Jeremiah 51:33-48: a reflection

33For the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel says: “The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor at the time when it is trodden. Yet a little while, and the time of harvest comes for her.” 34“Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon has devoured me. He has crushed me. He has made me an empty vessel. He has, like a monster, swallowed me up. He has filled his mouth with my delicacies. He has cast me out. 35May the violence done to me and to my flesh be on Babylon!” the inhabitant of Zion will say; and, “May my blood be on the inhabitants of Chaldea!” will Jerusalem say. 36Therefore the LORD says: “Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry. 37Babylon will become heaps, a dwelling place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant. 38They will roar together like young lions. They will growl as lions’ cubs. 39When they are inflamed, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunk, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake up,” says the LORD. 40“I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with male goats. 41“How Sheshach is taken! How the praise of the whole earth is seized! How Babylon has become a desolation among the nations! 42The sea has come up on Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of its waves. 43Her cities have become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land in which no man dwells. No son of man passes by it. 44I will execute judgment on Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up. The nations will not flow any more to him. Yes, the wall of Babylon will fall. 45“My people, go away from the middle of her, and each of you save yourselves from the LORD’s fierce anger. 46Don’t let your heart faint. Don’t fear for the news that will be heard in the land. For news will come one year, and after that in another year news will come, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. 47Therefore behold, the days come that I will execute judgment on the engraved images of Babylon; and her whole land will be confounded. All her slain will fall in the middle of her. 48Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, will sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers will come to her from the north,” says the LORD.

This is an oracle against Babylon, which had crushed God's people. And into it comes a promise to those who had been so cruelly treated. The inhabitant of Zion cries out about the violence done to her; and God answers: Behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you. To his wronged and crushed people, God promises to take up their cause himself, to plead it, and to right the wrong done to them. He will be their advocate and their avenger.

Notice what God promises to his wronged people: I will plead your cause. They had been crushed, treated with violence, wronged by a power they could not resist; and God does not tell them to avenge themselves, but promises to take up their cause himself. He will plead it, defend it, and set the wrong right in his own time. The God who sees the wrongs done to his people takes them up as his own cause, and will surely act.

That is a comfort when we have been wronged and cannot right the wrong ourselves. There are wrongs done to us that we are powerless to redress, injustices we cannot answer, harms we cannot undo. And we can be consumed with the desire to avenge ourselves, or with despair that the wrong will never be righted. But God says to his wronged people, I will plead your cause. When you have been wronged and cannot right it, do not take vengeance into your own hands, nor despair that justice will never come. Entrust your cause to God, who takes up the wrongs done to his people as his own, and promises to plead them and set them right in his time. He is your advocate and your avenger; commit your cause to him, who will surely plead it, and leave the righting of the wrong to the God who has taken it up as his own.

Lord, in this oracle against Babylon, which had crushed your people, you promised to your wronged and crushed people: behold, I will plead your cause, and take vengeance for you; you would take up their cause yourself, as their advocate and avenger. Comfort me with that when I have been wronged and cannot right the wrong myself. There are wrongs done to me that I am powerless to redress, injustices I cannot answer, harms I cannot undo. And I can be consumed with the desire to avenge myself, or with despair that the wrong will never be righted. But you say to your wronged people, I will plead your cause. When I have been wronged and cannot right it, keep me from taking vengeance into my own hands, or despairing that justice will never come. Help me entrust my cause to you, who take up the wrongs done to your people as your own, and promise to plead them and set them right in your time. You are my advocate and my avenger; help me commit my cause to you, and leave the righting of the wrong to you, who have taken it up as your own.