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Jeremiah 51 casts Babylon's king as the dragon fought by Anat in the Baal Cycle, making God's promised defeat of Babylon a victory over an older enemy of divine rule.
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2500 BCE
1000+ CE
KTU 1.3 III:40
Cuneiform Texts from Ugarit
Ancient Near East
Come, and I will show it: deep inside my mountain, holy Sapan, in the sacred space on my native peak, in the paradise upon the hill of victory.” Watch! Anat sees the gods. Below, her feet start shaking. All around, her limbs are shivering. Up above, her face sweats. Shudders wrack the bones of every limb; the bones within her spine turn weak. She spoke up and cried out, “Why have Gupan and Ugar come here? What enemy rises up against Baal? What rival faces the Cloud-Rider? Didn’t I crush El’s beloved, Yamm (Ocean)? Didn’t I annihilate Nahar (River), the great god? Didn’t I leash Dragon and bind him in a saddle? I crushed the Sinuous Serpent, Encircler, the seven-headed monster. I crushed the gods’ beloved, Arsha. I ravaged El’s young bull, Ataka. I crushed the gods’ she-wolf, Fire.
Jeremiah 51:34
Hebrew Bible
34 “King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon devoured me and drove my people out. Like a monster from the deep he swallowed me. He filled his belly with my riches; he made me an empty dish. He completely cleaned me out.” 35 The person who lives in Zion says, “May Babylon pay for the violence done to me and to my relatives.” Jerusalem says, “May those living in Babylonia pay for the bloodshed of my people.” 36 Therefore the Lord says, “I will stand up for your cause. I will pay the Babylonians back for what they have done to you. I will dry up their sea; I will make their springs run dry.
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Notes and References
“... Yamm appears in late apocalyptic writing as the source of the
destructive beasts symbolizing successive empires (Dan. 7:3). J. Day has
suggested that this imagery developed from the symbolization of political
states hostile to Israel as beasts.366 For example, Rahab stands for Egypt (Isa.
30:7; Ps. 87:4), the River for Assyria (Isa. 8:5-8; cf. 17:12-14), tannîn for
Babylon (jer. 51:34).367 ...”
Smith, Mark S.
The Early History of God: Yahweh and the Other Deities in Ancient Israel
(p. PDF 104) William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2002
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
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