Browse Bible Study Resources

Daily Devotions

Jeremiah

Jeremiah 
Day 
Day 562

"How Babylon has become desolate"

Text: Jeremiah 51:41

THE USE OF CODED LANGUAGE

From the earliest time, coded language was used by writers. Some scholars call this “Atbash cipher” to give it a name. Sheshach was actually the coded name for Babylon.

“Oh, how Sheshach is taken!
Oh, how the praise of the whole earth is seized!
How Babylon has become desolate among the nations!
The sea has come up over Babylon;
She is covered with the multitude of its waves.
Her cities are a desolation,
A dry land and a wilderness,
A land where no one dwells,
Through which no son of man passes.
I will punish Bel in Babylon,
And I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed;
And the nations shall not stream to him anymore.
Yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall.”
Jeremiah 51:41-44

1. “Oh, how Sheshach is taken! Oh, how the praise of the whole earth is seized!
How Babylon has become desolate among the nations”

a) Sheshach was aka Babylon.

b) The context would make this equation more than plausible.

c) They are written in parallel form in this context.

d) Babylon was once famous as “the praise of the whole earth”.

i) Babylon was well-known for its “hanging garden”.

ii) And for its walls that were so broad.

e) But Babylon would become desolate among the nations.

2. “The sea has come up over Babylon; she is covered with the multitude of its waves”

a) The sea was used symbolically.

b) Babylon would be flooded out completely.

3. “Her cities are a desolation, a dry land and a wilderness, a land where no one dwells,
through which no son of man passes”

a) The beautiful cities would become desolate.

b) The descriptions are graphic:

i) A dry land.

ii) A wilderness.

iii) An uninhabited land.

iv) Nobody would pass that way.

4. “I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring out of his mouth what he has swallowed;
and the nations shall not stream to him anymore. Yes, the wall of Babylon shall fall”

a) The LORD would punish Bel in Babylon.

i) The chief god of the Babylonians was called Marduk.

ii) Bel is aka Baal, meaning “lord”.

iii) This title was given to Marduk the chief idol.

b) Babylon had “swallowed” many nations.

c) God would retrieve these nations.

d) The allies of Babylon that used to stream towards the city
would cease doing business with the city.

e) The strong wall of Babylon that nobody could assail would fall!