Verse 26
26. Sheshach—Babylon; as the parallelism in Jeremiah 51:41 proves. In the Cabalistic system (called Athbash, the first Hebrew letter in the alphabet being expressed by the last) Sheshach would exactly answer to Babel. Jeremiah may have used this system (as perhaps in Jeremiah 51:41- :) for concealment at the time of this prediction, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, while Nebuchadnezzar was before Jerusalem. In Jeremiah 51:41 there can be no concealment, as Babylon is expressly mentioned. MICHAELIS more simply explains the term "brazen-gated" (compare Jeremiah 51:41- :); others, "the house of a prince." Rather, it comes from the Babylonian goddess, Shach, by reduplication of the first letter; from her Misael was named Meshach by the Babylonians. The term Shace was applied to a festival at Babylon, alluded to in Jeremiah 51:39; Jeremiah 51:57; Isaiah 21:5. It was during this feast that Cyrus took Babylon [HERODOTUS, 1]. Thus Jeremiah mystically denotes the time of its capture by this term [GLASSIUS].
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