Jeremiah 51:11-12

51:11 “Sharpen ¹  your arrows!

Fill your quivers! ² 

The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in ³  the kings of Media. ⁴ 

For he intends to destroy Babylonia.

For that is how the Lord will get his revenge –

how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple. ⁵ 

51:12 Give the signal to attack Babylon’s wall! ⁶ 

Bring more guards! ⁷ 

Post them all around the city! ⁸ 

Put men in ambush! ⁹ 

For the Lord will do what he has planned.

He will do what he said he would do to the people of Babylon. ¹⁰ 

Jeremiah 51:43

51:43 The towns of Babylonia have become heaps of ruins.

She has become a dry and barren desert.

No one lives in those towns any more.

No one even passes through them. ¹¹ 

Jeremiah 51:62-64

51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’ 51:63 When you finish reading this scroll aloud, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River. ¹²  51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ¹³  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ¹⁴ 

[51:11]  ¹ sn The imperatives here and in v. 12 are directed to the soldiers in the armies of the kings from the north (here identified as the kings of Media [see also 50:3, 9; 51:27-28]). They have often been addressed in this prophecy as though they were a present force (see 50:14-16; 50:21 [and the study note there]; 50:26, 29; 51:3) though the passage as a whole is prophetic of the future. This gives some idea of the ideal stance that the prophets adopted when they spoke of the future as though already past (the use of the Hebrew prophetic perfect which has been referred to often in the translator’s notes).

[51:11]  ² tn The meaning of this word is debated. The most thorough discussion of this word including etymology and usage in the OT and Qumran is in HALOT 1409-10 s.v. שֶׁלֶט, where the rendering “quiver” is accepted for all the uses of this word in the OT. For a more readily accessible discussion for English readers see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah (Hermeneia), 2:422-23. The meaning “quiver” fits better with the verb “fill” than the meaning “shield” which is adopted in BDB 1020 s.v. שֶׁלֶט. “Quiver” is the meaning adopted also in NRSV, REB, NAB, and NJPS.

[51:11]  ³ tn Heb “The Lord has stirred up the spirit of…” The verb is rendered here as a prophetic perfect. The rendering “arouse a spirit of hostility” is an attempt to render some meaning to the phrase and not simply ignore the word “spirit” as many of the modern English versions do. For a fuller discussion including cross references see the translator’s note on v. 1.

[51:11]  ⁴ sn Media was a country in what is now northwestern Iran. At the time this prophecy was probably written they were the dominating force in the northern region, the most likely enemy to Babylon. By the time Babylon fell in 538 b.c. the Medes had been conquered and incorporated in the Persian empire by Cyrus. However, several times in the Bible this entity is known under the combined entity of Media and Persia (Esth 1:3, 4, 18, 19; 10:2; Dan 5:28; 6:8, 12, 15; 8:20). Dan 5:31 credits the capture of Babylon to Darius the Mede, which may have been another name for Cyrus or the name by which Daniel refers to a Median general named Gobryas.

[51:11]  ⁵ tn Heb “For it is the vengeance of the Lord, vengeance for his temple.” As in the parallel passage in 50:28, the genitival construction has been expanded in the translation to clarify for the English reader what the commentaries in general agree is involved.

[51:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “Raise a banner against the walls of Babylon.”

[51:12]  ⁷ tn Heb “Strengthen the watch.”

[51:12]  ⁸ tn Heb “Station the guards.”

[51:12]  ⁹ tn Heb “Prepare ambushes.”

[51:12]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “For the Lord has both planned and done what he said concerning the people living in Babylon,” i.e., “he has carried out what he planned.” Here is an obvious case where the perfects are to be interpreted as prophetic; the commands imply that the attack is still future.

[51:43]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Its towns have become a desolation, [it has become] a dry land and a desert, a land which no man passes through them [referring to “her towns”] and no son of man [= human being] passes through them.” Here the present translation has followed the suggestion of BHS and a number of the modern commentaries in deleting the second occurrence of the word “land,” in which case the words that follow are not a relative clause but independent statements. A number of modern English versions appear to ignore the third feminine plural suffixes which refer back to the cities and refer the statements that follow to the land.

[51:63]  ¹² tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.

[51:64]  ¹³ tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ¹⁴ sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.