The Divine Summons: The Justice of God Against the Proud Text: Jeremiah 50:14-16
Introduction: God's Perfect Bookkeeping
We live in an age that is squeamish about divine judgment. Modern man, having made himself the measure of all things, wants a God who is a celestial butler, on call to provide comfort and affirmation but who would never dream of calling anyone to account. He wants a God who winks at sin, who grades on a curve, and who ultimately declares that everyone is a winner. This is not the God of the Bible. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, is a God of perfect, terrifying, and beautiful justice. He is a consuming fire.
The world sees this as a scandal. We are told that a God of vengeance is unworthy of worship. But this is a profound misunderstanding of both God and reality. A god who is not interested in justice is not a good god; he is an accomplice to evil. A god who does not repay wickedness is not loving; he is indifferent. The biblical doctrine of God's vengeance is not about a petty, cosmic tyrant losing his temper. It is about the Holy One of Israel setting the world to rights. It is about the ultimate moral accountability that undergirds the entire cosmos. God keeps the books, and God always balances the books.
In our text today, the prophet Jeremiah delivers the word of the Lord against Babylon. This is the same Babylon that God Himself raised up to be His instrument of chastisement against a rebellious Judah. Nebuchadnezzar was God's servant, the rod of His anger. But the instrument is never autonomous. The axe does not boast over the one who wields it. Babylon, in its pride, believed that its power was its own. It dealt with Judah not with the solemn gravity of a divine executioner, but with the gleeful cruelty of a sadistic tyrant. And so, the Lord, having used Babylon for His purposes, now turns His righteous gaze upon Babylon itself. The hammer of the whole earth is about to be shattered.
This passage is a summons, a divine call to arms. God is mustering the armies of the Medes and Persians to execute His sentence. What we are reading is not just ancient history; it is a permanent revelation of the character of God. Nations rise and fall, but the principles of divine justice are eternal. Every empire built on pride, cruelty, and defiance against Yahweh has a due date. This is a warning to every arrogant superpower, in every age, that there is a throne higher than theirs.
The Text
Arrange your battle lines against Babylon on every side,
All you who bend the bow;
Shoot at her, do not be sparing with your arrows,
For she has sinned against Yahweh.
Raise a loud shout against her on every side!
She has given herself up, her pillars have fallen,
Her walls have been pulled down.
For this is the vengeance of Yahweh:
Take vengeance on her;
As she has done to others, so do to her.
Cut off the sower from Babylon
And the one who seizes the sickle at the time of harvest;
From before the sword of the oppressor
They will each turn back to his own people,
And they will each flee to his own land.
(Jeremiah 50:14-16 LSB)
The Divine Muster (v. 14)
The oracle begins with a direct command from the divine Commander-in-Chief.
"Arrange your battle lines against Babylon on every side, All you who bend the bow; Shoot at her, do not be sparing with your arrows, For she has sinned against Yahweh." (Jeremiah 50:14)
Notice who is speaking here. It is Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, who is orchestrating the downfall of this pagan superpower. The Medes and Persians who will come against Babylon may think they are acting out of their own geopolitical ambitions, but they are merely arrows in God's quiver. He is the one arranging the battle lines. History is not a random series of events; it is the unfolding of God's sovereign decree. He raises up nations, and He casts them down.
The command is for a total siege: "on every side." There is to be no escape. The archers are summoned, a key component of ancient Near Eastern armies, and they are told, "do not be sparing with your arrows." This is not to be a half-hearted effort. The judgment must be total and overwhelming. Why? The reason is given with stark clarity: "For she has sinned against Yahweh."
This is the crucial point. Babylon's primary offense was not merely its military aggression or its political hubris, though those were symptoms. The root of the sin was theological. They sinned "against Yahweh." They had sacked Jerusalem, burned His temple, and carried His people into exile. In doing so, they had blasphemed the name of the God of Israel, assuming their gods, Marduk and Bel, were superior. They mistook God's disciplinary action against His own people for their own inherent strength. This is a fatal error. God will not give His glory to another. The central issue in all of history is the honor of God's name.
The Law of Reciprocity (v. 15)
The siege escalates from a military formation to a triumphant war cry, and the principle of God's justice is laid bare.
"Raise a loud shout against her on every side! She has given herself up, her pillars have fallen, Her walls have been pulled down. For this is the vengeance of Yahweh: Take vengeance on her; As she has done to others, so do to her." (Jeremiah 50:15)
The shout is the cry of victory, declared before the final blow has even fallen. God speaks of the future destruction as though it has already happened: "her pillars have fallen, Her walls have been pulled down." This is the certainty of prophetic speech. From God's perspective, the sentence has been passed, and the execution is as good as done. Babylon's famed walls, which were considered impregnable, are declared to be rubble. Her pillars, the symbols of her strength and permanence, are toppled.
And here we find the engine of this judgment. "For this is the vengeance of Yahweh." The Hebrew word for vengeance, naqam, is not about uncontrolled, emotional rage. It is a legal term. It means the settling of an account, the execution of justice. This is not personal revenge; it is righteous retribution. God is the cosmic judge, and He is now handing down the sentence.
The sentence itself follows a precise and ancient legal standard: "As she has done to others, so do to her." This is the lex talionis, the law of retaliation. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. This principle is not barbaric; it is the foundation of proportional justice. It prevents both insufficient punishment and excessive cruelty. Babylon had been the besieger, the destroyer of walls, the archer shooting at cities. Now, she will be the besieged. The very methods she used against others will be turned back upon her own head. This is a recurring principle in Scripture. Adoni-bezek, who had cut off the thumbs and big toes of seventy kings, had his own thumbs and big toes cut off (Judges 1:7). Haman was hanged on the very gallows he built for Mordecai. God's justice is often poetic, fitting the punishment perfectly to the crime.
The Unraveling of an Empire (v. 16)
The judgment is not just military; it is a total societal collapse. The very foundations of Babylonian life are to be uprooted.
"Cut off the sower from Babylon And the one who seizes the sickle at the time of harvest; From before the sword of the oppressor They will each turn back to his own people, And they will each flee to his own land." (Jeremiah 50:16)
An army marches on its stomach. To "cut off the sower" and the reaper is to destroy the nation's food supply. This is a sentence of famine and desolation. The agricultural cycle, the very rhythm of life and prosperity, is to be broken. The empire that feasted on the plunder of nations will itself starve.
But there is another layer here. The Babylonian empire, like many ancient empires, was a cosmopolitan entity. It had conquered many peoples and forcibly relocated others. Its cities were filled with merchants, mercenaries, craftsmen, and slaves from all over the known world. These foreigners were the engine of its economy and the muscle of its armies. But their loyalty was to their pay and their security, not to Babylon itself. When the "sword of the oppressor" comes, when the Medo-Persian army appears on the horizon, this fragile coalition will shatter. "They will each turn back to his own people, and they will each flee to his own land."
The empire will disintegrate from within. The very diversity that Babylon saw as its strength will become its fatal weakness. There is no true unity apart from a covenantal bond under the one true God. A society built on conquest, greed, and paganism has no real social glue. When judgment comes, it is every man for himself. The proud, monolithic empire is revealed to be a house of cards, and it collapses in on itself.
Conclusion: The Strong Redeemer
So what are we to make of this? First, we must see the absolute sovereignty of God over the affairs of nations. Presidents and prime ministers, kings and dictators, are all pawns on His chessboard. He gives them their little hour of strutting on the stage, but He writes the script, and He brings down the final curtain. This should be a profound comfort to the people of God. No matter how dark the times, no matter how arrogant the powers that be, our God reigns.
Second, we must recognize that corporate sins bring corporate judgments. Babylon was not judged for the private failings of a few individuals. It was judged for its identity as a proud, idolatrous, and cruel nation. It sinned as a collective, and it was judged as a collective. This is a sobering word for our own nation. When a nation institutionalizes wickedness, when it calls evil good and good evil, it is storing up wrath for itself. God is not mocked. What a nation sows, it will also reap.
But finally, and most importantly, we see that the judgment of Babylon is the salvation of God's people. Just a few verses later, Jeremiah says, "Their Redeemer is strong; Yahweh of hosts is His name. He will vigorously plead their case, So that He may give rest to the earth, But turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon" (Jeremiah 50:34). The fall of the oppressor is the freedom of the oppressed. God's vengeance against His enemies is the other side of His covenant faithfulness to His people.
This points us directly to the cross of Jesus Christ. At the cross, the ultimate act of divine vengeance and the ultimate act of divine love converged. God poured out His righteous wrath against sin, all of it, upon His own Son. The full measure of the lex talionis for our rebellion fell on Him. He received what we had done. But in that same act, He became our Strong Redeemer. The judgment of sin in the flesh of Christ was our salvation. The cross was the downfall of the spiritual Babylon, the kingdom of darkness. And because our Redeemer is strong, we can have confidence that He will continue to plead our case. He will continue to bring turmoil to the inhabitants of Babylon and give rest to His people, until that final day when the great shout goes up: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!" (Rev. 18:2). And on that day, all the accounts will be settled, and the justice of God will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea.