Jeremiah 50:24

I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(24) I have laid a snare for thee.—The two captures of Babylon by Cyrus and Darius both answered to this description. Cyrus turned aside the waters of the Euphrates into another channel, and entered by the river-bed, so that the city was taken before those who lived in the middle of the city knew that it was attacked (Herod. i. 191). In the latter case the gates were opened to Darius by the treachery of the Babylonian general Zopyrus (Herod. iii. 158). (Comp. Daniel 5:30; Isaiah 45:1.) In Jeremiah 51:31-32 we have the same fact more vividly described.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

50:21-32 The forces are mustered and empowered to destroy Babylon. Let them do what God demands, and they shall bring to pass what he threatens. The pride of men's hearts sets God against them, and ripens them apace for ruin. Babylon's pride must be her ruin; she has been proud against the Holy One of Israel; who can keep those up whom God will throw down?

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I have laid a snare for thee - Babylon, the impregnable, was taken (according to Herodotus) by Cyrus by stratagem. Having diverted the waters of the Euphrates, he entered the city by the river channel: but see Daniel 5:1 note.

And thou wast not aware - Better literally, and thou didst not know it.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

24. I—Thou hast to do with God, not merely with men.

taken … not aware—Herodotus relates that one half of the city was taken before those in the other half were "aware" of it. Cyrus turned the waters of the Euphrates where it was defended into a different channel, and so entered the city by the dried-up channel at night, by the upper and lower gates (Da 5:30, 31).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We are told that Cyrus with his great army diverted the river Euphrates, so as his army passed over and surprised the city so suddenly, that those in the midst of it did not know it when part of the city was already taken. God directed Cyrus to this stratagem for the taking of the city, which the prophet calls a

snare, wherein the Babylonians were taken. The reason of this unexpected ruin to this great people was their sinning against the Lord, Jeremiah 50:14, which is here called a striving against him, as indeed all sin is.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon,.... Retorting to the stratagem that Cyrus used, in draining the river Euphrates, and marching his army up through it into the midst of the city of Babylon, and took it by surprise, while the inhabitants at night were feasting and revelling: this is said to be a snare laid by the Lord, because it was according to the counsel of his will, and through his directing and overruling providence:

and thou wast not aware; of what the enemy had done, of his march into the city, and taking of it; for, as Herodotus and Aristotle report, one part of the city was seized and taken before the other knew anything of it:

thou art found, and also caught; as wild beasts in a net, or birds in a snare. The Targum is,

"thy sins are sought, and are found, and also thou art taken:''

because thou hast striven against the Lord; as persons litigate a point with each other in courts of judicature, or as warriors strive against each other in battle; she sinned against the Lord, and offended him, not only by her idolatry and luxury, but by her oppression of his people, and profaning the vessels of his house; as Belshazzar did, the night Babylon was taken. The Targum is,

"for with the people of the Lord thou hast strove.''

Geneva Study Bible

I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 24. - I have laid a snare for thee. It was very natural, as long as Cyrus's own account of the capture of Babylon was unknown, to refer for a fulfilment to the stratagem which, as Herodotus relates, that king employed, viz. diverting the waters of the Euphrates into an already existing reservoir, and entering the city unexpectedly by the river channel (Herod., 1:191). But the cylinder inscription, translated by Sir H. Rawlinson in 1880, shows that Babylon opened its gates of its own accord, on hearing the defeat and capture of Nabonidus. There is no occasion to look for any further fulfilment of the prophecy than the surprise which must ever come upon the bystander when he sees a mighty empire suddenly pass into the hands of its enemies. The tenses in this verse are not very happily rendered. It would be better to translate, I laid a snare for thee, and thou wast taken, O Babylon, unawares; thou wast found, etc., because thou hadst striven against the Lord. Jeremiah 50:24

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This annihilation will come unexpectedly. As the bird by the snare of the fowler, so shall Babylon be laid hold of by Jahveh, because it has striven against Him. The Lord lays the snare for it, that it may be caught. יקושׁ, "to lay snares;" cf. Psalm 141:9, where פּח is also found. ולא , "and thou didst not perceive," i.e., didst not mark it: this is a paraphrase of the idea "unexpectedly," suddenly; cf. Jeremiah 51:8; Isaiah 47:11. This has been literally fulfilled on Babylon. According to Herodotus (i. 191), Cyrus took Babylon by diverting the Euphrates into a trench he had dug. By this stratagem the Persians threw themselves so unexpectedly on the Babylonians (ἐξ ἀπροσδοκήτου σφι παρέστησαν οἱ Πέρσαι), that when the outmost portions of the city had been already seized, those who lived in the middle had not observed at all that they were captured (τοὺς τὸ μέσον οἰκέοντας ου ̓ μανθάνειν ἑαλωκότας). Similarly, when the city was taken under Darius Hystaspes, they were surprised that Zopyrus traitorously opened the gates to the besiegers (Herodotus, iii. 158). Babylon has contended against Jahveh, because, in its pride, it refused to let the people of God depart; cf. Jeremiah 50:29 and Jeremiah 50:33. In Jeremiah 50:25 the sudden devastation of Babylon is accounted for. Jahveh opens His armoury, and brings out the instruments of His wrath, in order to execute His work on the land of the Chaldeans. אוצר, "magazine, treasure-chamber," is here applied to an armoury. The "instruments of His wrath" are, in Isaiah 13:5, the nations which execute the judgment of god-here, the instruments of war and weapons with which Jahveh Himself marches into battle against Babylon. On 'מלאכה וגו, cf. Jeremiah 48:10. The business which the Lord has there regards the chastisement of Babylon for its insolence. For the transaction of this business He summons His servants, Jeremiah 50:26. באוּ־להּ, as in Jeremiah 46:22; Jeremiah 49:9, is substantially the same as באוּ עליה, Jeremiah 49:14; Jeremiah 48:8. מקּץ, "from the end," or from the last hitherwards, the same as מקּצה, Jeremiah 51:31, i.e., all together on to the last; cf. Genesis 19:4; Genesis 47:2, etc. "Open her (Babylon's) barns" or granaries; "heap it up (viz., what was in the granaries) like heaps" of grain or sheaves, "and devote it to destruction," i.e., consume it with fire, because things on which the curse was imposed must be burnt; cf. Joshua 11:12 and Joshua 11:13. All the property found in Babylon is to be collected in heaps, and then burnt with the city. The use of the image is occasioned by the granaries. מאבסיה is ἅπ. λεγ., from אבס, to give fodder to cattle, - properly a stall for fodder, then a barn, granary. ערמה is a heap of grain (Sol 7:3), sheaves (Ruth 3:7), also of rubbish (Nehemiah 3:34). As Jeremiah 50:26 declares what is to be done with goods and chattels, so does Jeremiah 50:27 state what is to be done with the population. The figure employed in Jeremiah 50:26 is followed by the representation of the people as oxen destined for slaughter; in this Jeremiah had in his mind the prophecy found in Isaiah 34, in which the judgment to come on Edom is depicted as a slaughter of lambs, rams, and he-goats: the people of Edom are thus compared to cattle that may be offered in sacrifice. This figure also forms the basis of the expression ירד לטּבח in Jeremiah 48:15, where this style of speaking is used with regard to the youths or the young troops; cf. also Jeremiah 51:40. The פּרים, accordingly, designate not merely the chief among the people, or the men of rank, but represent the whole human population. In the last clause ("for their day is come," etc.), there is a transition in the discourse from the figure to the real subject itself. The suffix in עליהם does not refer to the oxen, but to the men over whose murder there is an exclamation of woe. In like manner, "their day" means the day of judgment for men, viz., the time of their visitation with punishment; see on Jeremiah 46:21. Fugitives and escaped ones will bring to Zion, and proclaim the news of the execution of this fearful judgment, that the Lord has fulfilled the vengeance of His temple, i.e., avenged on Babylon the burning of His temple by the Chaldeans. The fugitives and escaped ones are the Israelites, who were summoned to flee from Babylon, Jeremiah 50:3. On "the vengeance of Jahveh," cf. Jeremiah 50:15 and Jeremiah 51:11.