Prophecies concerning other nations
13
📚The burden 📖 concerning Babylon 📖which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw.
2 📚“Lift up a banner on
the high mountain,
raise the voice to them,
beckon with the hand,
so that they may enter
the gates of the nobles.
3 📚I have commanded
my sanctified ones 📖,
I have also called my mighty ones,
those who rejoice in my exaltation,
to execute my anger”.
4 📚The noise of a multitude
on the mountains,
like that of a great people!
An uproar of kingdoms,
of nations gathered together!
The LORD of hosts 📖 musters
the army for the battle.
5 📚They come from a far country,
from the end of heaven,
the LORD and the weapons
of his indignation,
to destroy the whole land.
13:2-5 God will prepare armies to destroy Babylon. God’s wrath which was on Judah will fall on their enemies. These armies were from the Medo-Persian empire (v 17; Isa 45:1; Dan 5:30-31).⚜
6 📚Wail, for the day of
the LORD is at hand 📖!
It will come as a destruction from
the Almighty 📖.
7 📚Therefore all hands will be limp,
and every man’s heart will melt,
8 📚And they will be afraid.
Pangs and sorrows will take hold of them.
They will be in pain like a woman
in childbirth.
They will be amazed at each other.
Their faces will be like flames.
9 📚Look, the day of the LORD comes,
cruel with both wrath and
fierce anger,
to lay the land desolate;
and he will destroy its sinners
out of it.
10 📚For the stars of heaven
and its constellations will not
give their light.
The sun will be darkened in its rising,
and the moon will not shed its light.
11 📚“And I will punish the world
for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity,
and I will cause the arrogance
of the proud to cease,
and will lay low the haughtiness
of the terrible.
12 📚I will make a man scarcer
than fine gold,
a man rarer than the golden
wedge of Ophir.
13 📚Therefore I will shake the heavens,
and the earth will move out of its
place at the wrath of the LORD
of hosts,
and in the day of his fierce anger.
13:6-13 In this section the phrase “day of the LORD” is used or referred to four times. According to the New Testament the Day of the Lord is still a future event (1 Thess 5:1-3). The language of v 10 is echoed in Matt 24:29, Acts 2:20, and Rev 6:12-13. Verse 13 suggests the time of Heb 12:26-27, and Rev 16:17-21. Verse 11 speaks of the world, not merely of Babylon. For these reasons it can hardly be said that these verses were completely fulfilled at the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians. That event was only a small picture of a much greater event to take place at the end of this age. It is not unusual in the prophets to have a far-off event suddenly thrust into a prophecy of nearer events.⚜
14 📚And it will be like the hunted gazelle,
and like a sheep that no man takes up.
Each man will return to his own people,
and each one will flee to his own land.
15 📚Everyone who is found will be
pierced through,
and everyone who is captured will
fall by the sword.
16 📚Their children also will be
dashed to pieces before their eyes.
Their houses shall be plundered,
and their wives ravished.
13:16 Verse 18; Ps 137:8-9.⚜
17 📚“See, I will stir up against them
the Medes,
who will have no regard for silver,
and will have no delight in gold.
13:17 The Medes were located in a part of what is now called Iran.⚜
18 📚And their bows will
mow down the young men,
and they will have no pity
on the fruit of the womb.
Their eyes will not spare children.
13:14-18 These verses seem to apply to the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians.⚜
19 📚And Babylon,
the glory of kingdoms,
the beauty of the Chaldeans 📖 excellence,
will be as when God overthrew Sodom
and Gomorrah.
20 📚It will never be inhabited,
nor will it be lived in from generation
to generation.
The Arabian will not pitch tent there,
nor will the shepherds make
their fold there.
21 📚But wild beasts of the desert
will lie there,
and their houses will be full
of howling creatures,
and unclean birds will dwell there,
and wild goats will leap about there.
22 📚And hyenas will cry in their strongholds,
and howling creatures in their
luxurious palaces.
13:19-22 The city of Babylon is in view here. It was a beautiful city and a source of great pride to its most powerful ruler. See Dan 4:28-30.⚜