Jeremiah 51:32-34

New English Translation

Footnotes

1. Jeremiah 51:32 tn The words “They will report that” have been supplied in the translation to show the linkage between this verse and the previous one. This is still a part of the report of the messengers. The meaning of the word translated “reed marshes” has seemed inappropriate to some commentators because it elsewhere refers to “pools.” However, all the commentaries consulted agree that the word here refers to the reedy marshes that surrounded Babylon. (For a fuller discussion regarding the meaning of this word and attempts to connect it with a word meaning “fortress,” see W. L. Holladay, Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:427.)sn Babylon was a city covering over a thousand acres that was surrounded by two walls, the inner one 21 feet (6.3 m) thick and the outer one 11 feet (3.3 m) thick. To provide the city further security, other walls were built to its south and east, and irrigation ditches and canals to it north and east were flooded to prevent direct access. The “fords” were crossings for the Euphrates River, which ran right through the city, and for the ditches and canals. The “reed marshes” were low-lying areas around the city where reeds grew. Burning them would deprive any fugitives of places to hide and flush out any who had already escaped.
2. Jeremiah 51:33 sn Heb “Daughter Babylon.” See the study note at 50:42 for explanation.
3. Jeremiah 51:33 tn Heb “Daughter Babylon will be [or “is”; there is no verb, and the tense has to be supplied from the context] like a threshing floor at the time one tramples it. Yet a little while and the time of the harvest will come for her.” It is generally agreed that there are two figures here: one of leveling the threshing floor and stamping it into a smooth, hard surface, and the other of the harvest, where the grain is cut, taken to the threshing floor, threshed by trampling the sheaves of grain to loosen the grain from the straw, and finally winnowed by throwing the mixture into the air (cf., e.g., J. A. Thompson, Jeremiah [NICOT], 760). The translation has sought to convey those ideas as clearly as possible without digressing too far from the literal.sn There are two figures involved here: one of the threshing floor being leveled and stamped down hard and smooth, and the other of the harvest. At harvest time the stalks of grain were cut down, gathered in sheaves, and taken to the harvest floor, where the grain was loosened from the husk by driving oxen and threshing sleds over them. The grain was then separated from the mixture of grain, straw, and husks by repeatedly throwing it in the air and letting the wind blow away the lighter husks and ground-up straw. The figure of harvest is often used of judgment in the OT. See, e.g., Joel 3:13 (4:13 HT) and Hos 6:11, and compare also Mic 4:12-13 and Jer 51:2, where different steps in this process are also used figuratively in connection with judgment. Babylon will be leveled to the ground and its people cut down in judgment.
4. Jeremiah 51:34 tn This verse is extremely difficult to translate because of the shifting imagery, the confusion over the meaning of one of the verbs, and the apparent inconsistency of the pronominal suffixes here with those in the following verse, which everyone agrees is connected with it. The pronominal suffixes are first common plural, but the versions all read them as first common singular, which the Masoretes also do in the Qere. That reading has been followed here for consistency with the next verse, which identifies the speaker as the person living in Zion and as the personified city of Jerusalem. The Hebrew text reads, “Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon devoured me [cf. 50:7, 17] and threw me into confusion. He set me down an empty dish. He swallowed me like a monster from the deep [cf. BDB 1072 s.v. תַּנִּין 3 and compare usage in Isa 27:1; Ezek 29:3; 32:2]. He filled his belly with my dainties. He rinsed me out [cf. BDB s.v. דּוּח Hiph.2 and compare the usage in Isa 4:4].” The verb “throw into confusion” has proved troublesome because its normal meaning does not seem appropriate. Hence various proposals have been made to understand it in a different sense. The present translation has followed W. L. Holladay (Jeremiah [Hermeneia], 2:428) in understanding the verb to mean “disperse” or “rout” (see NAB). The last line has seemed out of place and has often been emended to read, “He has spewed me out” (so NIV and NRSV, a reading that presupposes הִדִּיחָנִי [hiddikhani] for הֱדִיחָנִי [hedikhani]). The reading of the MT is not inappropriate if it is combined with the imagery of an empty jar and hence is retained here (see F. B. Huey, Jeremiah, Lamentations [NAC], 425, n. 59; H. Freedman, Jeremiah [SoBB], 344; NJPS). The lines have been combined to keep the imagery together.sn The speaker in this verse and the next is the personified city of Jerusalem. She laments her fate at the hands of the king of Babylon and calls down a curse on Babylon and the people who live in Babylonia. Here Nebuchadnezzar is depicted as a monster of the deep that has devoured Jerusalem, swallowed her down, and filled its belly with her riches, leaving her an empty dish that has been rinsed clean.