The Burden of Babylon
1 The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw. 2 Set up a banner on the bare mountain! Lift up your voice to them! Wave your hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. 3 I have commanded my consecrated ones; yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, even my proudly exulting ones. 4 The noise of a multitude is in the mountains, as of a great people; the noise of an uproar of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! Yahweh of Armies is mustering the army for the battle. 5 They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. 6 Wail, for Yahweh’s day is at hand! It will come as destruction from the Almighty. 7 Therefore all hands will be feeble, and everyone’s heart will melt. 8 They will be dismayed. Pangs and sorrows will seize them. They will be in pain like a woman in labor. They will look in amazement one at another. Their faces will be faces of flame. 9 Behold, the day of Yahweh comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it. 10 For 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. 11 I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will humble the arrogance of the terrible. 12 I will make people more rare than fine gold, even a person than the pure gold of Ophir. 13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth will be shaken out of its place in Yahweh of Armies’ wrath, and in the day of his fierce anger. 14 It will happen that like a hunted gazelle and like sheep that no one gathers, they will each turn to their own people, and will each flee to their own land. 15 Everyone who is found will be thrust through. Everyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16 Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped. 17 Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it. 18 Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children. 19 Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20 It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. 21 But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there. 22 Hyenas will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.
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.
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, even my proudly exulting ones.
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, even a person than the pure gold of Ophir.
Their infants also will be dashed in pieces before their eyes. Their houses will be ransacked, and their wives raped.
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.
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.
It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.
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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