Context No. 2647 of 4322 · Jeremiah

Jeremiah 51:49-57: in context

49“As Babylon has caused the slain of Israel to fall, so the slain of all the land will fall at Babylon. 50You who have escaped the sword, go! Don’t stand still! Remember the LORD from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.” 51“We are confounded because we have heard reproach. Confusion has covered our faces, for strangers have come into the sanctuaries of the LORD’s house.” 52“Therefore behold, the days come,” says the LORD, “that I will execute judgment on her engraved images; and through all her land the wounded will groan. 53Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet destroyers will come to her from me,” says the LORD. 54“The sound of a cry comes from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans! 55For the LORD lays Babylon waste, and destroys out of her the great voice! Their waves roar like many waters. The noise of their voice is uttered. 56For the destroyer has come on her, even on Babylon. Her mighty men are taken. Their bows are broken in pieces, for the LORD is a God of retribution. He will surely repay. 57I will make her princes, her wise men, her governors, her deputies, and her mighty men drunk. They will sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the King, whose name is the LORD of Armies.

Jeremiah announces the fall of Babylon, the seemingly invincible empire. Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, he says, and fortify her strongholds to the heights, destroyers will still come to her from me. The city that had ground down the nations will herself be laid waste, for the LORD is a God of recompense; he will surely repay. No height of fortification will put her beyond his reach.

The line to hold is: though Babylon should mount up to heaven, destroyers will come to her from me. Babylon trusted its walls, its height, its apparent invincibility. And the word is that no elevation, no fortress, no accumulated defense, places anyone beyond God's reckoning. We build our own kinds of heights, defenses of wealth, status, security, reputation, and can come to feel untouchable, beyond accountability, safe behind what we have amassed. Babylon felt exactly that. The God of recompense reaches every height. The fortress that makes a person feel beyond judgment is precisely the illusion this word dismantles.

Am I trusting in some height, of wealth, status, or security, as if it placed me beyond accountability to God, the way Babylon trusted her walls?

Sources

Jeremiah 51:53: Though Babylon should mount up to the sky, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet destroyers will come to her from me, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 51:56: for the LORD is a God of retribution. He will surely repay.
Obadiah 1:4: Though you mount on high as the eagle, and though your nest is set among the stars, I will bring you down from there, says the LORD.