The interpretation timeline

Jer 51:43

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

Jer 51:43 · Douay-Rheims

“Her cities are become an astonishment, a land uninhabited and desolate, a land wherein none can dwell, nor son of man pass through it.”

Post-Reformation c. 1650 – 1900

1771

A.D.

John Gill Reformed

1697–1771

“My people, go ye out of the midst of her,.... This is a call of the Jews to go out of Babylon, not before the taking of the city by Cyrus; but when he should issue out a proclamation, giving them liberty to return to their own land; which many of them, being well settled in Babylon, would not be ready to accept of, but choose to continue there; wherefore they are urged to depart from thence, because of the danger they would be exposed unto; for though the city was not destroyed by Cyrus upon his taking it, yet it was by Darius Hystaspes some time after. The same call is given to the people of God to come out of mystical Babylon, Rev 18:4; and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord; shown in the destruction of Babylon; See Gill on Jer 51:6.”

Source

1871

A.D.

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown Reformed

1871

“Her cities--the cities, her dependencies. So, "Jerusalem and the cities thereof" (Jer 34:1). Or, the "cities" are the inner and outer cities, the two parts into which Babylon was divided by the Euphrates [GROTIUS].”

Source

Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.