During my morning reading of scriptures, I was moved to look at commentaries regarding the underscored passage below – the golden cup.
The purpose of this post is to explain that phrase, as it appears in the New Testament also, ‘the cup’ of God’s wrath….
The writings of two Bible commentators are below, for Jeremiah 517, Joseph Benson and John Calvin.
The most plain and short definition will be in red font, the longer explanation is for those who would know more. There is also a link to Bible Hub to where there are a couple dozen Bible commentaries to be used freely.
[Bracketed statements, emboldening and underscoring are mine; paragraphs are divided for ease of reading.]
Jermiah 51:6 “Flee from the midst of Babylon; let every one save his life! Be not cut off in her punishment, for this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance, the repayment he is rendering her. 7 Babylon was a golden cup in the LORD’s hand, making all the earth drunken; the nations drank of her wine; therefore the nations went mad.
Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments: Jeremiah 51:6-7
Flee out of the midst of Babylon, &c. — God’s people are here exhorted to flee out of Babylon with all haste, as Lot did out of Sodom, lest they should be consumed in the iniquity of that place: see Jer_50:8. Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord’s hand —
In what sense Babylon is called a cup may be seen by comparing Jer_25:15. Her greatness and glory enticed and drew in many nations to be confederate with her, in hopes of enriching or aggrandizing themselves; but thereby they drew down destruction upon themselves. They thought to drink, or be in alliance with the Babylonians, was drinking out of a golden cup, but it proved to them a deadly draught.
For she was a splendid instrument of vengeance, ordained by God against them; and as they all had suffered by her, so they are all here represented as glorying over her, and rejoicing when her turn of suffering came.
By making all the earth drunken, is meant either making all the neighbouring nations act foolishly, and contrary to true wisdom and prudence, or the causing them, as it were, to stagger and fall through the terror and astonishment, the confusion and dismay, which God’s judgments should produce among them: see note on Jer_25:15.
We may observe further here, that this golden cup is said to be in the Lord’s hand, to signify that these things had been brought about by the divine providence, and that God had used Babylon as an instrument to bring the nations to that condign punishment which they had deserved.
Jeremiah 25:15 and notes:
Jer 25:15 Thus the LORD, the God of Israel, said to me: “Take from my hand this cup of the wine of wrath, and make all the nations to whom I send you drink it. 16 They shall drink and stagger and be crazed because of the sword that I am sending among them.”
Notes:
Thus saith the Lord, Take the wine-cup of this fury, &c. — “Those circumstances which constitute the good and evil of human life are often represented in Scripture as the ingredients of a cup, which God, as master of a feast, mixes up, and distributes to the several guests as he thinks fit.
Hence, when our Saviour asks James and John, whether they were able to drink of the cup which he was to drink of, he means, whether they had resolution and patience to undergo the like sufferings as his Father had allotted for him.
And in the like sense he prays, If it be possible let this cup pass from me. Accordingly, by this image of the wine-cup of God’s wrath, we are to understand those dreadful judgments which an incensed God was about to inflict on the objects of his displeasure.
And Jeremiah the prophet, who announced them, is considered as acting the part of a cup-bearer, carrying the cup round to those who were appointed to drink of it; the effects of which were to appear in the intoxication, that is, the terror and astonishment, the confusion and desolation, that should prevail among them.” — Blaney. See notes on Psa_11:6; Psa_75:8; Isa_51:21. [END OF RED FONT]
Psalm 11:6 Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup.
Notes:
Upon the wicked he shall rain snares, &c. — The wicked may think themselves very secure, because they are so politic, crafty, and strong; but how can they defend themselves against God, who hath innumerable ways to destroy them, when they least think of it; and can as unexpectedly overthrow all their power as, when the heavens are most serene, a sudden storm of thunder and lightning and tempestuous wind arises and spreads destruction far and near?
Dr. Waterland reads the verse thus: Upon the wicked he shall rain snares: fire and brimstone, and a tempestuous wind shall be the portion of their cup. The psalmist alludes to the fire and brimstone which fell upon the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah.
By snares are meant grievous plagues or calamities, which are called snares, because wicked men are often surprised with them when they least expect it, and because they cannot escape them, or extricate themselves from them; but are held fast and destroyed by them. And God is said to rain them, to denote his sending them plentifully, swiftly, and suddenly, as rain commonly falls from heaven.
And a horrible tempest — Dreadful judgments, so called in allusion to the destruction of the aforementioned cities by these means. But he seems to intend this, not so much of present calamities, as of eternal punishments, to commence at the judgment of the last day.
“Then the children of faithful Abraham shall behold a prospect, like that which once presented itself to the eyes of their father; when, rising early in the morning, and looking toward Sodom and Gomorrah, he beheld, and lo, the smoke of the country went up as the smoke of a furnace! Gen_19:28.
Such must be the portion of their cup who have dashed from them the cup of salvation. He, therefore, who enjoys the prosperity of the wicked here, must take with it their torment hereafter; as he who is ambitious of wearing the crown of righteousness in heaven must be content to endure tribulation upon earth.” — Horne.
The reader will observe, that this expression, the portion of their cup, is a proverbial phrase in Scripture: God’s gifts and dispensations, whether pleasing or painful, consolatory or afflictive, especially the latter, being ordinarily expressed by a cup, poured out and given men to drink.
Psalm 75:8 For in the hand of the LORD there is a cup with foaming wine, well mixed, and he pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs.
Notes [a few points]:
…A cup, in Scripture, is sometimes taken in a good sense for God’s blessings, as Psa_16:5; Psa_23:5, and sometimes, and more frequently, in a bad sense, for his vengeance and judgments, Psa_11:6; Isa_51:22; Jer_49:12; Mat_20:23; and so it is here understood, as the following words show. And the wine is red —
[Psa 16:5 The LORD is my chosen portion and my cup; you hold my lot. Psa 23:5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. ]
[Psa 11:6 Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. Isa 51:22 Thus says your Lord, the LORD, your God who pleads the cause of his people: “Behold, I have taken from your hand the cup of staggering; the bowl of my wrath you shall drink no more; Jer 49:12 For thus says the LORD: “If those who did not deserve to drink the cup must drink it, will you go unpunished? You shall not go unpunished, but you must drink. Mat 20:23 He said to them, “You will drink my cup, but to sit at my right hand and at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared by my Father.” ]
Such as the best wine in Judea was, (Deu_32:14; Pro_23:31,) and therefore strong and intoxicating. …It is full of mixture — The wine is mingled, not with water, but with strengthening and intoxicating ingredients. “Calamity and sorrow, fear and trembling, infatuation and despair, the evils of the present life, and of that which is to come, are the bitter ingredients of this cup of mixture.”
And he poureth out of the same — As it is entirely in the hand and disposal of God, so, through every age, he has been pouring out, and administering of its contents, more or less, in proportion to the sins of men; but the dregs thereof — The worst and most dreadful part of those tribulations; all the wicked of the earth shall wring them out — Shall be compelled to squeeze out every drop of wrath and misery which they contain; and drink them — For the curse shall enter into their bowels like water, and like oil into their bones.
John Calvin’s Commentary on Jeremiah 51:7 Babylon hath been a golden cup in the LORD’S hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad.
Notes:
Here again he anticipates an objection which might have been made; for we know that the kingdoms of the world neither rise nor stand, except through the will of God; as, then, the Prophet threatens destruction to Babylon, this objection was ready at hand.
“How comes it, then, that this city, which thou sayest is accursed, has hitherto so greatly flourished? for who hath honored Babylon with so great dignity, with so much wealth, and with so many victories? for it has not by chance happened that this monarchy has been elevated so high; for not only all Assyria has been brought, under its yoke, but also the kingdom of Israel, and the kingdom of Judah is not far from its final ruin.”
To this the Prophet answers, and says, that Babylon was a cup in God’s hand to inebriate the earth; as though he had said, that God was by no means inconsistent with himself when he employed the Babylonians as his scourges, and when he now chastises them in their turn.
And he shows also, that when things thus revolve in the world, they do not happen through the blind force of chance, but through the secret judgments of God, who so governs the world, that he often exalts even the ungodly to the highest power, when his purpose is to execute through them his judgments. [Think of America since 2020; actually, since 1960.]
We now, then, understand the design of this passage; for otherwise what the Prophet says might seem abrupt. Having said that the time of God’s vengeance had already come, he now adds, A golden cup is in God’s hand; — to what purpose was this added?
By what has been stated, it appears evident how aptly the words run, how sentences which seem to be wide asunder fitly unite together; for a doubt might have crept in as to this, how could it be that God should thus bestow his benefits on this city, and then in a short time destroy it.
As, then, it seems unreasonable that God should vary in his doings, as though he was not consistent with himself, the Prophet on the other hand reminds us, that when such changes happen, God does in no degree change his purposes; for he so regulates the government of the world, that those whom he favors with remarkable benefits, he afterwards destroys, they being worthy of punishment on account of their ingratitude, and that he does not without reason or cause use them for a time as scourges to chastise the wickedness of others.
And it is for this reason, as I think, that he calls it a golden cup; for God seemed to pour forth his benefits on the Babylonians as with a full hand. When, therefore, the splendor of that city and of the monarchy was so great, all things were there as it were golden.
Then he says, that it was a golden cup, but in the hand of God By saying that it was in God’s hand, he intimates that the Babylonians were not under the government of chance, but were ruled by God as he pleased, and also that their power, though very great, was yet under the restraint of God, so that they did nothing but by his permission, and even by his command.
He afterwards adds how God purposed to carry this cup in his hand, a cup so splendid as it were of gold; his will was that it should inebriate the whole earth These are metaphorical words; for the Prophet speaks here, no doubt, of punishments which produce a kind of fury or madness. When God then designed to take vengeance on all these nations, he inebriated them with evils, and this he did by the Babylonians. For this reason, therefore, Babylon is said to have been the golden cup which God extended with his own hand, and gave it to be drunk by all nations. This similitude has also been used elsewhere, when Jeremiah spoke of the Idumeans,
“All drank of the cup, yea, drank of it to the dregs, so that they were inebriated,”(Jeremiah 49:12)
He there also called the terrible punishment that was coming on the Idumeans the cup of fury. Thus, then, were many nations inebriated by the Babylonians, because they were so oppressed, that their minds were infatuated, as it were, with troubles; for we know that men are stupefied with adversities, as though they were not in a right mind. In this way Babylon inebriated many nations, because it so oppressed them that they were reduced to a state of rage or madness; for they were not in a composed state of mind when they were miserably distressed. [83]
To the same purpose is what is added: The nations who drank of her cup became mad. Here he shows that the punishments were not ordinary, by which divers nations were chastised by the Babylonians, but such as deprived them of mind and judgment, as it is usually the case, as I have just said, in extreme evils.
Moreover, this passage teaches us, that when the wicked exercise their power with great display, yet God overrules all their violence, though not apparently; nay, that all the wicked, while they seem to assume to themselves the greatest license, are yet guided, as it were, by the hand of God, and that when they oppress their neighbors, it is done through the secret providence of God, who thus inebriates all who deserve to be punished.
At the same time, the Prophet implies, that the Babylonians oppressed so many nations neither by their own contrivance, nor by their own strength; but because it was the Lord’s will that they should be inebriated: otherwise it would have greatly perplexed the faithful to think that no one could be found stronger than the Babylonians. Hence the Prophet in effect gives this answer, that all the nations could not have been overcome, had not the Lord given them to drink the wine of fury and madness. It follows, —
Link to Calvin’s commentary at Bible Hub: https://biblehub.com/commentaries/calvin/jeremiah/51.htm
Footnotes:
[83] Some render the last word “reel,” or stagger, and perhaps more consistently with the comparison of drunkenness. The verb in Hithpael, as here, means to be moved violently, either through rage or joy. Moved or agitated is the rendering of the versions and the Targum. To be moved with joy is to exult or glory; and so Blayney renders it, and connects the end of this verse with the following, i.e., that the nations gloried because of the fall of Babylon, — Therefore shall nations glory, [saying,] Babylon is suddenly fallen, etc. — Ed
[END OF COMMENTARIES ON ‘THE CUP’]
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