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Context No. 1718 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Context · Reflection

Jeremiah 51:58-64: in context

58The LORD of Armies says: “The wide walls of Babylon will be utterly overthrown. Her high gates will be burned with fire. The peoples will labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they will be weary.” 59The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief quartermaster. 60Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come on Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon. 61Jeremiah said to Seraiah, “When you come to Babylon, then see that you read all these words, 62and say, ‘LORD, you have spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that no one will dwell in it, neither man nor animal, but that it will be desolate forever.’ 63It will be, when you have finished reading this book, that you shall bind a stone to it, and cast it into the middle of the Euphrates. 64Then you shall say, ‘Thus will Babylon sink, and will not rise again because of the evil that I will bring on her; and they will be weary.’” Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah pronounces the fall of Babylon, the broad walls thrown down, the high gates burned. Then he enacts a sign. He writes all the evil to come upon Babylon in a book, and gives it to Seraiah, who is going to Babylon, with instructions: read all these words aloud there; then tie a stone to the book and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates, and say, thus Babylon will sink, and will not rise again, because of the evil I will bring on her. So the word against the great city is sunk in the river like a stone.

The enacted sign is a picture of certainty. Babylon was the great power of the age, its walls broad, its gates high, its empire vast; to all appearances it was permanent, invincible, the fixed center of the world. And Jeremiah's sign declares that this seemingly unshakable power would sink like a stone in the river and not rise again. The book weighted with a stone, cast into the Euphrates and vanishing beneath the water, was a acted-out prophecy: so shall Babylon sink, gone, not to rise. There is a truth here that outlasts Babylon, for oppressive and God-defying power always looks permanent while it stands. The great structures of injustice and pride in any age, the empires, the systems, the powers that crush and mock and seem beyond challenge, present themselves as fixed and eternal, too big to fall. But God's word against them is sure. What looks invincible will, at God's word, sink like a stone; the broad walls and high gates are no defense against the judgment of God. This is not a comfort that invites us to gloat, but one that steadies those who suffer under such power and those who fear it will never end. The Babylon that seems permanent is not; God has spoken against it, and his word will not fail. What is proud and oppressive and set against God may tower for a time, but its end is written, and like the book in the Euphrates, it will sink and not rise. God's word outlasts the empires that defy him.

When some proud and oppressive power seems permanent and invincible, too big ever to fall, can I hold to the certainty of this sign, that God's word against it is sure, and that what defies God and crushes his people, however towering it looks, will in his time sink like a stone and not rise again?

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