The fall of Babylon
47
📚“Come down and sit in the dust 📖,
O virgin daughter
of Babylon.
Sit on the ground.
There is no throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans 📖.
For you will no longer be called
tender and delicate.
2 📚Take the millstones,
and grind 📖 flour.
Remove your veil;
tie up the skirt;
uncover the leg,
cross the rivers.
3 📚Your nakedness will be
uncovered;
yes, your shame will be seen.
I will take vengeance 📖,
and I will not meet you as
a man would”.
47:3 Nahum 3:5. She will be unable to defend herself.⚜
4 📚As for our redeemer 📖,
the LORD of hosts 📖 is
his name,
the Holy One of Israel 📖.
5 📚“Sit silently,
and go into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans;
for you will no longer be called,
‘The Lady of kingdoms’.
47:5 Babylon was a beautiful and a powerful city.⚜
6 📚I was angry with my people 📖.
I have profaned my inheritance,
and given them into your hands.
You showed them no mercy.
On the elderly you have laid
your very heavy yoke.
7 📚And you said,
‘I will be a lady forever’
so that you did not lay
these things
to your heart,
or remember their coming end.
8 📚Therefore now hear this,
you who are given
to pleasures,
who live carelessly,
who say in your heart,
‘I am,
and there is no other
besides me;
I will not sit like a widow,
nor will I know the loss of children.’
9 📚But these two things
will come to you in a moment,
in one day 📖:
the loss of children,
and widowhood.
They will fully come on you
because of your many sorceries 📖
and because of the great
abundance of your
magic spells.
10 📚For you have trusted
in your wickedness.
You have said,
‘No one sees me’ 📖.
Your wisdom 📖 and your knowledge
have perverted you,
and you have said
in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one
else besides me.’
11 📚Therefore disaster will
come on you.
You will not know
from where it rises.
And calamity will fall on you.
You will not be able to avert it;
and desolation will come
on you suddenly,
which you will not
understand.
12 📚Stand now
with your spells,
and with your many sorceries,
in which you have laboured
from your youth.
See if you will be able to profit,
if you may succeed.
13 📚You are wearied
by your many counsels.
Now let the astrologers 📖,
the stargazers who make
monthly predictions,
stand up and save you from
these things that will
come on you.
47:12-13 Spoken ironically. There was no possibility that their sorcerers would bring success.⚜
14 📚See,
they will be like stubble;
the fire will burn them;
they will not rescue themselves
from the power of the flame.
There will not be a coal
to warm oneself by,
or a fire to sit before!
15 📚Those with whom you have
laboured from your youth,
your merchants,
will be like this to you.
Each one of them will wander
to his quarter.
No one will save you.
47:1-15 Other prophecies concerning Babylon at Isa 13:1—14:23; Isa 21:1-9; Jer 50:1—51:64. Here Babylon is pictured as a daughter of the human family. Because of Babylon’s wickedness she will lose her kingdom (v 1), be put to shame (vs 2,3), no longer be queen (v 5), see her people destroyed (v 8), and be utterly disappointed in her sorcerers, astrologers and wise men (vs 10-15).⚜