John Gill Commentary Jeremiah 51:39

"When they are heated, I will make their feast, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith Jehovah." — Jeremiah 51:39 (ASV)

In their heat I will make their feasts I will order it that their feasts shall be in the time of heat, that so they may be made drunk; so Jarchi: or when they are hot with feasting, I will disturb their feast by a handwriting on the wall; so Kimchi; see (Daniel 5:1–6) ; to which he directs: or when they are inflamed with wine, I will put something into their banquets, into their cups; I will mingle their potions with the wine of my wrath; and, while they are feasting, ruin shall come upon them; and so it was, according to Herodotus and Xenophon, that the city of Babylon was taken, while the inhabitants were feasting; and this account agrees with (Daniel 5:1Daniel 5:30) . This text is quoted in the Talmud ^F3 , where the gloss on it says,

``this is said concerning Belshazzar and his company, when they returned from a battle with Darius and Cyrus, who besieged Babylon, and Belshazzar overcame that day; and they were weary and hot, and sat down to drink, and were drunken, and on that day he was slain;'' and the Targum is, ``I will bring tribulation upon them:''

and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice ; in a riotous and revelling way; or that they may be mad and tremble, as R. Jonah, from the use of the word ^F4 in the Arabic language, interprets it; so drunken men are oftentimes like mad men, deprived of their senses, and their limbs tremble through the strength of liquor; and here it signifies, that the Chaldeans should be so intoxicated with the cup of divine wrath and vengeance, that they should be at their wits' end; in the utmost horror and trembling; not able to stand, or defend themselves; and so the Targum, ``they shall be like drunken men, that they may not be strong;'' but as weak as they:

and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord ; not only fall asleep as drunken men do, and awake again; but sleep, and never awake more; or die, and not live again, until the resurrection morn; no doubt many of the Chaldeans, being in a literal sense drunk and asleep when the city was taken, were slain in their sleep, and never waked again. The Targum is, ``and die the second death, and not live in the world to come;'' see (Revelation 21:8) .

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FOOTNOTES:

• F3: T. Bab. Megilia, fol. 15. 2.
• F4: "furor ac repentina mors", Camus apud Golium, col. 1634. "tremor, timor mortis aegroto contingens", Giggeius apud Castel. col. 2772. So R. Sol. Urbiu. Ohel Moed, fol. 32. 1. interprets the words of trembling.