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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.

   

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Arcana Coelestia #1326

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1326. That 'therefore He called the name of it Babel' means such worship, namely that meant by 'Babel', is clear from what has been stated so far - about worship which inwardly contains self-love and therefore everything that is filthy and unholy. Self-love is nothing else than the proprium, and how filthy and unholy this is becomes clear from what has been shown already about the proprium in 210, 215. From philautia, 1 that is, from self-love or the proprium, flow all evils, such as those of hatred, revenge, cruelty, adultery, deceit, hypocrisy, and irreligion. Consequently when self-love or the proprium is present in worship, such evils are present too - but the particular kind of evils and their intensity being determined by the extent and nature of what flows from that self-love. This is the origin of all profanation in worship. The fact of the matter is that insofar as self-love or the proprium introduces itself into worship, internal worship departs, that is, internal worship ceases to exist. Internal worship consists in the affection for good and in the acknowledgement of truth, but to the extent that self-love or the proprium intrudes or enters in, the affection for good and the acknowledgement of truth depart or go away. Holiness cannot possibly co-exist with unholiness, any more than heaven can with hell. Instead one must depart from the other. Such is the state and proper order existing in the Lord's kingdom. This is the reason why among the kind of people whose worship is called 'Babel' no internal worship exists, but instead something dead and indeed inwardly corpse-like is worshipped. This shows what their external worship which is inwardly such is like.

[2] That such worship is 'Babel' is clear from many parts of the Word where Babel is described, as in Daniel, where the description of the statue which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel saw in a dream - whose head was gold, breast and arms silver, belly and thighs bronze, legs iron, and feet partly iron and partly clay - means that true worship finally deteriorated into the kind of worship called 'Babel', and therefore also a stone cut out of the rock smashed the iron, bronze, clay, silver, and gold, Daniel 2:31-33, 44-45. The statue of gold which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babel set up, and which people were to adore, had no other meaning, Daniel 3:1-end. The same applies to the description of the king of Babel with his nobles drinking wine from the vessels of gold that had come from the Temple in Jerusalem, of their praising the gods of gold, silver, bronze, iron, and stone, and of writing therefore appearing on the wall, Daniel 5:1-end; to the description of Darius the Mede commanding that he be adored instead of God, Daniel 6:1-end; and to that of the beasts seen by Daniel in a dream, Daniel 7:1-end, as well as to that of the beasts and Babel in John's Revelation.

[3] That such worship was meant and represented is quite clear not only in Daniel and John but also in the Prophets: in Isaiah,

Their faces were faces of flames; the stars of the heavens and their constellations do not give their light The sun is darkened in its coming up and the moon does not shed its light Tziim lie down there, and their houses are full of ochim, and daughters of the owl dwell there, and satyrs dance there, and iim answer in its palaces, and dragons in its halls of pleasure. Isaiah 13:8, 10, 21-22

This refers to Babel and describes the internal aspect of such worship by 'faces of flames', which are evil desires; by 'the stars', which are truths of faith, 'not giving their light'; by 'the sun', which is holy love, 'being darkened'; by 'the moon', which is the truth of faith, 'not shedding its light'; by 'tziim, ochim, daughters of the owl, satyrs, dim, and dragons', which are the more interior aspects of worship. For such things belong to self-love or the proprium. This also is why Babel in John is called 'the mother of whoredoms and abominations', Revelation 17:5; and in the same book,

A dwelling-place of demons, 2 and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird. Revelation 18:2.

From these places it is evident that when such things are within, it is impossible for any good or truth of faith to be there, and that to the extent that those things enter in, the goods which are the objects of affection, and the truths of faith, depart. They are also called in Isaiah 21:9 'the graven images of the gods of Babel'.

[4] That it is self-love or the proprium which lies within their worship, or that it is worship of self, is quite clear in Isaiah,

Prophesy this parable against the king of Babel, You said in your heart, I will go up the heavens, above the stars of God I will raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of assembly, in the uttermost parts of the north. I will go up above the heights of the cloud, I will make myself like the Most High. But you will be brought down to hell. Isaiah 14:4, 13-15.

Here, it is plain, Babel means the person who wishes to be worshipped as a god, that is, worship of self is meant.

[5] In the same prophet,

Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. You trusted in your wickedness, you said, No one sees me. Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray; you said in your heart, I am, and there is no one besides me. Isaiah 47:1, 10.

In Jeremiah,

Behold, I am against you, O destroying mountain, destroying the whole earth; and I will stretch out My hand over you and roll you down from the rocks and will make you into a mountain of burning. Though Babel rise up into the heavens, and though she fortify the height of her strength, yet from Me those who lay waste will come to her. Jeremiah 51:25, 53.

This again shows that 'Babel' is worship of self.

[6] The fact that such people have no light of truth, but only total darkness, that is, that they do not possess the truth of faith, is described in Jeremiah,

The word which Jehovah spoke against Babel, against the land of the Chaldeans, There will come up upon her a nation from the north, which will make her land a desolation, and none will dwell in it; both man and beast will scatter themselves, they will go away. Jeremiah 50:1, 3.

'The north' stands for thick darkness, or absence of truth. 'No man and no beast' stands for the absence of good. For more about Babel, see at verse 28 3 below, where Chaldea is referred to.

Footnotes:

1. A Greek word, also used in late Medieval or Neo-Latin, which means self-love, self-regard.

2. The Latin means dragons, but the Greek means demons, which Swedenborg has in other pieces where he quotes this verse.

3. i.e. 1368

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