hitherto been found in Jeremiah that is wholly interpolated. "In fact," he continues, "this oracle shows numerous traces of its genuineness, and reasons for maintaining it. The use of particular words (Jer 50:6; Jer 51:1, Jer 51:5,Jer 51:7, Jer 51:14, Jer 51:45, Jer 51:55), and the circle of figures employed (Jer 51:7-8, Jer 51:34, Jer 51:37), as well as the style (Jer 50:2-3, Jer 50:7-8, Jer 50:10), especially in turns like Jer 51:2; the concluding formula, Jer 51:57; the dialogue introduced without any forewarning, Jer 51:51, - all unmistakeably reveal Jeremiah; and this result is confirmed by chronological data." These chronological data, which Hitzig then extracts from particular verses, we cannot certainly esteem convincing, since they have been obtained through a method of exegesis which denies the spirit and the essential nature of prophecy; but his remarks concerning Jeremiah’s use of words and his circle of images are perfectly well-founded, and may be considerably corroborated if the matter were more minutely investigated. Notwithstanding all this, Ewald has again repeated, in the second edition of his work on the Prophets, the assertion first made by Eichhorn, that this prophecy is spurious. He does not, indeed, deny that "this long piece against Babylon has many words, turns of expression, and thoughts, nay, even the whole plan, in common with Jeremiah; and since Jeremiah is often accustomed in other places also to repeat himself, this might, at the first look, even create a prepossession favouring the opinion that it was composed by Jeremiah himself. But Jeremiah repeats himself in a more wholesale style, and is not unfaithful to himself in his repetitions: here, however, the Jeremianic element peers through only in single though very numerous passages, and the repeated portions are often completely transformed. What, therefore, appears here as Jeremianic is rather a studied repetition and imitation, which would require here to be all the stronger, when the piece was intended to pass as one of Jeremiah’s writings." Ewald goes on to say that Babylon appears already as directly threatened by Cyrus; and the whole view taken of Babylon as a kingdom utterly degenerated, and unable any longer to escape the final destruction, - the prophetic impetuosity shown in rising up against the Chaldean oppression, - the public summons addressed to all the brethren living in Babylon, that they should flee from the city, now irrecoverably lost, and return to the holy land, - the distinct mention of the Medes and other northern nations as the mortal enemies of Babylon, and of the speedy and certain fall of this city; - all this, says Ewald, is foreign to Jeremiah, nay, even conflicting and impossible. For particular proof of this sweeping verdict, Ewald refers to the name שׁשׁך (Jer 51:41, as in Jer 25:26) for Babylon, לב for כּשׂדּים, Jer 51:1, and similar circumlocutions for Chaldean names, Jer 51:21. He refers also to certain words which are quite new, and peculiar only to Ezekiel and later writers: סגן, פּחה, Jer 51:23, Jer 51:25, Jer 51:27; גּלּוּלים, Jer 50:2; בּדּים as a designation of false prophets, Jer 50:36; also to החרים, to devote with a curse, Jer 50:21, Jer 50:26; Jer 51:3, which in the rest of Jeremiah occurs only Jer 25:9. Further, he refers to the headings found in Jer 50:1 and Jer 51:59, which are quite different from what Jeremiah himself would have written; and lastly, to the intimate connection subsisting between Jer 50:27; Jer 51:40, and Isa 34:6., between Jer 50:39 and Isa 34:14, and between 51:60ff. and Jer 34:16.

But all these considerations are much too weak to prove the spuriousness of the passage before us. The connection with Isa 34 quite agrees with Jeremiah’s characteristic tendency to lean on older prophecies, and reproduce the thoughts contained in them (we merely recall the case of the prophecy concerning Moab in Jer 48, against whose genuineness even Ewald has nothing to say); and it can be brought to tell against the genuineness of this oracle only on the groundless supposition that Isa 34 originated in exile times. The headings given in Jer 50:1 and Jer 51:59 contain nothing whatever that would be strange in Jeremiah: Jer 51:59 is not a title at all, but the commencement of the account regarding the charge which Jeremiah gave to Seraiah when he was going to Babylon, with reference to his carrying with him the prophecy concerning Babylon; and the heading in Jer 50:1 almost exactly agrees with that in Jer 46:13 (see the exposition). Of the alleged later words, החרים and גּלּוּלים are derived from the Pentateuch, בּדּים from Isa 44:25. סגן and פּחה certainly were not known to the Hebrews till the invasions of Judah by the Assyrians and Chaldeans; but he latter of the two words we find as early as in the address of the Assyrians in Isa 36:9, and the former in Isa 41:25 : thus, not a single one of the words alleged to have been first used by Ezekiel is peculiar to him. Finally, of the circumlocutions used for the names "Babylon" and "Chaldeans," Ewald himself confesses that שׁשׁך in Jer 25:26 may be Jeremiah's; and he has yet to give proof for the assertion that the names cited are merely circumlocutions in which a play is made on words that did not come into vogue till after Jeremiah’s time. And as little has been even attempted in the way of establishing the opinion he has expressed regarding what is Jeremianic in the prophecy, - that it is a studied repetition and imitation, - or the assertion that Babylon is represented as being directly threatened by Cyrus. In the Old Testament Scriptures, Cyrus is represented as the king of Persia, which he was; but this prophecy says nothing of the Persians. Thus, the learned supplementary matter with which Ewald seeks to support his general assertions is by no means fitted to strengthen his position, but rather shows that the proper argument for rejecting this oracle as spurious is not to be found in the nature of this particular prophecy, but in the axiom openly expressed by Eichhorn, von Cölln, Gramberg, and other followers of the "vulgar rationalism," that Jeremiah could not have announced the destruction of Babylon by the Medes, because at his time the Medes had not yet appeared on the scene of history as a conquering nation; for, according to the principles of rationalism, the prophets could merely prophesy of things which lay within the political horizon. It has not escaped the acute observation of Hitzig, that the genuineness of this prophecy could not be shaken by such general assertions; hence he has adopted Movers’ hypothesis of numerous interpolations, in order thereby to account for the use made of portions of Isaiah, which, on dogmatic grounds, are referred to the exile. But for this assumption also there are wanting proofs that can stand the test. Besides the general assertion that Jeremiah could not have repeated earlier prices word for word, the arguments which Movers and Hitzig bring forward from the context, or from a consideration of the contents, in the case of isolated verses, depend upon false renderings of words, conjectures of a merely subjective character, and misunderstandings of various kinds, which at once fall to the ground when the correct explanation is given.

The germ of this prophecy lies in the word of the Lord, Jer 25:12, "When seventy years are completed, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans, and make it everlasting desolations;" and its position with regard to the other prophecies of Jeremiah against the nations has already been given in outline in the statement of Jer 25:26, "And the king of Sheshach (Babylon) shall drink after them." Just as these utterances (Jer 25:12, Jer 25:26) stand in full accord with the announcement that, in the immediate future, all nations shall be given into the power of the king of Babylon, and serve him seventy years; so, too, the prophecy against Babylon now lying before us not only does not stand in contradiction with the call addressed to Jeremiah, that he should proclaim to his contemporaries the judgment which Babylon is to execute on Judah and all nations, but it rather belongs to the complete solution of the problems connected with this call. The announcement of the fall of Babylon, and the release of Israel from Babylon, form the subject of the prophecy, which is more than a hundred verses in length. This double subject, the two parts of which are so closely connected, is portrayed in a series of images which, nearly throughout, are arranged pretty loosely together, so that it is impossible to summarize the rich and varied contents of these figures, and to sketch a correct plan of the course of thought and of the divisions of the oracle. Hence, too, the views of expositors with regard to the division of the whole into parts or strophes widely differ; ^{▼▼Thus, according to Eichhorn, Dahler, and Rosenmüller, the whole consists of several pieces (three or six) which originally belonged to different periods; according to Schmieder, it consists of "seven different poems of songs, all having the same subject, which, however, they set forth from different sides, and under countless images." Nägelsbach at first assumed that there were three main divisions, with thirteen subdivisions; afterwards, in Lange’s Bibelwerk see Clark’s Foreign Theol. Library, he thinks he is able also to distinguish three stages of time, which, however, do not permit of being sharply defined, so that he continues to divide the whole prophecy into nineteen separate views or figures.} we follow the view of Ewald, that the whole falls into three main parts (Jer 50:2-28, Jer 50:29 on to Jer 51:26, and 51:27-58), every one of which begins with a spirited exhortation to engage in battle. These three main portions again fall into ten periods, of which the first three (Jer 50:2-10, Jer 50:11-20, and Jer 50:21-28) form the first main division; the four middle ones form the second main portion (Jer 50:29-40, Jer 50:41 to Jer 51:4, Jer 51:5-14, and Jer 51:15-26); while the following three form the last (vv. 27-37, 38-49, and 50-58). We further agree with what Ewald says regarding the contents of the first two parts in general, viz., that in the first the prevailing view is the necessity for the deliverance of Israel, and that in the second, the antithesis between Babylon on the one hand, and Jahveh together with Israel, His spiritual instrument, on the other, is fully brought out; but we do not agree with his remark concerning the third part, that there the prevailing feature is the detailed description of the condition of Israel at that time, for this does not at all agree with the contents of 51:27-58. Rather, the address rises into a triumphant description of the fall of Babylon, in which the Lord will show Himself as the avenger of His people. On the whole, then, the prophecy is neither wanting in arrangement nor in that necessary progress in the development of thought which proves unity of conception and execution.

Jer 50:1 The title, "The word which Jahveh spake concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet," follows Jer 46:13 in choosing אשׁר דּ instead of the usual אשׁר היה, and deviates from that passage only in substituting "by the hand of Jeremiah" for "to Jeremiah," as in Jer 37:2. The preference of the expression "spake by the hand of" for "spake to," is connected with the fact that the following prophecy does not contain a message of the Lord which came to Jeremiah, that he might utter it before the people, but a message which he was to write down and send to Babylon, Jer 51:60. The apposition to "Babylon," viz., "the land of the Chaldeans," serves the purpose of more exactly declaring that "Babylon" is to be understood not merely of the capital, but also of the kingdom; cf. Jer 50:8, Jer 50:45, and 51, 54.