John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 51:57

"And I will make drunk her princes and her wise men, her governors and her deputies, and her mighty men; and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is Jehovah of hosts." — Jeremiah 51:57 (ASV)

Jeremiah pursues the same subject; he said yesterday that desolators would come to destroy Babylon. He now confirms this by an illustration, as God Himself speaks, I will inebriate the princes and captains, as well as the soldiers and all the counselors. He seems here to allude to that feast of which Daniel speaks, and of which pagan authors have written (Daniel 5:1).

For while the Babylonians celebrated the feast, the city was taken that night, not only through the strategy and valor of Cyrus, but also through the treachery of those who had revolted from Belshazzar. Since they were taken while at the feast, and the king was slain that night along with his satraps, God seems to refer to this event when He declares that after He had inebriated them, they would be overtaken with perpetual sleep. Indeed, death immediately followed that feasting.

They had prolonged their feast to the middle of the night. While they were sitting at the table, an uproar suddenly arose in the city, and the king heard that he was in the hands of his enemies. Therefore, since feasting and death followed in close succession, it is a striking allusion made by the Prophet when God threatens the Babylonians with perpetual sleep after having inebriated them.

But he mentions here the rulers and the captains, as well as the counselors and the wise men. We indeed know that the Babylonians were inflated by a twofold confidence: they thought themselves endowed with consummate wisdom and also that they possessed military prowess. This is the reason why the Prophet expresses so distinctly that all the captains and rulers in Babylon, however superior in acuteness and prudence, would yet be overtaken with perpetual sleep before they rose from their table.

And we must observe that Jeremiah had prophesied this about Babylon many years before; therefore, we conclude that his mind, as well as his tongue, was guided by the Spirit of God, for he could not possibly have conjectured what would happen after eighty years. Yet such a long time passed between the prediction and its accomplishment, as we will soon see.

Moreover, the Prophet here uses a manner of speaking that often occurs in Scripture: namely, that insensibility is a kind of drunkenness by which God, through His hidden judgment, deprives men of their reason.

Therefore, it should be noted that whatever prudence and skill exist in the world are gifts from God in such a way that, whenever He pleases, the wisest are blinded and, like the drunk, they either go astray or fall. But we must bear in mind what I have already said: the Prophet alludes to that very history, for there was then an immediate transition from feasting to death. It now follows.