50:2 Babylon is taken. Finally, great Babylon itself comes under God’s prophetic condemnation in two long chapters, Jeremiah 50 and 51. Although God used Babylon to punish Israel and her sister nations, Babylon was more corrupt than any of them, and so must finally come under God’s most severe judgment of all.

50:2 Bel. Bel, The sun-god, chief of the Babylonian pantheon, is essentially a cognate for Baal, god of the Canaanites.

50:2 Merodach. Merodach, another name for Bel or Marduk, was a primary god of the Babylonians. It seems at least possible that Merodach is a deified form of Nimrod, the great and wicked founder of Babel.