Bible Strands
Jeremiah 51:35
May the violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon,” says the dweller of Zion. “May my blood be on the dwellers of Chaldea,” says Jerusalem.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — The speaker is personified Zion and Jerusalem addressing Babylon and Chaldea immediately after Nebuchadnezzar’s devastation of the city. The declaration functions as a public imprecation within a prophetic oracle that precedes God’s promise to plead Zion’s case.
The words — חָמָס (ḥāmās) means violent oppression, and שְׁאֵר (šē’ēr) denotes one’s own flesh or kin. The text literally places the weight of this violence and the speaker’s blood upon Babylon and Chaldea.
The thread — This demand for retributive justice aligns with the summons of archers against Babylon in Jeremiah 50:29 and the heavenly rejoicing over God’s judgment in Revelation 18:20. The motif of blood being laid upon a perpetrator mirrors the curse pronounced in Judges 9:20.
Why it lands — The verse asserts that unaddressed violence creates a moral debt that requires settlement. It asks the reader to recognize that divine justice operates on the same principle of accountability without offering comfort to the oppressor.
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
The violence done to me and to my flesh be upon Babylon, shall the inhabitant of Zion say; and my blood upon the inhabitants of Chaldea, shall Jerusalem say.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 50:29 Summon the archers against Babylon, all who string the bow. Encamp all around her; let no one escape. Repay her according to her deeds; do to her as she has done. For she has defied the LORD, the Holy One of Israel.
- 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.
- Judges 9:20 But if not, may fire come from Abimelech and consume the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo, and may fire come from the leaders of Shechem and Beth-millo and consume Abimelech.”
- Judges 9:24 in order that the crime against the seventy sons of Jerubbaal might come to justice and their blood be avenged on their brother Abimelech and on the leaders of Shechem, who had helped him murder his brothers.
- Judges 9:56 In this way God repaid the wickedness that Abimelech had done to his father in murdering his seventy brothers.
- Psalms 9:12 For the Avenger of bloodshed remembers; He does not ignore the cry of the afflicted.
- Psalms 12:5 “For the cause of the oppressed and for the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the LORD. “I will bring safety to him who yearns.”
- Psalms 137:8 O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, blessed is he who repays you as you have done to us.
- Isaiah 26:20 Go, my people, enter your rooms and shut your doors behind you. Hide yourselves a little while until the wrath has passed.
- Zechariah 1:15 but I am fiercely angry with the nations that are at ease. For I was a little angry, but they have added to the calamity.’