Declare ye among the nations, and publish, and set up a standard; publish, and conceal not: say, Babylon is taken, Bel is confounded, Merodach is broken in pieces; her idols are confounded, her images are broken in pieces. (Jeremiah 50:2)
The Babylonian bêlu, “lord” (related to Heb. ba‘al), a title applied to the chief god of Babylon, Marduk (the “Merodach” of this verse). Jeremiah repeatedly represented the punishments visited upon surrounding nations as judgments upon their false gods (see chs. 46:25; 48:7, 13, 46; see on ch. 49:1).
Babylonian mythology concerning Marduk in some respects resembles the Bible narrative. The Babylonian creation story, Enûma elish, recounts that before the creation of the world there was a great war in heaven, in which Marduk, the king of the gods, conquered and killed Ti’ämat, the primeval mother-goddess of watery chaos. Then he made heaven and earth from her body, and afterward created man to serve the gods, making him from the blood of another deity. In view of these distorted similarities to Jehovah’s struggle with Lucifer in regard to the creation of man, Jeremiah’s prophecy that “Merodach is broken in pieces” becomes of particular significance.