Jeremiah 51:53

Though Babylon should mount up to heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come unto her, saith the LORD.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(53) Though Babylon should mount up to heaven . . .—The special form of the phrase recalls the language of the builders of the Tower which made the name of Babylon conspicuous (Genesis 11:4). Even though that boastful attempt should be realised, Jeremiah says, it should prove a vain defence. As it was, the walls of Babylon which Nebuchadnezzar had built were of enormous height. Greek writers, possibly speaking of different walls (as there were two lines of fortifications), give from 75 to 335 feet. Nebuchadnezzar, in one of his inscriptions, records their greatness in words that remind us of Daniel 4:30. “To make more difficult the attack of an enemy against Imgur Bel, the indestructible wall of Babylon, I constructed a bulwark like a mountain” (Oppert, Expéd. en Mésop., i. p. 230; Records of the Past, v. p. 131).

Benson Commentary

Jeremiah 51:53. Though Babylon should mount up to heaven — Though Babylon were built upon the most lofty and inaccessible mountain, and though it were made as strong as nature and art could make it, yet still I would cause it to be spoiled.

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

Confounded - Or, ashamed. The verse is a statement of the wrong done to the exiles by Babylon, and so leads naturally to Babylon's punishment Jeremiah 51:52.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

53. We are not to measure God's power by what seems to our perceptions natural or probable. Compare Ob 4 as to Edom (Am 9:2).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We are very prone to measure things by the measures of our own reasons, and to judge of events which are to be the effects of Divine power by human probabilities, therefore God is put to use many words to the same purpose: he saw the Jews saying in their hearts, How can these things be? Babylon hath impregnable walls, two hundred feet high, (so historians report,) and of a great breadth, and it hath very strong and high towers. God by his prophet tells them, that if they could mount up as high as heaven, if they could make their towers much stronger than they were, yet the

spoilers were to come from him, and he could and would send spoilers who would pull down her wall and break down her towers.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Though Babylon should mount up to heaven,.... Could the walls of it, which were very high, two hundred cubits high, as Herodotus (p) says, be carried up as high as heaven; or the towers of it, which were exceeding high, ten foot higher than the walls, as Curtius (q) says, likewise be raised to the same height:

and though she should fortify the height of her strength: make her walls and towers as strong as they were high; unless this is to be understood particularly of the temple of Bel, in which was a solid tower, in length and thickness about six hundred and sixty feet; and upon this tower another; and so on to the number of eight, towers; and in the last of them a large temple, as the above historian (r) relates: but if these towers could have been piled up in a greater number, even so as to reach to heaven, it would have availed nothing against the God of heaven, to secure from his vengeance. The Targum is,

"if Babylon should be built with buildings as high as heaven, and should fortify the strong holds on high:''

yet from me shall spoilers come, saith the Lord; the Medes and Persians, sent and commissioned by him, who would pull down and destroy her walls and towers, be they ever so high and strong.

(p) L. 1. sive Clio, c. 178. (q) Hist. l. 5. c. 1.((r) Herodot. l. 1. c. 181.

Geneva Study Bible

Though Babylon should mount up to {g} heaven, and though she should fortify the height of her strength, yet from me shall spoilers come to her, saith the LORD.

(g) For the walls were two hundred feet high.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

53. Cp. Isaiah 14:12-14.

fortify] lit. cut off, i.e. render inaccessible.

the height of her strength] the height of her walls.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 53. - The height of her strength; i.e. her lofty walls and towers. Jeremiah 51:53

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Babylon shall by no means escape punishment. Even though it mounted up to heaven (cf. Job 20:6; there may, at the same time, be an allusion to Isaiah 14:12, and possibly also to the tower at Babylon), and תּבצּר, "cut off (i.e., made inaccessible) the height of its strength," i.e., the height in which its strength consists, its lofty wall of defence (probably an allusion to the lofty walls of Babylon; see on Jeremiah 51:58), yet destroyers are to come against it from Jahveh.