Jeremiah 51:6,7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

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 Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah 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 Jeremiah 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.