Why will the Lord punish the king of Babylon after seventy years?

The comprehensive and universal nature of the Lord’s judgment is made even clearer by the fact that Babylon will also be judged by him. The Lord judged Judah and the nations by putting them under Babylonian subjugation. That dominance would come to an end after seventy years are completed and then, says the Lord, I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity, making the land an everlasting waste. He continues in Jeremiah 25:14 saying, For many nations and great kings shall make slaves even of them, and I will recompense them according to their deeds and the work of their hands. The Lord is going to completely overturn Babylon’s dominance. The subjugator will become the subjugated. All of this will happen because of Babylon’s iniquity. Babylon does not face judgment because the Lord used them to bring nations under their rule, but because of the way they treated these nations, especially Judah (see further Jeremiah 50:11–13; Isaiah 47:5–7).¹ Even as the Lord’s servant (see Jeremiah 25:9), Babylon was not consciously acting out of obedience to the Lord but was rather driven by their devotion to their own gods such as Marduk, and by their desire to become a super-power.² In the end, however, they too are accountable to the Lord and they too will face judgment for their evil ways. This judgment is described more fully in Jeremiah 50:11–13 (see further Isaiah 47:5–7). It should be noted, however, that there is no suggestion here in Jeremiah 25:1–38 that the judgment against Babylon will bring any sort of restoration to Judah.³ The theme of the comprehensive and unavoidable nature of the Lord’s judgment dominates.