Jeremiah 51:31

One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon that his city is taken at one end,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(31) One post shall run to meet another.—The words exactly answer to the account of the capture of Babylon given in Herod. i. (see Note on Jeremiah 51:24). The history of Belshazzar’s feast (Daniel 5:1-30) must obviously have ended in a like result. No words could paint more vividly the panic of the surprised city.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The royal palace was a strong fortification in the heart of the city. The messengers thus met one another.

At one end - Rather, from all sides, entirely, completely.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31. (See on [1004]Jer 50:24).

One post—One courier after another shall announce the capture of the city. The couriers despatched from the walls, where Cyrus enters, shall "meet" those sent by the king. Their confused running to and fro would result from the sudden panic at the entrance of Cyrus into the city, which he had so long besieged ineffectually; the Babylonians had laughed at his attempts and were feasting at the time without fear.

taken at one end—which was not known for a long time to the king and his courtiers feasting in the middle of the city; so great was its extent that, when the city was already three days in the enemy's hands, the fact was not known in some parts of the city [Aristotle, Politics, 3.2].

Matthew Poole's Commentary

We have had occasion one and again to recite what we have in civil historians about the taking of Babylon by Cyrus, viz., that it was taken by surprise, by the Median emperor’s unexpected diverting the river Euphrates by divers channels which he cut; as also that Babylon was a very vast city, the greatness of which might admit of posts and messengers from one end of the city to another, to acquaint the king what was done at the other end of the city in which himself was resident; and it is said that the king of Babylon, when his city, was taken, did not know of his danger until the enemy had entered the city.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another,.... That is, one post should be after another, and one messenger after another, post upon post, and messenger upon messenger, as fast as they could run; when one had been with his message, and delivered it, and returned, he meets another; or they met one another, coming from different places:

to show the king of Babylon his city is taken at one end; or, "at the end" (l); we render it "one end", as Kimchi does; at the end where Cyrus's army first landed, when they came up the channel of the river Euphrates they had drained. And so Herodotus (m) says, that when the Babylonians, which inhabited the "extreme parts" of the city, were taken, they that were in the middle of it were not sensible of it, because of the greatness of the city; and the rather, because they were engaged that night in feasting and dancing. Nay, Aristotle (n) says, it was reported that one part of the city was taken three days before the other end knew it, it being more like a country than a city; which does not seem credible, nor is it consistent with the Scripture account of it; however, it was taken by surprise, and some parts of it before the king was aware of it; who very probably had his palace in the middle of it, whither these messengers ran one after another, or from different parts, to acquaint him with it.

(l) "a fine", Montanus; "ab extremitate", Calvin, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, De Dieu, Schmidt. (m) L. 1. sive Clio, c. 191. (n) Politic. l. 3. c. 3.

Geneva Study Bible

One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at {r} one end,

(r) By turning the course of the river one side was made open and the reeds that grew in the water were destroyed which Cyrus did by the counsel of Gobria and Gabatha Belshazzar's captains.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

31. post] lit. runner. The word survives in this sense in modern English only in the expression post-haste. For the sense here cp.

“Your native town you entered like a post.”

Coriolanus, Act v sc. 5.

First denoting that which is placed (positum), it came to denote a fixed spot, e.g. a military post, or a place where horses are kept for travellers, then the person so travelling, and then any one travelling quickly. See Bible Word Book.

shall run to meet another] Bearing the tidings from opposite quarters, they shall meet at the king’s castle in the heart of the city.

on every quarter] See on Jeremiah 50:26.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 31. - One post shall run to meet another, etc. The wall being broken through at various points, couriers would meet each other on their way to the royal palace. This was itself a fortress in the centre of the city, on the Euphrates. The newly discovered cylinder inscription, however, shows that Nabonidus, the last King of Babylon, was not actually in the city at the time of the capture. At one end; rather, from end to end (see on Jeremiah 50:26). Jeremiah 51:31

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

On the advance of this mighty host against Babylon, to execute the judgment determined by the Lord, the earth quakes. The mighty men of Babylon cease to offer resistance, and withdraw dispirited, like women, into inaccessible places, while the enemy sets fire to the houses, breaks the bars, and captures the city. The prophet views all this in spirit as already present, and depicts in lively colours the attack on the city and its capture. Hence the historic tenses, ותּרעשׁ, ותּחל, חדלוּ, etc. קמה is used of the permanence, i.e., of the realization of the divine counsels, as in Jeremiah 44:23. On the singular, see Ewald, 317, a. "To make the land," etc., as in Jeremiah 4:7; Jeremiah 18:16, etc. "They sit (have taken up their position) in the strongholds" (Mountain fastnesses), i.e., in inaccessible places; cf. 1 Samuel 13:16; 2 Samuel 23:14. נשׁתה is but to be regarded as a Kal form from נשׁת; on its derivation from שׁתת, see on Isaiah 41:17. "They have become women;" cf. Jeremiah 50:37. The subject of the verb הצּיעתוּ is the enemy, who set fire to the dwellings in Babylon. "Runner runs against runner," i.e., from opposite sides of the city there come messengers, who meet each other running to tell the king in his castle that the city is taken. The king is therefore (as Graf correctly remarks against Hitzig) not to be thought of as living outside of the city, for "in this case לקראת would have no meaning," but as living in the royal castle, which was situated in the middle of the city, on the Euphrates. Inasmuch as the city is taken "from the end" (מקּצה), i.e., on all sides, the messengers who bring the news to the king's fortress must meet each other.