John Calvin Commentary Jeremiah 51:7

"Babylon hath been a golden cup in Jehovah`s hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad." — Jeremiah 51:7 (ASV)

Here again he anticipates an objection that might have been made, for we know that the kingdoms of the world neither rise nor stand except through the will of God. So, as the Prophet threatens destruction to Babylon, this objection was ready at hand: “How does it happen, then, that this city, which you say is accursed, has until now so greatly flourished? For who has honored Babylon with such great dignity, with so much wealth, and with so many victories? For it has not happened by chance that this monarchy has been elevated so high; for not only has all Assyria been brought under its yoke, but also the kingdom of Israel, and the kingdom of Judah is not far from its final ruin.”

To this the Prophet answers, and says that Babylon was a cup in God’s hand to inebriate the earth; as though he had said that God was by no means inconsistent with Himself when He employed the Babylonians as His scourges, and when He now chastises them in their turn.

And he also shows that when things thus revolve in the world, they do not happen through the blind force of chance, but through the secret judgments of God, who so governs the world that He often exalts even the ungodly to the highest power when His purpose is to execute His judgments through them.

We now, then, understand the design of this passage, for otherwise what the Prophet says might seem abrupt. Having said that the time of God’s vengeance had already come, he now adds, A golden cup is in God’s hand; for what purpose was this added? From what has been stated, it appears evident how aptly the words flow, how sentences that seem far apart fitly unite together.

For a doubt might have crept in about this: how could it be that God should thus bestow His benefits on this city, and then in a short time destroy it?

Since, then, it seems unreasonable that God should vary in His doings, as though He were not consistent with Himself, the Prophet on the other hand reminds us that when such changes happen, God does not in any degree change His purposes. For He so regulates the government of the world that He afterwards destroys those whom He favors with remarkable benefits (they being worthy of punishment on account of their ingratitude), and that He does not without reason or cause use them for a time as scourges to chastise the wickedness of others.

And it is for this reason, I think, that he calls it a golden cup; for God seemed to pour forth His benefits on the Babylonians as with a full hand. When, therefore, the splendor of that city and of the monarchy was so great, all things there were, as it were, golden.

Then he says that it was a golden cup, but in the hand of God. By saying that it was in God’s hand, he intimates that the Babylonians were not under the government of chance but were ruled by God as He pleased, and also that their power, though very great, was yet under God’s restraint, so that they did nothing except by His permission, and even by His command.

He afterwards adds how God purposed to carry this cup in His hand—a cup so splendid, as it were, of gold. His will was that it should inebriate the whole earth. These are metaphorical words, for the Prophet is speaking here, no doubt, of punishments that produce a kind of fury or madness.

When God then designed to take vengeance on all these nations, He inebriated them with evils, and this He did by the Babylonians. For this reason, therefore, Babylon is said to have been the golden cup which God extended with His own hand and gave to be drunk by all nations. This similitude has also been used elsewhere, when Jeremiah spoke of the Edomites,

“All drank of the cup, yea, drank of it to the dregs, so that they were inebriated,”
(Jeremiah 49:12)

He there also called the terrible punishment that was coming on the Edomites the cup of fury. Thus, then, many nations were inebriated by the Babylonians because they were so oppressed that their minds were infatuated, as it were, with troubles; for we know that men are stupefied by adversities, as though they were not in their right mind.

In this way Babylon inebriated many nations, because it so oppressed them that they were reduced to a state of rage or madness; for they were not in a composed state of mind when they were miserably distressed.

To the same purpose is what is added: The nations who drank of her cup became mad. Here he shows that the punishments by which various nations were chastised by the Babylonians were not ordinary, but such as deprived them of mind and judgment, as is usually the case, as I have just said, in extreme evils.

Moreover, this passage teaches us that when the wicked exercise their power with great display, God nonetheless overrules all their violence, though not apparently. Indeed, all the wicked, while they seem to assume the greatest license for themselves, are yet guided, as it were, by the hand of God. And when they oppress their neighbors, it is done through the secret providence of God, who thus inebriates all who deserve to be punished.

At the same time, the Prophet implies that the Babylonians oppressed so many nations neither by their own contrivance nor by their own strength, but because it was the Lord’s will that they should be inebriated. Otherwise, it would have greatly perplexed the faithful to think that no one could be found stronger than the Babylonians.

Hence the Prophet in effect gives this answer: that all the nations could not have been overcome had not the Lord given them to drink the wine of fury and madness.