Jeremiah 50:27

Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(27) Slay all her bullocks.—The words are probably to be taken figuratively of the captains and men of war of Babylon, as in Psalm 22:12; Isaiah 34:7; Jeremiah 48:15 (see Note), and Jeremiah 51:40.

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

Her bullocks - Her strong youths.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

27. bullocks—that is, princes and strong warriors (Jer 46:21; Ps 22:12; Isa 34:7).

go down to … slaughter—The slaughterhouses lay low beside the river; therefore it is said, "go down"; appropriate to Babylon on the Euphrates, the avenue through which the slaughterers entered the city.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

By

bullocks in this place interpreters generally understand the great and rich men of Babylon.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Slay all her bullocks,.... Or, "all her mighty ones", as the Targum and Vulgate Latin version; her princes and great men, as Jarchi, Kimchi, and Abarbinel; compared to bullocks for their strength, fatness, and fierceness; see Psalm 22:12; this may well be applied to the slaughter of kings, captains, and mighty men, at the battle of Armageddon, Revelation 19:18;

let them go down to the slaughter; to the place slaughter, as oxen do, insensible, and whether they will or not:

woe unto them, for their day is come, the time of their visitation; the time of their destruction, of visiting or punishing them for their sins, appointed by the Lord, which they could not pass; and so a woeful and dreadful time to them.

Geneva Study Bible

Slay all her {x} bulls; let them go down to the slaughter: woe to them! for their day is come, the time of their judgment.

(x) Her princes and mighty men.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

27. her bullocks] her choice youths, the flower of her army. Cp. for the figure Isaiah 34:7. For the expression “go down to the slaughter” cp. Jeremiah 48:15, and for “the time of their visitation” Jeremiah 46:21.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 27. - In this verse we are told that the kherem, i.e. the Divine ban, falls upon the entire male population, as in the holy wars of Joshua (Joshua 6:21; Joshua 11:11, 20). All her bullocks. As in Jeremiah 51:40 and Isaiah 34:6, the doomed people is likened to sacrificial victims (comp. Jeremiah 46:10). The same fact is described without figure in Jeremiah 48:15. Go down to the slaughter; i.e. be forced down to the slaughtering trough. Jeremiah 50:27

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.