Bible Strands
Jeremiah 51:26
No one shall retrieve from you a cornerstone or a foundation stone, because you will become desolate forever,” declares the LORD.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The LORD declares this judgment against Babylon, identified as the "destroying mountain," immediately before commanding the gathered nations to mobilize for its assault.
The words — אֶבֶן ('E.ven) means stone and לְפִנָּה (le./fi.Nah) means for a corner, referencing architectural elements that will remain permanently unretrievable. The verb יִקְחֻוּ (yik.Chu) specifies that no one will take or remove these stones from the site.
The thread — The theme of irreversible ruin and desolation runs through Isaiah 13:19, where Babylon’s overthrow is compared to Sodom, and Jeremiah 50:12, where the city’s shame and disgrace are emphasized.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that political and architectural power cannot resist divine judgment, requiring the reader to treat earthly systems as temporary and subject to God’s decree.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
And they shall not take of thee a stone for a corner, nor a stone for foundations; but thou shalt be desolate for ever, saith the Lord.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 13:19 And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms, the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah.
- Jeremiah 50:12 your mother will be greatly ashamed; she who bore you will be disgraced. Behold, she will be the least of the nations, a wilderness, a dry land, and a desert.
- Jeremiah 51:43 Her cities have become a desolation, a dry and arid land, a land where no one lives, where no son of man passes through.
- Revelation 18:20 Rejoice over her, O heaven, and you saints and apostles and prophets, because God has pronounced for you His judgment against her.
- Isaiah 14:23 “I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of Hosts.
- Isaiah 34:8 For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of recompense for the cause of Zion.
- Jeremiah 50:40 As God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah along with their neighbors,” declares the LORD, “no one will dwell there; no man will abide there.
- Jeremiah 51:29 The earth quakes and writhes because the LORD’s intentions against Babylon stand: to make the land of Babylon a desolation, without inhabitant.
- Jeremiah 51:37 Babylon will become a heap of rubble, a haunt for jackals, an object of horror and scorn, without inhabitant.