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Jeremiah 51

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1 Thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will raise up against Babylon, and against them that dwell in Leb-kamai, a destroying wind.

2 And I will send unto Babylon strangers, that shall winnow her; and they shall empty her land: for in the day of trouble they shall be against her round about.

3 Against [him that] bendeth let the archer bend his bow, and against [him that] lifteth himself up in his coat of mail: and spare ye not her young men; destroy ye utterly all her host.

4 And they shall fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans, and thrust through in her streets.

5 For Israel is not forsaken, nor Judah, of his God, of Jehovah of hosts; though their land is full of guilt against the Holy One of Israel.

6 Flee out of the midst of Babylon, and save every man his life; be not cut off in her iniquity: for it is the time of Jehovah's vengeance; he will render unto her a recompense.

7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.

8 Babylon is suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if so be she may be healed.

9 We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed: forsake her, and let us go every one into his own country; for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.

10 Jehovah hath brought forth our righteousness: come, and let us declare in Zion the work of Jehovah our God.

11 Make sharp the arrows; hold firm the shields: Jehovah hath stirred up the spirit of the kings of the Medes; because his purpose is against Babylon, to destroy it: for it is the vengeance of Jehovah, the vengeance of his temple.

12 Set up a standard against the walls of Babylon, make the watch strong, set the watchmen, prepare the ambushes; for Jehovah hath both purposed and done that which he spake concerning the inhabitants of Babylon.

13 O thou that dwellest upon many waters, abundant in treasures, thine end is come, the measure of thy covetousness.

14 Jehovah of hosts hath sworn by himself, [saying], Surely I will fill thee with men, as with the canker-worm; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.

15 He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding hath he stretched out the heavens:

16 when he uttereth his voice, there is a tumult of waters in the heavens, and he causeth the vapors to ascend from the ends of the earth; he maketh lightnings for the rain, and bringeth forth the wind out of his treasuries.

17 Every man is become brutish [and is] without knowledge; every goldsmith is put to shame by his image; for his molten image is falsehood, and there is no breath in them.

18 They are vanity, a work of delusion: in the time of their visitation they shall perish.

19 The portion of Jacob is not like these; for he is the former of all things; and [Israel] is the tribe of his inheritance: Jehovah of hosts is his name.

20 Thou art my battle-axe and weapons of war: and with thee will I break in pieces the nations; and with thee will I destroy kingdoms;

21 and with thee will I break in pieces the horse and his rider;

22 and with thee will I break in pieces the chariot and him that rideth therein; and with thee will I break in pieces man and woman; and with thee will I break in pieces the old man and the youth; and with thee will I break in pieces the young man and the virgin;

23 and with thee will I break in pieces the shepherd and his flock; and with thee will I break in pieces the husbandman and his yoke [of oxen]; and with thee will I break in pieces governors and deputies.

24 And I will render unto Babylon and to all the inhabitants of Chaldea all their evil that they have done in Zion in your sight, saith Jehovah.

25 Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith Jehovah, which destroyest all the earth; and I will stretch out my hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.

26 And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith Jehovah.

27 Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz: appoint a marshal against her; cause the horses to come up as the rough canker-worm.

28 Prepare against her the nations, the kings of the Medes, the governors thereof, and all the deputies thereof, and all the land of their dominion.

29 And the land trembleth and is in pain; for the purposes of Jehovah against Babylon do stand, to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.

30 The mighty men of Babylon have forborne to fight, they remain in their strongholds; their might hath failed; they are become as women: her dwelling-places are set on fire; her bars are broken.

31 One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to met another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken on every quarter:

32 and the passages are seized, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

33 For thus saith Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel: 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 shall come for her.

34 Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon hath devoured me, he hath crushed me, he hath made me an empty vessel, he hath, like a monster, swallowed me up, he hath filled his maw with my delicacies; he hath cast me out.

35 The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and, My blood be upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.

36 Therefore thus saith Jehovah: Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her fountain dry.

37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling-place for jackals, an astonishment, and a hissing, without inhabitant.

38 They shall roar together like young lions; they shall growl as lions' whelps.

39 When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah.

40 I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter, like rams with he-goats.

41 How is Sheshach taken! and the praise of the whole earth seized! how is Babylon become a desolation among the nations!

42 The sea is come up upon Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.

43 Her cities are become a desolation, a dry land, and a desert, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby.

44 And I will execute judgment upon Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up; and the nations shall not flow any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall.

45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and save yourselves every man from the fierce anger of Jehovah.

46 And let not your heart faint, neither fear ye for the tidings that shall be heard in the land; for tidings shall come one year, and after that in another year [shall come] tidings, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.

47 Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will execute judgment upon the graven images of Babylon; and her whole land shall be confounded; and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her.

48 Then the heavens and the earth, and all that is therein, shall sing for joy over Babylon; for the destroyers shall come unto her from the north, saith Jehovah.

49 As Babylon hath caused the slain of Israel to fall, so at Babylon shall fall the slain of all the land.

50 Ye that have escaped the sword, go ye, stand not still; remember Jehovah from afar, and let Jerusalem come into your mind.

51 We are confounded, because we have heard reproach; confusion hath covered our faces: for strangers are come into the sanctuaries of Jehovah's house.

52 Wherefore, behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will execute judgment upon her graven images; and through all her land the wounded shall groan.

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

54 The sound of a cry from Babylon, and of great destruction from the land of the Chaldeans!

55 For Jehovah layeth Babylon waste, and destroyeth out of her the great voice; and their waves roar like many waters; the noise of their voice is uttered:

56 for the destroyer is come upon her, even upon Babylon, and her mighty men are taken, their bows are broken in pieces; for Jehovah is a God of recompenses, he will surely requite.

57 And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts.

58 Thus saith Jehovah of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly overthrown, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the peoples shall labor for vanity, and the nations for the fire; and they shall be weary.

59 The word which Jeremiah the prophet commanded Seraiah the son of Neriah, the son of Mahseiah, when he went with Zedekiah the king of Judah to Babylon in the fourth year of his reign. Now Seraiah was chief chamberlain.

60 And Jeremiah wrote in a book all the evil that should come upon Babylon, even all these words that are written concerning Babylon.

61 And Jeremiah said to Seraiah, When thou comest to Babylon, then see that thou read all these words,

62 and say, O Jehovah, thou hast spoken concerning this place, to cut it off, that none shall dwell therein, neither man nor beast, but that it shall be desolate for ever.

63 And it shall be, when thou hast made an end of reading this book, that thou shalt bind a stone to it, and cast it into the midst of the Euphrates:

64 and thou shalt say, Thus shall Babylon sink, and shall not rise again because of the evil that I will bring upon her; and they shall be weary. Thus far are the words of Jeremiah.

   

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Arcana Coelestia # 1327

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1327. 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth' means the state of this Ancient Church, that internal worship started to perish. This is clear from the fact that the phrase used is 'the lip of the whole earth' and not, as previously in verse 7, the lip of those who started to build a city and a tower. 'The face of the whole earth' means the state of the Church since 'the earth' is the Church, as shown already in 662, 1066. The story of the Churches after the Flood is as follows: There were three Churches which receive specific mention in the Word - the first Ancient Church which took its name from Noah, the second Ancient Church which took its name from Eber, and the third Ancient Church which took its name from Jacob, and subsequently from Judah and Israel.

[2] As regards the first Ancient Church, that called Noah, this was the parent so to speak of those that followed, and as is usually the case with Churches in their earliest phases, it was more untarnished and innocent, as is also clear from verse 1 of this chapter which says that it had one lip, that is, one doctrine. That is to say, everyone regarded charity as the essential. But in the course of time, as usually happens to Churches, that Church also started to decline, chiefly because many people started to divert worship to themselves so as to set themselves above others, as is clear from verse 4 above - 'they said, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower, and its head in heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves'. In the Church such people were inevitably like some fermenting agent, or like firebrands that start a fire. When the danger of profaning what is holy was consequently near at hand, referred to in 571, 582, the state of this Church was, in the Lord's Providence, altered. That is to say, its internal worship perished but its external worship remained, which here is meant by the statement that 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth'. From this it is also clear that the kind of worship called Babel was not prevalent in the first Ancient Church but in those that followed when people started to be worshipped in place of gods, especially after they had died. This was the origin of so many pagan deities.

[3] The reason internal worship was allowed to perish and external remain was to prevent what is holy being profaned. The profanation of what is holy carries eternal condemnation with it. Nobody is able to profane what is holy unless he possesses cognitions of faith and also acknowledges them. Anyone who does not possess them cannot acknowledge them, still less profane them. It is internal things which may be profaned, for it is in internal things, not external, that holiness resides. The situation is similar with someone who does evil but does not have evil in mind. The evil he does cannot be attributed to him any more than to someone who does not deliberately intend evil, or to anyone devoid of rationality. Thus anyone who does not believe in the existence of a life after death, but who nevertheless has external worship, cannot profane the things that belong to eternal life because he does not believe that they exist. The situation is different with those who do know and acknowledge them.

[4] This too is why a person is allowed rather to live engrossed in lusts and pleasures, and so to isolate himself from internal things, than to enter into a knowledge and acknowledgement of internal things and so profane them. The Jews of today therefore are allowed to immerse themselves in avarice so that in this way they may be removed from an acknowledgement of internal things, for they are the kind of people who, if they acknowledged them, would inevitably profane them. Nothing does more to isolate a person from internal things than avarice, for this is the lowest of all earthly desires. The same applies to many inside the Church, and to gentiles outside, though gentiles, least of all people, are able to profane anything. This then is the reason for the statement here that 'Jehovah confounded the lip of the whole earth', and the reason why these words mean that the state of the Church was altered, that is to say, its worship became external, having no internal worship within it.

[5] The same situation was represented and meant by the Babylonish captivity into which the Israelites, and later on the Jews, were carried away. This is spoken of in Jeremiah as follows,

And there will be a nation and a kingdom that will not serve the king of Babel, and who will not put its neck in the yoke of the king of Babel. With the sword and famine and pestilence I will visit this people, until I have consumed it by his hand. Jeremiah 27:8 and following verses.

'Serving the king of Babel and putting its neck in his yoke' is being utterly deprived of the knowledge and acknowledgement of the good and the truth of faith, and so of internal worship.

[6] The point is clearer still in the same prophet,

Thus said Jehovah to all the people in this city, your brethren who did not go out with you into captivity, thus said Jehovah Zebaoth, Behold, I am sending on them the sword, famine, and pestilence, and I will make them like rotten figs. Jeremiah 29:16-17.

'Remaining in the city and not going out to the king of Babel' represented and meant people who possessed the cognitions of internal things, that is, of the truths of faith, and who profaned them - people on whom, it is said, He was sending 'the sword, famine, and pestilence', which are forms of punishment for profanation, and whom He was making 'like rotten figs'.

[7] That 'Babel' means people who deprive others of all knowledge and acknowledgement of truth was also represented and meant by the following words in the same prophet,

I will give all Judah into the hand of the king of Babel, and he will carry them off to Babel, and will smite them with the sword. And I will give over all the wealth of this city, and all its labour, and all its precious things; and I will give all the treasures of the kings of Judah into the hand of their enemies, and they will plunder them and seize them. Jeremiah 20:4-5.

Here 'all its wealth, all its lab our, all its precious things, all the treasures of the kings of Judah' means in the internal sense cognitions of faith.

[8] In the same prophet,

With the families of the north I will bring the king of Babel against this land and against its inhabitants, and against all those nations round about, and I will utterly destroy them and make them into a ruin, a hissing, and everlasting wastes. And this whole land will be a waste. Jeremiah 25:9, 11.

Here 'Babel' is used to describe the vastation of the interior things of faith, that is, of internal worship. Indeed, as shown already, anyone whose worship is worship of self possesses no truth of faith. He destroys and lays waste, and leads off into captivity, everything that is true. This is why Babel is also called 'a destroying mountain' in Jeremiah 51:25.

For more concerning Babel, see what has been stated already in 1182.

  
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Thanks to the Swedenborg Society for the permission to use this translation.