DAY 224 Read Jeremiah 51.
Today's reading: We finish the prophecy against Babylon. Some portions of it were fulfilled by the Persian conquest, but other parts remained unfulfilled until centuries later.
Memory gem: "Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant" (Jeremiah 51:37).
Thought for today:
Babylon was situated in one of the most fertile valleys in the world, with plenty of water for irrigation. By all human prognostication it should have remained inhabited down through the ages. Great Babylon, the city of Bel, fought against God's city, Jerusalem, taking its people captive. Jerusalem became the slave of Babylon. Yet Babylon and its people have vanished like a dream in the night, while Jerusalem and its people still remain.
"Without an inhabitant," said the prophet. You who have been to Babylon today know that it is still uninhabited--just a few keepers about to take tourists through.
Think of the other cities in existence when Jeremiah predicted Babylon's demise: Damascus, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Sidon--all have remained continuously cities of consequence to our present day. But it remained for Babylon, the greatest and richest of all the cities of that time, to sink into utter insignificance. How to explain it? God said it would be so.
In Jeremiah 51:58 we are told that "the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken" For centuries after this prediction, the walls of Babylon were the strongest and greatest walls known at that time in the western world. The Great Wall of China had already been built, but it was not so strong or broad as the walls of Babylon, according to the reports. The wall of China is still standing, but the walls of Babylon have disappeared--shapeless mounds of earth.
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Difficult or obscure words:
Jeremiah 51:2. "Fanners"--winnowers, those who separate the chaff from grain by throwing it into the air so that the wind carries away the chaff.
Jeremiah 51:3. "Brigadine"--rather: armor.
Jeremiah 51:36. "Sea"--a Hebrew word sometimes used for river.
Today's reading: We finish the prophecy against Babylon. Some portions of it were fulfilled by the Persian conquest, but other parts remained unfulfilled until centuries later.
Memory gem: "Babylon shall become heaps, a dwelling place for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant" (Jeremiah 51:37).
Thought for today:
Babylon was situated in one of the most fertile valleys in the world, with plenty of water for irrigation. By all human prognostication it should have remained inhabited down through the ages. Great Babylon, the city of Bel, fought against God's city, Jerusalem, taking its people captive. Jerusalem became the slave of Babylon. Yet Babylon and its people have vanished like a dream in the night, while Jerusalem and its people still remain.
"Without an inhabitant," said the prophet. You who have been to Babylon today know that it is still uninhabited--just a few keepers about to take tourists through.
Think of the other cities in existence when Jeremiah predicted Babylon's demise: Damascus, Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Sidon--all have remained continuously cities of consequence to our present day. But it remained for Babylon, the greatest and richest of all the cities of that time, to sink into utter insignificance. How to explain it? God said it would be so.
In Jeremiah 51:58 we are told that "the broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken" For centuries after this prediction, the walls of Babylon were the strongest and greatest walls known at that time in the western world. The Great Wall of China had already been built, but it was not so strong or broad as the walls of Babylon, according to the reports. The wall of China is still standing, but the walls of Babylon have disappeared--shapeless mounds of earth.
----------------
Difficult or obscure words:
Jeremiah 51:2. "Fanners"--winnowers, those who separate the chaff from grain by throwing it into the air so that the wind carries away the chaff.
Jeremiah 51:3. "Brigadine"--rather: armor.
Jeremiah 51:36. "Sea"--a Hebrew word sometimes used for river.
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