(9) We would have healed Babylon . . .--This is the dramatic answer of the Israelite exiles to the prophet's appeal. They have done what they could, but all was in vain. The guilt could not be washed away, the punishment could not be averted. The "judgment" is measureless as is the distance from heaven to earth. This is also reproduced in Revelation 18:5. For the phrase, as applied to Nebuchadnezzar, see Daniel 4:20. Possibly there may be an allusive reference to the tower of Babel, "reaching unto heaven," as the type of Babylonian greatness (Genesis 11:4).

Verse 9. - We would have healed Babylon. Experience shows that it is useless to attempt to correct such inveterate evils. Everyone into his own country (as Jeremiah 50:16). Her judgment; i.e. her punishment. Perhaps there is an allusion to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah, burned by fire from heaven. But we might also render "her crime" (comp. Deuteronomy 19:6, where "worthy of death" is more strictly "a capital crime").

51:1-58 The particulars of this prophecy are dispersed and interwoven, and the same things left and returned to again. Babylon is abundant in treasures, yet neither her waters nor her wealth shall secure her. Destruction comes when they did not think of it. Wherever we are, in the greatest depths, at the greatest distances, we are to remember the Lord our God; and in the times of the greatest fears and hopes, it is most needful to remember the Lord. The feeling excited by Babylon's fall is the same with the New Testament Babylon, Re 18:9,19. The ruin of all who support idolatry, infidelity, and superstition, is needful for the revival of true godliness; and the threatening prophecies of Scripture yield comfort in this view. The great seat of antichristian tyranny, idolatry, and superstition, the persecutor of true Christians, is as certainly doomed to destruction as ancient Babylon. Then will vast multitudes mourn for sin, and seek the Lord. Then will the lost sheep of the house of Israel be brought back to the fold of the good Shepherd, and stray no more. And the exact fulfilment of these ancient prophecies encourages us to faith in all the promises and prophecies of the sacred Scriptures.We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed,.... These are either the words of the friends of Babylon of her auxiliaries and allies, who did all they could to defend her against the Persians, but to no purpose; it was not in their power to help her; the time of her destruction was come, and there was no avoiding it; or of the prophets and good people of the Jews that were in Babylon, that took pains to convince, the inhabitants of Babylon of their idolatries and other sins, and reform them, that so they might not be their ruin; but all instructions and admonitions were in vain; in like manner many worthy reformers have laboured much to reclaim mystical Babylon, or the church of Rome, from her errors and idolatries; but still she retains them; wherefore it follows:

forsake her, and let us go everyone into his own country; so said the auxiliary troops that were in the service of the king of Babylon; since we can do him no good, and are ourselves posed to danger, let us desert him, and provide for our safety by hastening to our own country as fast as we can; this was really the case after the first battle of Cyrus with the Babylonians, in which their king Neriglissar was slain: Croesus and the rest of the allies, seeing their case so distressed and helpless, left them to shift for themselves, and fled by night (h): or so might the Jews say when the city was taken, and they were delivered out of the hands of their oppressors; and so will the people of God say, who shall be called out of mystical Babylon just before its ruin, Revelation 18:4;

for her judgment reacheth unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies: that is, her sins were so many, that they reached even to heaven; and were taken notice of by God that dwelleth there; and were the cause of judgment or punishment being from thence inflicted on her, which was unavoidable, being the decree of heaven, and the just demerit of her sin; and therefore no help could be afforded her; nor was there any safety by being in her; see Revelation 18:5.

(h) Xenophon, Cyropaedia l. 4. c. 2.