51:46 And lest your heart should faint, and ye should fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come [one] {b} year, and after that in [another] year [shall come] a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler.
(b) Meaning that Babylon would not be destroyed all at once but little by little would be brought to nothing for the first year came the tidings, the next year the siege and in the third year it was taken: yet this is not that horrible destruction which the prophets threatened in many places: for that was after this when they rebelled and Darius over came them by the policy of Zopyrus, and hanged three thousand gentlemen beside the common people.
51:1-58 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Re 18:9,19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord. Then will the lost sheep of the house of Israel be brought back to the fold of the good Shepherd, and stray no more. And the exact fulfilment of these ancient prophecies encourages us to faith in all the promises and prophecies of the sacred Scriptures.
