Jeremiah 51:36

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(36) I will dry up her sea . . .—The nouns have been variously interpreted, some commentators referring it to the “sea” of confluent nations, and finding the wealth of Babylon in the “springs” that fed its greatness; others to the Euphrates, or to the sea-like alluvial plain, intersected by canals and streams in which the city stood, often flooded by the river, so that it became as an actual sea (Herod. i. 184), or specially to the large lake described in the Note on Jeremiah 51:32. So in Isaiah 21:1 Babylon is described as “the desert of the sea.” The Hebrew word for “springs” is in the singular, her reservoir. Probably the literal and figurative meanings run into one another, and the “drying up” describes the exhaustion of the power of which the “sea” was the symbol. In Revelation 16:12 we have apparently an allusive reference to the language of this prediction.

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 51:36-39. Thus saith the Lord, I will plead thy cause — This is, as it were, God’s answer to the prayers and imprecations of the Jewish people, mentioned in the two foregoing verses. I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry — This some think is spoken figuratively, meaning, I will exhaust her multitudes of people, and dry up all those sources from whence she derived her immense wealth and power. But this was literally fulfilled in Cyrus’s draining the river, and thereby gaining an entrance into the city. All great waters are called seas in the Hebrew language. And Babylon shall become heaps — See note on Jeremiah 50:39-40. They shall roar together like lions, &c. — This is either expressive of their grief and anguish of mind, or else the prophet describes the revels and riotous noise which they made upon the night of that public festival in which the city was taken: see below. In their heat I will make their feasts — Or, I will supply them with drink, as Blaney renders משׁתיהם, observing, that all the ancient versions give the word that sense, and that it agrees with the use of it, Daniel 1:8; Daniel 1:10; Daniel 1:16. And I will make them drunken — I will suffer them to give a loose to joy in their feasts, and to be intoxicated with wine: God is frequently said in Scripture to do those things which he permits to be done. Or the words may be taken figuratively, as signifying, While they are feasting I will prepare for them another cup to drink, namely, that of my fury and indignation. History informs us that Babylon was taken at a time when the Babylonians were so engaged in feasting and revelling, and so intoxicated with liquor, that the gates leading down to the river, which used to be shut every night, were left open, which gave a free passage to Cyrus and his army into the city. That they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep — That, in the midst of their jollity and security, they may sleep the sleep of death.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

51:1-58 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Re 18:9,19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord. Then will the lost sheep of the house of Israel be brought back to the fold of the good Shepherd, and stray no more. And the exact fulfilment of these ancient prophecies encourages us to faith in all the promises and prophecies of the sacred Scriptures.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Her sea - Probably the great lake dug by Nitocris to receive the waters of the Euphrates.

Her springs - Her reservoir; the whole system of canals dug Jeremiah 51:13. The wealth of Babylonia depended upon irrigation.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

36. plead … cause—(Jer 50:34).

sea—the Euphrates (Jer 51:13; Jer 50:38). Compare Isa 19:5, "sea," that is, the Nile (Isa 21:1).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Men had need take heed how they give cause of appeals to God against them, especially the appeals of such as are a people that have a covenant relation to God. God in those cases ordinarily showeth himself a swift witness and judge, and gives a speedy judgment in such causes.

Behold, saith God,

I will plead thy cause, not with words, but actually with my judicial dispensations, therefore it is expounded by taking vengeance. The vengeance which God threateneth is expressed metaphorically under the notion of

drying up her sea, and making her springs dry, which signifies the depriving her of all necessaries, not only of the abundance of her men, riches, treasures, but of her springs. Thus I had rather expound it, than as referring to the particular stratagem by which Cyrus took Babylon, viz, by drying up in some measure the river Euphrates, that is, turning it into other channels.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Therefore thus saith the Lord,.... In answer to the prayers of the inhabitants of Zion and Jerusalem, imprecating divine vengeance on Babylon:

behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; not by words only, but by deeds, inflicting punishment on their enemies:

and I will dry up her sea; the confluence of waters about Babylon; the river Euphrates, the channel of which was drained by Cyrus, by which means he took the city; and this may figuratively design the abundance of riches and affluence of good things in Babylon, which should now be taken from her:

and make her springs dry; deprive her of all the necessaries of life; and stop up all the avenues by which she was supplied with them; and cut off all communication of good things to her.

Geneva Study Bible

Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy {u} cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs dry.

(u) Thus the Lord esteemed the injury done to his Church as done to himself because their cause is his.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

36. Jehovah replies favourably to the demand for vengeance on Babylon.

her sea … her fountain] either the Euphrates (cp. the word “sea” as applied to the river Nile in Isaiah 18:2; Isaiah 19:5; Nahum 3:8) or, better, the great lake or reservoir, four hundred and twenty furlongs in circumference, made by queen Nitocris (Herod. I. 185), or that constructed by Nebuchadnezzar (see Records of the Past, 2nd series, III. 116).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 36. - Her sea; i.e. the Euphrates (comp. Isaiah 21:1), or perhaps the lake dug by Nitocris to receive the waters of the Euphrates, Herod., 1:185 (Payne Smith). Comp. on "the reeds," ver. 32. Her springs, rather, her reservoirs. There are no springs, remarks Dr. Payne Smith, in the flat alluvial soil of Babylonia. The Hebrew word makor is used here collectively for the whole system of canals and reservoirs for the storing of the water. Jeremiah 51:36

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

This judgment comes on Babylon for its offences against Israel. The king of Babylon has devoured Israel, etc. Those who complain, in Jeremiah 51:34, are the inhabitants of Judah and Jerusalem, in whose name the prophet enumerates the crimes of Babylon. "Nebuchadnezzar has devoured us," i.e., oppressed us. The plural suffixes to the verbs have been needlessly changed in the Qeri into singulars, for the simple reason, perhaps, that with מעדני and in Jeremiah 51:35 the address makes a transition into the singular. המם signifies to throw enemies into confusion by causing a panic, for the purpose of destroying them; hence to destroy, see on Deuteronomy 2:15; here to destroy, crush. "He set us down like an empty vessel" refers to the country and the people; he has swept the country of human beings, and robbed the people of everything. תּנּין, usually a sea-monster, crocodile (Isaiah 27:1; Isaiah 51:9, etc.); here a beast of prey which devours everything. מעדנים, "delights," then "dainty meats," Genesis 49:20.

(Note: The form actually found in the Masoretic text is מעדני, "from (out of, with) my dainties." - Tr.)

הדיח, from דּוּח, signifies to wash away, push away (see Delitzsch on Isaiah 4:4); in other places Jeremiah uses הדּיח, Jeremiah 8:3; Jeremiah 16:15, etc. "Let my wrong (i.e., the wrong done me) come upon Babylon." This wrong is more fully specified, with reference to the figure of swallowing, by "my flesh and blood;" cf. Micah 3:3. The Lord will avenge this wrong, Jeremiah 51:36, cf. Jeremiah 50:34; Jeremiah 51:6, Jeremiah 51:11; He will also dry up the sea of Babylon, and make her spring dry up. Many expositors understand these latter words metaphorically, as referring to the sea of nations surging in Babylon (Jeremiah 51:42, Jeremiah 51:55), and view the treasures and riches as the fountain from which the sea of nations sprang up (Hitzig); but the context demands a literal interpretation, inasmuch as in Jeremiah 51:37 the subject treated of is the laying waste of the country. The sea of Babylon is the Euphrates, with its canals, lakes, and marshes, i.e., the abundance of water to which Babylonia owed its fertility, and the city its influence as the centre of the then known world. Isaiah (Isaiah 21:1) accordingly calls Babylon, emblematically, the desert of the sea, inasmuch as the region in which Babylon stands is a plain, broken in such a manner by the Euphrates, as well as by marshes and lakes, as that the city, so to speak, swims in the sea (Delitzsch). The source of spring of the sea is the Euphrates, and the drying up of this spring is not to be understood literally of the drying up of the Euphrates, but signifies a drying up of the springs of water that fertilize the country. On the figures employed in Jeremiah 51:37, cf. Jeremiah 9:10; Jeremiah 18:16; Jeremiah 49:33.