Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Burden of Babylon
Isaiah 13:1-22
1 The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. · WEB
The oracles against the nations open with an empire that had not yet risen, and the day of Yahweh described as cosmic.
The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw Isaiah 13:1.
Eleven chapters of oracles against foreign nations begin here. The word rendered burden is used of a load carried and of an utterance — a message with weight in it.
Babylon comes first, which is worth noticing. In Isaiah's lifetime Assyria was the empire and Babylon a subject city; the book puts the power that would matter a century later at the head of the list.
I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger Isaiah 13:3.
The army mustering against Babylon is described as consecrated — set apart for a purpose — and they are pagan troops. As with Assyria in chapter ten, the instrument does not know whose it is.
Wail, for Yahweh's day is at hand! Isaiah 13:6.
The day of Yahweh, and the description that follows runs far past the fall of any city. The stars of the sky and its constellations will not give their light. The sun will be darkened in its going out, and the moon will not cause its light to shine Isaiah 13:10.
Jesus uses these words of the end Matthew 24:29, and the oracle itself widens beyond its subject two verses later: I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity Isaiah 13:11. The prophets regularly do this — a local judgment described in language that outgrows it, so that the fall of one empire becomes the pattern of the last one.
I will make people more rare than fine gold Isaiah 13:12.
Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped Isaiah 13:16.
The verse is unbearable and it is a description of ancient warfare rather than a prescription. It is what Babylon had done and what would be done to Babylon, and the book records it without softening.
Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it Isaiah 13:17.
The conquerors are named a century and a half early, and the detail given about them is that they cannot be bought off. A city whose defense was its wealth is given an enemy uninterested in wealth.
Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah Isaiah 13:19.
It will never be inhabited... The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there Isaiah 13:20.
The sentence is not destruction but permanent vacancy, and the measure of it is that nomads will not even camp on the site. What moves in instead is wildlife: jackals in the houses, ostriches, hyenas crying in the fortresses Isaiah 13:21–22.
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