Escape Out

Jeremiah 50:25-33 The LORD had opened his armoury, and had brought forth the weapons of his indignation: for this is the work of the Lord GOD of hosts in the land of the Chaldeans. Come against her from the utmost border, open her storehouses: cast her up as heaps, and destroy her utterly: let nothing of her be left. Slay all her bullocks; let them go down to the slaughter: woe unto them! for their day is come, the time of their visitation. The voice of them that flee and escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God, the vengeance of his temple. Call together the archers against Babylon: all you that bend the bow, camp against it round about; let none thereof escape: recompense her according to her work; according to all that she had done, do unto her: for she had been proud against the LORD, against the Holy One of Israel. Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day, said the LORD. Behold, I am against thee, O thou most proud, said the Lord GOD of hosts: for thy day is come, the time that I will visit thee. And the most proud shall stumble and fall, and none shall raise him up: and I will kindle a fire in his cities, and it shall devour all round about him. Thus said the LORD of hosts; The children of Israel and the children of Judah were oppressed together: and all that took them captives held them fast; they refused to let them go. 

‘Escape out of the land of Babylon, to declare in Zion the vengeance of the LORD our God.’ A remnant of Jews were to be saved from the destruction of Babylon and declare in Zion that the great city had fallen.

‘Recompense her according to her work.’ Babylon was to reap what she had sown. She had destroyed Jerusalem and Judah and now she was to be destroyed – the empire would pass into history.

‘Therefore shall her young men fall in the streets, and all her men of war shall be cut off in that day.’ In Jeremiah 50:30-32 we have the utter destruction of Babylon foretold. The young men, the men of war, all the proud, and all the cities of Babylon were to be destroyed.

‘The children of Israel and the children of Judah were oppressed together: and all that took them captives held them fast.’ Here we have another of the scores of proofs that both houses of Israel were to be made captives in the same lands, be oppressed together by the same people, and then be redeemed together from captivity (50:33-34). The way they were oppressed together in the same land by the same people began with the 10 tribes being taken into captivity by Assyria and then the 2 tribes by Babylon. In the period of 133 years between the two captivities, the Babylonian empire arose and overthrew the Assyrian. This made the 10 tribes already captive to Babylon at the time the 2 tribes were carried away by the empire. When Medo-Persia overthrew Babylon this made all the tribes in the same empire again. Then when Cyrus permitted any and all who wanted to return to their homeland to go back from all the tribes of Israel, many from all 12 tribes (and the Levites) did go back and form the nation in Palestine to fulfill Scripture in connection with the first advent of the Messiah.