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 thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
1. virgin daughter of Babylon ] i.e. “virgin daughter, Babylon”; see on Isa 1:8, cf. Isa 37:22. The parallel phrase daughter of the Chaldans is somewhat different. It describes Babylon as the city of (possessed by) the Chaldans, the reigning dynasty. It might no doubt be a personification of the land of Chalda, like “daughter of Egypt” in Jer 46:11; but this is less probable.
sit on the ground ] A sign not of mourning, as in Isa 3:26, but of abject humiliation.
there is no throne ] Render: without a throne, as R.V.
thou shalt no more be called ] Lit. “thou shalt no more (be one whom) they call”; the peculiar construction being partly due to the Hebrew aversion to the use of the passive.
tender and delicate ] See Deu 28:56, “the tender and delicate woman which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 4. The first strophe consists of a tristich ( Isa 47:1) followed (on Duhm’s reconstruction) by two distichs. The leading thought is the degradation of Babylon from her position of ease and luxury.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Come down – Descend from the throne; or from the seat of magnificence and power. The design of this verse has already been stated in the analysis. It is to foretell that Babylon would be humbled, and that she would be reduced from her magnificence and pride to a condition of abject wretchedness. She is therefore represented as a proud female accustomed to luxury and ease, suddenly brought to the lowest condition, and compelled to perform the most menial services.
And sit in the dust – To sit on the ground, and to cast dust on the head, is a condition often referred to in the Scriptures as expressive of humiliation and of mourning Jos 8:6; Job 2:12; Job 10:9; Psa 22:15; Lam 3:29. In this manner also, on the medals which were struck by Titus and Vespasian to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem, Jerusalem is represented under the image of a female sitting on the ground under a palm-tree, with the inscription Judaea capta (see the notes at Isa 3:26). The design here is, to represent Babylon as reduced to the lowest condition, and as having great occasion of grief.
O virgin daughter of Babylon – It is common in the Scriptures to speak of cities under the image of a virgin, a daughter, or a beautiful woman (see the notes at Isa 1:8; Isa 37:22; compare Lam 1:15; Jer 31:21; Jer 46:11). Kimchi supposes that the term virgin is here given to Babylon, because it had remained to that time uncaptured by any foreign power; but the main purpose is doubtless to refer to Babylon as a beautiful and splendid city, and as being distinguished for delicacy, and the prevalence of what was regarded as ornamental. Gesenius supposes that the words virgin daughter of Babylon, denote not Babylon itself, but Chaldea, and that the whole land or nation is personified. But the common interpretation, and one evidently more in accordance with the Scripture usage, is to refer it to the city itself.
There is no throne – Thou shalt be reduced from the throne; or the throne shall be taken away. That is, Babylon shall be no longer the seat of empire, or the capital of kingdoms. How truly this was fulfilled, needs not to be told to those who are familiar with the history of Babylon. Its power was broken when Cyrus conquered it; its walls were reduced by Darius; Seleucia rose in its stead, and took away its trade and a large portion of its inhabitants, until it was completely destroyed, so that it became for a long time a question where it had formerly stood (see the notes at Isa. 13; Isa 16:1-14)
Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate – A place to which luxuries flow, amid where they abound. The allusion is to a female that bad been delicately and tenderly brought up, and that would be reduced to the lowest condition of servitude, and even of disgrace. It is possible that there may be an allusion here to the effeminacy and the consequent corruption of morals which prevailed in Babylon, and which made it a place sought with greediness by those who wished to spend their time in licentious pleasures. The corruption of Babylon, consequent on its wealth and magnificence, was almost proverbial, and was unsurpassed by any city of ancient times. The following extract from Curtius (v. 1), which it would not be proper to translate, will give some idea of the prevailing state of morals:
Nihil urbis ejus corruptius moribus, nihil ad irritandas illiciendasque immodicas voluptates instructius. Liberos conjugesque cum hospitibus stupro coire, modo pretium flagitii detur, parentes maritique patituntur. Babylonii maxime in vinum, et quae ebrietatem sequuntur effusi sunt. Foeminarum conviva ineuntium, in principio modestus est habitus, dein summa quaeque amicula exuunt paulatimque pudorem profanant; ad ultimum (horror auribusest) ima corporum velamenta projiciunt. Nee meretricum hoc dedecus est, sed matronarum virginumque apud quas comitas habetur vulgati corporis vilitas.
See also the description of a loathsome, disgusting, and abominable custom which prevailed nowhere else, even in the corrupt nations of antiquity, except Babylon, in Herod. i. 199. I cannot transcribe this passage. The description is too loathsome, and would do little good. Its substance is expressed in a single sentence, … pasan gunaika epichorien…michthenai andri cheino. It adds to the abomination of this custom that it was connected with the rites of religion, and was a part of the worship of the gods! Strabo, speaking of this custom (iii. 348), says, Ethos kata ti logion cheno mignusthai. See also Baruch 6:43, where the same custom is alluded to. For an extended description of the wealth and commerce of Babylon, see an article in the Amer. Bib. Rep. vol. vii. pp. 364-390.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 47:1-3
Come down, and sit in the dust
Dirge on the downfall of Babylon:
Babylon is pictured as a royal lady, dethroned, led in captivity over the streams to a distant land, and there made the meanest slave behind the millstones.
(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XLVII
The destruction of Babylon is denounced by a beautiful
selection of circumstances, in which her prosperous is
contrasted with her adverse condition. She is represented as a
tender and delicate female reduced to the work and abject
condition of a slave, and bereaved of every consolation, 1-4.
And that on account of her cruelty, particularly to God’s
people, her pride, voluptuousness, sorceries, and incantations,
5-11.
The folly of these last practices elegantly exposed by the
prophet, 12-15.
It is worthy of observation that almost all the imagery of this
chapter is applied in the book of the Revelation, (in nearly
the same words,) to the antitype of the illustrious capital of
the Chaldean empire, viz., Babylon the GREAT.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLVII
Verse 1. Come down, and set in the dust – “Descend, and sit on the dust”] See Clarke on Isa 3:26, and on “Isa 52:2“.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Come down from thy throne, as it follows, and sit in the dust; either necessarily, because thou shalt have no higher seat; or voluntarily, as mourners do, bewailing thine approaching calamities. O virgin daughter of Babylon; so called, either,
1. Because she had not yet been humbled and conquered; or rather,
2. Because she was tender and delicate, as the next clause informeth us. There is no throne, to wit, for thee. The empire is taken away from thee, and translated to the Persians.
Thou shalt no more be called; either be reputed so, or rather be so; for to be called is frequently put for to be, as hath been divers times noted. Thou shalt be reduced to great hardships and miseries.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. in the dust(See on Isa3:26; Job 2:13; Lam 2:10).
virginthat is,heretofore uncaptured [HERODOTUS,1.191].
daughter of BabylonBabylonand its inhabitants (see on Isa 1:8;Isa 37:22).
no throneThe seat ofempire was transferred to Shushan. Alexander intended to have madeBabylon his seat of empire, but Providence defeated his design. Hesoon died; and Seleucia, being built near, robbed it of itsinhabitants, and even of its name, which was applied to Seleucia.
delicatealluding tothe effeminate debauchery and prostitution of all classes at banquetsand religious rites [CURTIUS,5.1; HERODOTUS, 1.199;BARUCH, 6.43].
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon,…. The kingdom of Babylon is meant, as the Targum paraphrases it; or the Babylonish monarchy, called a virgin, because it had never been subdued and conquered from the first setting of it up, until it was by Cyrus; so Herodotus c says, this was the first time that Babylon was taken; and also because of the beauty and glory of it: but now it is called to come down from its height and excellency, and its dominion over other kingdoms, and sit in a mournful posture, and as in subjection to other princes and states, Jerom observes, that some interpret this of the city of Rome, which is mystical Babylon, and whose ruin may be hinted at under the type of literal Babylon. And though the church of Rome boasts of her purity and chastity, of her being espoused to Christ as a chaste virgin, she is no other than the great whore, the mother of harlots; and though she has reigned over the kings of the earth, the time is coming when she must come down from her throne and dignity, and sit and be rolled in the dust:
there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: that is, for her; there was a throne, but it was for Cyrus and Darius, kings of Persia, who should now possess it, when the king of Babylon should be obliged to come down from it. So the seat and throne which the dragon gave to the beast shall be taken from it, and be no more, Re 13:2:
for thou shall no more be called tender and delicate; or be treated in a tender and delicate manner; or live deliciously, and upon dainties, as royal personages do, Re 18:7.
c Clio, sive l. 1. c. 191.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
From the gods of Babylon the proclamation of judgment passes onto Babylon itself. “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter Babel; sit on the ground without a throne, O Chaldaeans-daughter! For men no longer call thee delicate and voluptuous. Take the mill, and grind meal: throw back they veil, lift up the train, uncover the thigh, wade through streams. Let thy nakedness be uncovered, even let thy shame be seen; I shall take vengeance, and not spare men. Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is His name, Holy One of Israel.” This is the first strophe in the prophecy. As v. 36 clearly shows, what precedes is a penal sentence from Jehovah. Both in relation to (Isa 23:12; Isa 37:22), and and in relation to , are appositional genitives; Babel and Chaldeans ( as in Isa 48:20) are regarded as a woman, and that as one not yet dishonoured. The unconquered oppressor is threatened with degradation from her proud eminence into shameful humiliation; sitting on the ground is used in the same sense as in Isa 3:26. Hitherto men have called her, with envious admiration, rakkah vaanuggah (from Deu 28:56), mollis et delicata , as having carefully kept everything disagreeable at a distance, and revelled in nothing but luxury (compare oneg , Isa 13:22). Debauchery with its attendant rioting (Isa 14:11; Isa 25:5), and the Mylitta worship with its licensed prostitution (Herod. i. 199), were current there; but now all this was at an end. , according to the Masora, has only one pashta both here and in Isa 47:5, and so has the tone upon the last syllable, and accordingly m etheg in the antepenult. Isaiah’s artistic style may be readily perceived both in the three clauses of Isa 47:1 that are comparable to a long trumpet-blast (compare Isa 40:9 and Isa 16:1), and also in the short, rugged, involuntarily excited clauses that follow. The mistress becomes the maid, and has to perform the low, menial service of those who, as Homer says in Od. vii. 104, (grind at the mill the quince-coloured fruit; compare at Job 31:10). She has to leave her palace as a prisoner of war, and, laying aside all feminine modesty, to wade through the rivers upon which she borders. Chesp has e instead of i , and, as in other cases where a sibilant precedes, the mute p instead of f (compare ‘isp , Jer 10:17). Both the prosopopeia and the parallel, “thy shame shall be seen,” require that the expression “thy nakedness shall be uncovered” should not be understood literally. The shame of Babel is her shameful conduct, which is not to be exhibited in its true colours, inasmuch as a stronger one is coming upon it to rob it of its might and honour. This stronger one, apart from the instrument employed, is Jehovah: vindictam sumam, non parcam homini . Stier gives a different rendering here, namely, “I will run upon no man, i.e., so as to make him give way;” Hahn, “I will not meet with a man,” so destitute of population will Babylon be; and Ruetschi, “I will not step in as a man.” Gesenius and Rosenmller are nearer to the mark when they suggest non pangam ( paciscar) cum homine ; but this would require at any rate , even if the verb really had the meaning to strike a treaty. It means rather to strike against a person, to assault any one, then to meet or come in an opposite direction, and that not only in a hostile sense, but, as in this instance, and also in Isa 64:4, in a friendly sense as well. Hence, “I shall not receive any man, or pardon any man” (Hitzig, Ewald, etc.). According to an old method of writing the passage, there is a pause here. But Isa 47:4 is still connected with what goes before. As Jehovah is speaking in Isa 47:5, but Israel in Isa 47:4, and as Isa 47:4 is unsuitable to form the basis of the words of Jehovah, it must be regarded as the antiphone to Isa 47:1-3 (cf., Isa 45:15). Our Redeemer, exclaims the church in joyfully exalted self-consciousness, He is Jehovah of Hosts, the Holy One of Israel! The one name affirms that He possesses the all-conquering might; the other that He possesses the will to carry on the work of redemption – a will influenced and constrained by both love and wrath.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Babylon Threatened. | B. C. 708. |
1 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 thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. 2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. 3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. 4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. 5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. 6 I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.
In these verses God by the prophet sends a messenger even to Babylon, like that of Jonah to Nineveh: “The time is at hand when Babylon shall be destroyed.” Fair warning is thus given her, that she may by repentance prevent the ruin and there may be a lengthening of her tranquility. We may observe here,
I. God’s controversy with Babylon. We will begin with that, for there all the calamity begins; she has made God her enemy, and then who can befriend her: Let her know that the righteous Judge, to whom vengeance belongs, has said (v. 3), I will take vengeance. She has provoked God, and shall be reckoned with for it when the measure of her iniquities is full. Woe to those on whom God comes to take vengeance; for who knows the power of his anger and what a fearful thing it is to fall into his hands? Were it a man like ourselves who would be revenged on us, we might hope to be a match for him, either to make our escape from him or to make our part good with him. But he says, “I will not meet thee as a man, not with the compassions of a man, but I will be to the as a lion, and a young lion” (Hos. v. 14); or, rather, not with the strength of a man, which is easily resisted, but with the power of a God, which cannot be resisted. Not with the justice of a man, which may be bribed, or biassed, or mollified by a foolish pity, but with the justice of a God, which is strict and severe, and can never be evaded. As in pardoning the penitent, so in punishing the impenitent, he is God and not man, Hos. xi. 9.
II. The particular ground of this controversy. We are sure that there is cause for it, and it is a just cause; it is the vengeance of his temple (Jer. l. 28); it is for violence done to Zion, Jer. li. 35. God will plead his people’s cause against them. It is acknowledged (v. 6) that God had, in wrath, delivered his people into the hands of the Babylonians, had made use of them for the correction of his children, and had by their means polluted his inheritance, had left his peculiar people exposed to suffer in common with the rest of the nations, had suffered the heathen, who should have been kept at a distance, to come into his sanctuary and defile his temple, Ps. lxxix. 1. Herein God was righteous; but the Babylonians carried the matter too far, and, when they had them in their hands (triumphing to see a people that had been so much in reputation for wisdom, holiness, and honour, brought thus low), with a base and servile spirit they trampled upon them, and showed them no mercy, no, not the common instances of humanity which the miserable are entitled to purely by their misery. They used them barbarously, and with an air of contempt, nay, and of complacency in their calamities. They were brought under the yoke; but, as if that were not enough, they laid the yoke on very heavily, adding affliction to the afflicted. Nay, they laid it on the ancient–the elders in years, who were past their labour, and must sink under a yoke which those in their youthful strength would easily bear–the elders in office, those that had been judges and magistrates, and persons of the first rank. They took a pride in putting these to the meanest hardest drudgery. Jeremiah laments this, that the faces of elders were not honoured, Lam. v. 12. Nothing brings a surer or a sorer ruin upon any people than cruelty, especially to God’s Israel.
III. The terror of this controversy. She has reason to tremble when she is told who it is that has this quarrel with her (v. 4): “As for our Redeemer, our Gol, that undertakes to plead our cause as the avenger of our blood, he has two names which speak not only comfort to us, but terror to our adversaries.” 1. “He is the Lord of hosts, that has all the creatures at his command, and therefore has all power both in heaven and in earth.” Woe to those against whom the Lord fights, for the whole creation is at war with them. 2. “He is the Holy One of Israel, a God in covenant with us, who has his residence among us, and will faithfully perform all the promises he has made to us.” God’s power and holiness are engaged against Babylon and for Zion. This may fitly be applied to Christ, our great Redeemer. He is both Lord of hosts and the Holy One of Israel.
IV. The consequences of it to Babylon. She is called a virgin, because so she thought herself, though she was the mother of harlots. She was beautiful as a virgin, and courted by all about her; she had been called tender and delicate (v. 1), and the lady of kingdoms (v. 5); but now the case is altered. 1. Her honour is gone, and she must bid farewell to all her dignity. She that had sat at the upper end of the world, sat in state and sat at ease, must now come down and sit in the dust, as very mean and a deep mourner, must sit on the ground, for she shall be so emptied and impoverished that she shall not have a seat left her to sit upon. 2. Her power is gone, and she must bid farewell to all her dominion. She shall rule no more as she has done, nor give law as she has done to her neighbours: There is no throne, none for thee, O daughter of the Chaldeans! Note, Those that abuse their honour or power provoke God to deprive them of it, and to make them come down and sit in the dust. 3. Her ease and pleasure are gone: “She shall no more be called tender and delicate as she has been, for she shall not only be deprived of all those things with which she pampered herself, but shall be put to hard service and made to feel both want and pain, which will be more than doubly grievous to her who formerly would not venture to set so much as the sole of her foot to the ground for tenderness and for delicacy,” Deut. xxviii. 56. It is our wisdom not to use ourselves to be tender and delicate, because we know not how hardly others may use us before we die not what straits we may be reduced to. 4. Her liberty is gone, and she is brought into a state of servitude and as sore a bondage as she in her prosperity had brought others to. Even the great men of Babylon must now receive the same law from the conquerors that they used to give to the conquered: “Take the mill-stones and grind meal (v. 2), set to work, to hard labour” (like beating hemp in Bridewell), “which will make thee sweat so that thou must throw off all thy head-dresses, and uncover thy locks.” When they were driven from one place to another, at the capricious humours of their masters, they must be forced to wade up to the middle through the waters, to make bare the leg and uncover the thigh, that they might pass over the rivers, which would be a great mortification to those that used to ride in state. But let them not complain, for just thus they had formerly used their captives; and with what measure they then meted it is now measured to them again. Let those that have power use it with temper and moderation, considering that the spoke which is uppermost will be under. 5. All her glory, and all her glorying, are gone. Instead of glory, she has ignominy (v. 3): Thy nakedness shall be uncovered and thy shame shall be seen, according to the base and barbarous usage they commonly gave their captives, to whom, for covetousness of their clothes, they did not leave rags sufficient to cover their nakedness, so void were they of the modesty as well as of the pity due to the human nature. Instead of glorying she sits silently, and gets into darkness (v. 5), ashamed to show her face, for she has quite lost her credit and shall no more be called the lady of kingdoms. Note, God can make those sit silently that used to make the greatest noise in the world, and send those into darkness that used to make the greatest figure. Let him that glories, therefore, glory in a God that changes not, and not in any worldly wealth, pleasure, or honour, which are subject to change.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
ISAIAH – CHAPTER 47
DIVINE JUDGMENT UPON BABYLON
To fully appreciate the judgment of Babylon one should study this chapter along with chapters 13 and 14. The kingdom of
Babylon reached the height of her glory under Nebuchadnezzar, who captured and destroyed the city of Jerusalem, around 586 B.C.
– some time after Isaiah’s prophetic ministry had ended. The prophet Daniel pictures the conditions that existed in Babylon during the reign of Nebuchadnezzar and his successors – clear on down to the fulfillment of the prophecy recorded in Isaiah 47. One may read his record of Babylon’s fall to the Medes and Persians in Daniel 5.
As suggested in our approach to Isaiah 13, Babylon is sometimes used symbolically, in the scriptures, of a highly organized world-system (religious, political and commercial) which is diametrically opposed to God and His order for man and the universe. Of this Babylon, one must understand that her judgment awaits the future. But, the same sovereign God Who put an end to the ancient city and empire, will as surely call a halt to the world system of rebellion at the exact time appointed by the good counsel of His will!
Vs. 1-3: DEGRADATION OF THE ROYAL VIRGIN
By use of striking symbolism, Jehovah addresses proud Babylon with a command to manifest the signs of her degradation: “Come down! and sit in the dust!” (vs. 1).
a. “Virgin” is used of Babylon because she had never before been conquered, and her defenses were considered impregnable.
b. “Daughters of Babylon” speaks of the citizenry, (comp. Jer 51:33-40).
c. To “come down and sit in the dust” depicts the extreme reversal of Babylon’s fortunes.
1) From exaltation, honor, power and glory, she has been reduced to humiliation and shame.
2) No more will she be called “tender and delicate”, she will be the “mistress” no longer!
2. A second command is given that she perform the work of abject slavery, (vs. 2).
a. One is reminded of the task assigned to Samson when he was enslaved by the Philistines, (Jdg 16:21).
b. To remove her veil, put off her luxurious robes and expose the nakedness of her leg, was the most degrading humiliation
conceivable to the modest women of Babylon, (comp. Isa 32:11)..
c. The shame of Babylon would be obvious to all, (vs. 3a).
3. Undiluted calamity is the destiny of Babylon, and nothing can intervene to thwart or hinder the judgment divinely purposed upon her, (vs. 3b; 34:8; comp. Isa 63:4).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Come down, and sit in the dust. Isaiah now explains more fully what he had briefly noticed concerning the counsel of God, and the execution of it. He openly describes the destruction of Babylon; because no hope whatever of the return of the people could be entertained, so long as the Babylonian monarchy flourished. Accordingly, he has connected these two things, namely, the overthrow of that monarchy, and the deliverance of the people which followed it; for the elevated rank of that city was like a deep grave in which the Jews were buried, and, when it had been opened, the Lord brought back his people to their former life.
The use of the imperative mood, “Come down,” is more forcible than if he had expressed the same thing in plain words and simple narrative; for he addresses her authoritatively, and as if he were speaking from the judgment-seat; because he proclaims the commands of God, and therefore, with the boldness which his authority entitles him to use, he publishes what shall happen, as we know that God granted this authority to the prophets. “Behold, I have this day set thee over nations and kingdoms, to root out and pull down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant.” (Jer 1:10.) There is no power that is not added to the authority of the word. In a word, he intended to place the event immediately before the eye of the Jews; for that change could scarcely be imagined, if God did not thunder from heaven.
Virgin daughter of Babylon. It was a figure of speech frequently employed by Hebrew writers, to call any nation by the title of “Daughter.” He calls her “Virgin,” not because she was modest or chaste, but because she had been brought up softly and delicately like “virgins,” and had never been forced by enemies, as we formerly said when speaking of Sidon. (222) And at the present day the same thing might be said of Venice and some other towns, which have a great abundance of wealth and luxuries, and, in the estimation of men, are accounted very happy; for they have as good reason as the Babylonians had to dread such a revolution of affairs, even when they appear to be far removed from danger.
For it shall no longer be. That is, “Thou shalt no longer be caressed by men who thought that thou wast happy.”
(222) Commentary on Isaiah, vol. 2, p. 155.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
b. CONQUERING THEIR GOVERNMENTS
TEXT: Isa. 47:1-15
1
Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
2
Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers.
3
Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will spare no man.
4
Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.
5
Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called The mistress of kingdoms.
6
I was wroth with my people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.
7
And thou saidst, I shall be mistress for ever; so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter and thereof.
8
Now therefore hear this, thou that art given to pleasures, that sittest securely, that sayest in thy heart, I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:
9
but these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come upon thee, in the multitude of thy sorceries, and the great abundance of thine enchantments.
10
For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me; thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thy heart, I am and there is none else besides me.
11
Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know the dawning thereof; and mischief shall fall upon thee; and thou shalt not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou knowest not.
12
Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitudes of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast labored from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail.
13
Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from the things that shall come upon thee.
14
Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before.
15
Thus shall the things be unto thee wherein thou hast labored: they that have trafficked with thee from thy youth shall wander every one to his quarter; there shall be none to save thee.
QUERIES
a.
How did God profane His inheritance? (Isa. 47:6)
b.
Why did Babylon say, I will not sit as a widow . . .?
c.
Who are the monthly prognosticators?
PARAPHRASE
Babylon, you may be a virgin in respect to foreign invasion, but you will come down from your delicate luxury and your face will be rubbed in the dirt. From haughtiness to humiliation you will come because Jehovah has commanded it. No longer will you sit upon the throne of the world like a queen. You, O Chaldea, will be forced into a humiliation like the lowliest slave-girl. You will be subjected to the worst degradation, shame and toil. You are going to be exposed for what you really are, Babylon, a shameful, wicked nation. I, Jehovah, will see that vengeance is done upon you and no man will stop Me. Yes, Babylon, our Redeemer is Jehovah of hosts, the Holy One of Israel and He is sovereign. Jehovah says to Babylon, You will be dumbfounded with grief and anguish when I judge you. No more will you be the center of world attentionthe darling of the nations. I was angry with My people, says the Lord, so I allowed My possession to be captured by this pagan, wicked Babylon. But you, Babylon, did not show them any mercy or kindness; even the elderly you despised and persecuted.
In addition, O Babylon, you have said, I shall be the darling of the world forever. You have not given heed to the warnings of history or conscience and therefore you do not recognize that you are headed for destruction. So now pay attention to this you sensuous city, secure in your wicked wealth and power. You may say to yourself that you are sovereign of the universe and there is no other people or nation that will ever bring you down; you may think you will never know the bereavement of a widow or of a mother having lost her children. However, this is exactly the kind of fate you will suffer. In spite of all the hocus pocus of your magicians and soothsayers you will become as destitute and bereaved as a widow and a mother who has lost all her children. This will come upon you because you have trusted in your apparent ability to do as evilly as you please and get away with it. You have said, There is no power higher than I, to whom I must give account. You have become too sophisticated and wise for your own good. Your wisdom has led you to an arrogant self-delusion and to believe you are sovereign ruler of all creation. Because of this attempted usurpation of Jehovahs sovereignty, judgment shall come upon you which you will not, with all your magicians, be able to charm away. Destruction is going to come upon you and you cannot pay the price to take it away. You are going to be a wasted, desolate place with such suddenness it will be beyond human understanding or explanation.
Go on using your hocus pocus magic charms by the thousands, like you have since your nations beginning, if it is the only thing you have to ward off the destruction that is sure to come. You have had so many magicians and such a complex system of magic that most of your people have grown tired of it all. But go ahead, let the astrologers, (those who study the stars) and horoscope-casters arise and save you from the judgments predicted upon you if they are able to do so! Soon it will be apparent to all that they are powerless as stubble which is so easily and quickly consumed by fire. They will, like straw in a fire, be gone almost instantly. They will not even be around long enough to provide an afterglow like the coals of a wood fire. How quickly shall all that disappear for which your generations have expended their energy and wages. In the end all those upon whom you relied for military and financial assistance since your beginning shall desert you. Your allies will not help you; they will not want to have anything to do with you lest they suffer the same destruction. There is not anyone who can save you!
COMMENTS
Isa. 47:1-6 ABASED: Babylon is going to come down from its pinnacle of world rulership. In fact, she is going to lose her identity as a nation altogether. The Hebew word bethulath is translated virgin. It probably refers to the idea that Babylon (from her conquest of Nineveh about 612 B.C. until being conquered by Cyrus 539 B.C.) never suffered foreign invasion. She was untouched until Cyrus spoiled her.
The words raccah and anuggah, translated tender and delicate probably emphasize the luxuriousness of Babylonian life; raccah literally means effeminancy and anuggah means pleasure, luxury, sport. They are descriptive of the indulgent, immoral wickedness of Babylon. From her position as pampered, indulged, haughty queen of the world she would be dethroned and abased. She would become like the lowliest servant-girl doing the most humiliating tasks. Grinding meal is the hardest, most menial task for women slaves. Removal of the veil and stripping off the train means to take off the clothing of a lady of leisure and put on the clothing of a common slave. Uncovering the leg and passing through the rivers probably pictures a slave-girl rolling up her garments to walk across streams and rivers bearing burdens for her master. Slaves were simply the property of their owners and could be treated anyway the owner desired. Most of them, especially women, were treated shamefully. When sold in the slave market they were undressed and their bodies exposed, more to humiliate them than anything else. Jehovah is going to expose Babylon for what it really is. The whole world will see Babylon naked, without all the false luxury and haughtiness she arrogated to herself. God will spare no manno human being on the face of the earth will deter Jehovah from His humiliation of Babylon.
Verse four is a pause of praise on the part of the prophet. It is like those digressions of the apostle Paul in Ephesians and Romans. The sovereign program of Gods redemption for Israel elicits spontaneous testimony from Isaiah to Babylon that the Redeemer of Israel is Jehovah (Covenant-God) of hosts, the Holy One of Israel. The testimony also serves to show the contrast between Israels God and the gods of Babylon. Israels God would raise her out of humiliation to glory (through the Servant-Messiah to come), while Babylons gods would be impotent to save them from going from glory to humiliation.
When Babylons degradation comes at the hand of Jehovah she will sit silently dumbfounded. Her shameful humiliation by the conquering Medes and Persians was totally unexpected and incomprehensible from a human point of view. She was the one upon whom the spotlight of the world was focused; but her prominence will soon be goneall will be darkness for her. She shall no longer be the queen of the world. The Hebrew word gevereth is translated mistress but it does not mean mistress in the sense of a kept woman or a fornicator. Gevereth means mistress in the sense of royalty, hence, a queen. The proper name Gabriel comes from the same root. The wealth and luxury and power of Babylon was almost unbelievable. No other empire before had exerted such influence on the world. But it would all disappear suddenly because she opposed and humiliated the covenant people of Jehovah.
God has been talking of mighty Babylon, but suddenly the little nation of Judah moves into the center of the picture. The center of history is Gods covenant people not the mighty empires which seem to dominate the world. Gods people strayed from their messianic destiny and incurred the holy wrath of God. He allowed profane Babylon to swallow up Judah for a proper period of chastening. But even profane and pagan people are subject to certain moral standards before the Absolute God (cf. our comments in Minor Prophets, Amos ch. 12, pub. College Press). The obvious standards of humane treatment were not observed toward the Jews, especially toward older people. Babylon apparently ignored the commonest laws of reasonableness and mercifulness (cf. Rom. 1:18 f) written on the consciences of most human beings (cf. comments on verse ten below). Therefore Jehovah will judge her. One should read Isaiah ch. 1314; Jeremiah 50-51; Daniel 1-5 in connection with these verses.
Isa. 47:7-11 ABUSED: Babylon boasted that she would be gevereth (mistress) or queen forever. She never gave a thought to the warnings of conscience or the lessons of history. Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it! She seemed unaware of the natural law all around that whatever is sown is eventually reaped. She did not seem to consider where such haughty disregard for humaneness and mercy might lead. The failure of tyrants and dictators to learn where cruelty and immorality ends is almost incredible! It was difficult for most of the world of the 1940s to believe Adolph Hitler was ignorant that the atrocities of the Third Reich would lead to self-destruction. But Hitler did not remember the latter end thereof and slaughtered over six million people in his concentration camps which eventuated in degradation and partitioning of Germany which it had never known before.
Aediynah is from the Hebrew root adan and means voluptuousness, pleasurable, luxurious, sensuous. It is the same root from which we get Eden (Gen. 2:8, etc.). One only has to read Daniel ch. 5 to understand that Babylon was characterized by its bent to pleasure. The kings of Babylon apparently had as their goal the satisfaction of their every pleasure. Wealth, wine and women gave them security. They used their wealth to build gold-plated gods and temples; a massive city with huge, thick walls; hanging gardens and banquet halls; then retired to admire the work of their hands and revel in the sensuous luxury of it all. They told themselves this is great Babylon. . . (cf. Dan. 4:28-30). All the world, even the majority of the Jewish people, stood in awe of mighty Babylon. The world expected Babylon to exist forever. Certainly Babylon herself never expected to mourn like a widow or a mother who has lost her children. She anticipated eternal reveling and gaiety and luxury. Apparently the emperors of Babylon decreed themselves to be gods (cf. Isa. 14:12-14), and believed themselves to be invincible (much like Adolph Hitler, centuries later). But the real Sovereign of the world, Jehovah, predicts that exactly what Babylon said could never happen would happen suddenly and fully. The haughty and satiated Babylonians would one day mourn and grieve like a woman who has lost her husband and a young mother whose children have died tragic deaths. Their affliction would be without warning and in full measure. One day on top of the world; the next day devastated and conquered by the Persians. Babylon fell in one night! (cf. Dan. ch. 5). Babylon was noted for its multitude of astrologers and sorcerers. She was famous for her magic. No other nation since has been as prolific or elaborate in its cultivation of such sorcery. Babylons whole culture, political, economic and religious was built around its astrologers and enchanters and wise-men. In spite of this elaborate and long established system of pseudo-science and religion, Babylon would fall. Her star-gazers would not be able to work magic or charm away the judgment of Jehovah.
Babylon trusted in its wickedness. There is a false sense of autonomy and sovereignty that comes as a result of deliberately practiced wickedness. That is what the devil promised Eve in the Garden of Eden (. . . in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil . . .). Professing to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. They refused to have God in their knowledge (cf. Rom. 1:22-32). Babylon trusted in her cruelty and cunning and decided she could do as she pleased and no one could stop her. She believed she was sovereign. There was no One to whom she could be held accountable (None seeth me . . .). This wicked exercise of power seared Babylons conscienceit perverted her reason. She went against the most fundamental revelation of nature itself (that there is a divine power higher than man to whom man is morally responsiblecf. Rom. 1:18-21) and denied the existence of God.
But judgment (evil) will surely come upon haughty Babylon. She will now know the shakherah (dawning) of it. This probably means (in keeping with the context) she will not be able to conjure away or able to keep it from coming by all her incantations and sorceries. There are three different Hebrew words used to describe the judgment: raah (break in pieces, calamity, evil); hovah (mischief, or, literally, yawningutter destruction); shoah (deserted, wasted, desolation). These words give a graphic description of the process of Babylons judgment. It will come suddenly. Daniel; ch. 5, records that Babylons overthrow came in one night! It was completely unexpected! First she was broken, then came the destruction and to this day there is only a deserted waste place where once mighty Babylon stood. The fall of Babylon is inexplicable except as one understands the prophecy of God by Isaiah!
Isa. 47:12-15 ANNIHILATED: Jehovah now challenges Babylon to call upon the full force of its massive and complex system of sorcery, astrology and magic to save it. The ancient peoples not only worshiped the stars, but many of them built their political and economic structures on a science of star-gazing and horoscope casting. These pseudo-sciences were elaborately constructed and Babylon was more prolific than all the ancients. Determining things from the motions of the stars was not something Babylon merely toyed with. She had built her whole national identity on this from her very beginning. She went to war or sued for peace on the basis of what the stars said. She crowned emperors or deposed them only after casting a horoscope. She conducted business and built buildings and practiced the healing arts by interpreting dreams, saying incantations and practicing sorcery. So, if Babylon had any resource greater than any other empire of the past (Egypt, Assyria, etc.) it would be her star-gazing. If she was to prevail against the God of Israel her elaborate system of astrology would have to stand up. The many hours of study devoted to astrology, the voluminous writings of the wisemen and the staggering (and sometimes repulsive) amount of time consumed to practice all the hocus pocus involved wearied the general populace. There is evidence that even emperors became exasperated at the sham of it all (cf. Dan. 2:1-12). The Hebrew word modiyiym (prognosticators) is from yada (to know, perceive, discern) and the word khadashim means, new moons or months. The position of the moon was a determining factor in the Babylonian system of astrology.
But none of this shall save Babylon! Even this great, elaborate pervasive system of astrology shall be as vulnerable as dry wheat stubble thrown on a fire. It will go up in smoke, suddenly. Nothing will be left of it. Wood thrown on a fire leaves coals and lasts long enough to provide warmth. But poof, like stubble, Babylon and all her star-gazers will be gone! So much for all the years of toil and energy invested in Babylons elaborate system of astrology! All those sokherayik (traveling merchants) who trafficked with Babylon were interested only in financial gain. As long as they were making profit from trading with Babylon they were her friends. But when she needed assistance against her enemies they wandered to their own quarters, not wishing to suffer the judgments coming upon her. They have merely taken advantage of Babylon and have no genuine concern for her no matter how glibly they may have dealt with her when she was alive and prosperous. It was predicted that the magnificent Roman empire of the apostle Johns day would come to the same despicable ruin (cf. Revelation 17, 18). Rome would say in her heart she was a queen and not a widow. Rome would be burned with fire. The merchants of the earth would mourn Romes demise because it would mean financial loss for them (not that anyone was genuinely concerned for Romes fall). Thus Babylon is used as a symbol, a type, of the Roman empire (Rev. 14:8; Rev. 17:5; Rev. 18:2; Rev. 18:10; Rev. 18:21, etc.).
Babylon fell! Great and sudden was her fall! It was totally unexpected! During a night of drunken revelry and carousing by the emperor (Belshazzar), his noblemen and concubines, Cyrus the Persian marched in on a dry river bed (whose waters had been diverted by Cyrus) and Belshazzar was slain. For further details see Daniel, by Butler, pub. College Press, pg. 200208. Romes fall was not quite so sudden, but it fulfilled the predictions of John just as certainly as Babylons fall fulfilled the predictions of Isaiah and Jeremiah. And just as certainly, all human governments must ultimately fall and give way to the kingdom of God for whom the new heavens and the new earth are to be created.
QUIZ
1.
Why is Babylon called a virgin?
2.
What is meant by calling Babylon the mistress of kingdoms?
3.
Why may Babylon be judged accountable for knowing that she was headed for judgment by her actions?
4.
In what did Babylon place her trust?
5.
Describe the fall of Babylon?
6.
How did those who had traded with Babylon react to her downfall?
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XLVII.
(1) Come down . . .The virgin daughter of Babylon, i.e., Babylon itself, personified as till now unconquered, is called to leave her throne and sit in the dust as a menial slave. The epithets tender (better, perhaps, wanton) and delicate point to the luxury which had been identified with Babylon, and which was now to cease.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
1. Virgin daughter The proud city figured as a royal damsel (denoting city and inhabitants) stripped of her rich clothing, degraded from her lofty rank, and made a gazing stock of shame. For same figures see chap. xxiii, 12; Isa 37:22.
Chaldeans This is the name of the peoples composing the strong nation which once occupied the city and territory of Babylon; a people from among whom Abraham was originally called.
Tender and delicate Her queenly dignity is to be abolished forever. Under the Persians the seat of empire was removed to Susa. For description of the capture of Babylon, see HERODOTUS, 1:191.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon,
Sit on the ground without a throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans.
For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
Take the millstones and grind meal,
Remove your veil,
Strip off the robe, uncover the leg,
Pass through the rivers.
Your nakedness will be uncovered,
Yes, your shame will be seen.’
The picture is vivid and not suited to the modern Christian mind. It is a picture of a tender and delicate young queen who is dethroned and made to sit on the ground in the dust, then has to take the lowliest and most undesirable of occupations in order to survive, and is finally dragged down and raped. It is the picture of a woman’s worst nightmare, and is describing the fate of Babylon. It will be reduced to poverty and servitude, and will be stripped and raped. The slow progress of her degradation admirably fits the slow progress of judgment on Babylon revealed in history, until its final end came and it was stripped naked of all that it was.
‘Virgin’ is not a strictly accurate translation although it is difficult to think of another which is succint enough. ‘Bethulah’ could at this time be used of a young married woman (married goddesses are called ‘virgins’, and later even temple prostitutes would be called ‘virgins’). It is rather intended here to indicate a woman ripe for sex, but reserved for those seen as chosen (compare the woman in Revelation 17).
‘The Chaldeans.’ These were initially a people in South Babylonia but the name had come to mean Babylonians in general.
She is called on to descend from her throne and to sit on the ground, in the dust, because she is no longer to be looked on as tender and delicate, as a lady. She is to be humiliated and distressed, possibly even becoming a beggar. Then she is told that if she wants to eat and drink she must take millstones and grind meal. This was a task for the very poor, the very humble and for prisoners (compare Exo 11:4).
Then she is told to unveil herself, take her clothes off, and ‘pass through the rivers’, probably a euphemism for rape, for her nakedness will be uncovered (see Lev 18:6-19; Lev 20:17-21 where this describes illicit sexual intercourse). To pass through the rivers was to go through difficult times (compare Isa 43:2). She is to be totally shamed. The idea is that the worst that can possibly happen will come upon Babylon.
Some, however, see ‘pass through the rivers’ as an indication of going into ignominious captivity, for captives were often led off naked (compare Isa 20:4), while still others see the picture as depicting a woman taking off her long skirt and uncovering her legs so she that she could do work in the fields and wade through the irrigation ditches of the rivers. She would become not only a beggar (Isa 47:1) but a field servant.
Isa 41:3
“I will take vengeance,
And I will meet no man.”
This is the reality. God will exact vengeance on Babylon in full because of her behaviour. Her sin will receive its deserved punishment to the full. There will be no quarter. ‘I will meet no man’ may mean that God is saying, ‘I will spare no man’, or it may indicate a refusal to parley, a refusal to draw back from complete punishment. Either way it is now too late for mercy. Babylon must face its final doom.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
YAHWEH IS ABOUT TO ACT SO AS TO ESTABLISH HIS PEOPLE AND PREPARE THE WAY FOR HIS SERVANT ( Isa 44:24 to Isa 48:22 ).
As with what has gone before it is necessary for us to determine the viewpoint from which we will see these narratives, and in order to do so we must put ourselves in the shoes of Isaiah. Chapters 1-39 were mainly behind him, Hezekiah was dead, and what lay before him was the future in terms of Manasseh’s reign. That reign had not had a promising beginning. Manasseh had taken the people back to the old ways,and the ways of Assyria, and had thereby defiled the Temple (2Ki 21:2-7; 2Ch 33:2-10). The voice of Isaiah was silent (Isa 1:1). Judah was once more in subjection to Esarhaddon, the King of Assyria (Isa 37:38), who was overseeing Judah from Babylon (2Ch 33:11). The people were corrupted, the Temple was defiled, and Babylon was to be seen by Judah as the great enemy, as, in Isaiah’s eyes, it had always been.
Isaiah had already prophesied something of what the future held. He had informed Hezekiah that his sons would be carried off as trophies to Babylon (Isa 39:6-7), and had declared that God’s punishment must come on the personnel who ran the Temple (Isa 43:27-28), and the miserable fate of those who trusted in idols (Isa 43:27; Isa 44:11). (And this would in fact all actually happen in the near future (2Ch 33:11). For invasion from Babylon would result in Manasseh and his entourage being taken captive to Babylon, the Temple inevitably being sacked, and the people being decimated in the warfare that accompanied it).
But the question now was, how did this fit in with what he had already been saying. How could the Servant whose future had looked so glowing be restored, and what was going to be Yahweh’s response to the situation. These chapters will now deal with that question.
As we have seen the problems were threefold. The first was that the condition of Yahweh’s people was in doubt because of their spiritual position and condition (Isa 42:19-25; Isa 43:22-28), the second was the persistent interference of false gods (Isa 42:17; Isa 44:9-20), especially those of Assyria and Babylon, and the third was that the nations were still preventing His people from coming home (Isa 41:11-12; Isa 42:13-16; Isa 43:1-7). So before the Servant could be restored, and in order that ‘he’ might fulfil his proper function, each of these matters would have to be dealt with. In this section therefore we will discover how Yahweh intends to deal with these questions.
In the case of the first He will rebuild Jerusalem and re-establish (or lay the foundations of) a new Temple (Isa 44:26; Isa 44:28), using the house of Cyrus as His instrument.
In the case of the second He will destroy the daughter of Babylon who is responsible for all the lies and deceit connected with the occult and with false gods (Isa 46:1-2; Isa 47:1-15). But here Cyrus is not mentioned as involved.
In the case of the third He will deal with all the nations whose lands contain exiles, so that His Servant might be restored in order that ‘he’ may begin again (Isa 44:27; Isa 45:1-7) in line with God’s promises to Abraham (Isa 41:8). This section will include prophecies concerning the subjection of Egypt/Ethiopia (Isa 45:14-17), the humbling of Babylon’s gods (Isa 46:1-2), and the destruction of the great enemy Babylon from which all men must flee (47; Isa 48:20).
In the terms of those days the restoration of Jerusalem and the building or restoration of the Temple were prerequisites if the Servant was to be able to do his work, and it had become necessary because the previous Temple had been defiled and those who served in it were rejected (Isa 43:28). Thus it was essential that God should make all things new. Equally important if the gods and the occult were to be dealt a bitter blow was the downfall of Babylon, because from there came all that was deceptive and evil, as it cultivated idolatry and the occult, and thought itself so superior that it could behave as though it was unobserved, even setting itself up against Yahweh (Isa 47:10; compare Isa 14:10-13), as it had always done (Gen 11:1-9). And finally if His people who were exiled all around the world were to return, it would be necessary to find someone who could deal with the nations who held them captive, so that they could be enabled to do so.
These are the matters that the narrative will now look at. The section opens with a declaration of Yahweh’s credentials:
1) He is their Redeemer Who formed them from the womb. Compare for this Isa 43:1 which demonstrates that it is describing Israel, ‘thus says Yahweh Who formed you, O Israel, fear not for I have redeemed you’. For formation from the womb see Isa 44:2 where Yahweh, speaking to ‘Jacob my Servant, and Israel whom I have chosen’ says that He has ‘formed them from the womb and will help them.’ Compare also Isa 49:1 where The Servant, Who is identified as spiritual Israel (Isa 49:3 with 5-6), is ‘called from the womb’, and Isa 49:5 where he is ‘formed from the womb to be His Servant’. Clearly then He is also speaking to His Servant here.
2) He is the One Who, with none around to help, made all things, stretching out the heavens alone, and spreading out the earth when none was with Him. He alone is the Creator of all things.
3) He is the One Who oversets the occult world, frustrating and making fools of deceitful ‘diviners’, and showing up the recognised ‘magicians’, the ‘wise men’, by deliberately acting in order to show up their knowledge as foolish.
4) In contrast He is the One Who confirms the word of His true Servant and performs the counsel of His true messengers, that is He fulfils their prophecies so that all may be aware that they are His true prophets.
So Yahweh, the Creator of all things, Who opposes and countermands the exponents of the occult by making things happen in such a way as to make them look foolish, has chosen His Servant, the true Israel within Israel, from the womb (it is all in His divine sovereignty) in order that He might confirm his teaching and fulfil his prophecies. Whatever the true Servant is and does will be confirmed and carried into effect by Yahweh. He is the one who is to bear God’s message to the world (compare Isa 2:4).
But having done so He must prepare the way before them. And in doing this He will restore the situation for them. At present the nations hold many of them captive, Jerusalem has been laid waste, and the Temple is defiled, all of which prevent His Servant Israel from fulfilling their obligation. So now He declares how He is going to remedy matters.
It will be noted initially how firmly these ideas are introduced, and in each case they are introduced, not as concerned about a catastrophe but as a guarantee of their fulfilment. For above all they are introduced as being the work of Yahweh.
It is first made clear that the source of these actions is the One Who does everything according to His will, in fulfilment of His word.
1) He says to Jerusalem, “You shall be inhabited”, and to the cities of Judah, “You shall be built. And I will build up its waste places.”
2) He says to the deep, “Be dry, and I will dry up your rivers.”
3) He says of Cyrus, “He is My shepherd and will perform all My pleasure.”
4) Even saying to Jerusalem, “You shall be built”, and to the Temple, “You shall be established” (or ‘your foundations shall be laid.”
If we see this as a chiasmus with 1). and 4). going together, and 2). and 3). going together, there are two emphases. The first is the important one of the restoration of Jerusalem and Judah after its mauling by Sennacherib, and after its future destruction by Esarhaddon (hinted at in Isa 39:6-7; Isa 43:28), and as it later turns out again by Nebuchadnezzar, because Israel does not take advantage of the opportunity gained by Manasseh’s repentance. The guarantee given by His word is that Jerusalem will be reinhabited after its mauling, the cities of Judah will be rebuilt after their devastation caused by war, the waste places caused by war and famine will be restored (built up), and this will include the re-establishing (and as it later turns out the total rebuilding) of the Temple, all of which have been prepared for previously (Isa 41:17-18; Isa 43:19-20; Isa 44:3; Isa 43:28).
The second is Yahweh’s action in the drying up of the deep and the rivers, through the activities of His shepherd, Cyrus, who will do all His pleasure (further expanded on in Isa 45:1-7). Countries in those days were often defined in terms of their rivers (compare Isa 27:1; Isa 7:18; Isa 7:20; Nah 3:8), which were of such vital importance to them, and their drying up was seen as a judgment on them (Isa 19:45; Isa 42:15; Isa 50:2; Psa 74:15; Jer 50:38; Jer 51:36; Eze 30:12; Zec 10:11). The drying up of the deep and the rivers may well therefore signify the desolation of the land of The River, and therefore of both Assyria and Babylon, in which case this is the promise that both will be dealt with through this instrument whom Yahweh has chosen and anointed. But their drying up also reflects what Yahweh had previously done to Egypt when He dried up their deep (Isa 51:10; Isa 63:13; Jos 2:10), and what He had done when He entered Canaan (Jos 4:23; compare Psa 114:3-5), and on top of that it parallels the boast of Sennacherib that with the sole of his feet he had dried up the rivers of all the places that he besieged (Isa 37:25). As he had done to others, so would be done to Assyria, and their accomplice Babylon. As a result restoration was promised to God’s people, which would include the opportunity of return from exile, the restoration of life in Judah, the reinhabiting of Jerusalem, the restoration of the Temple, and destruction to their enemies.
Noteworthy in this description is the total lack of mention of the enemies that Cyrus will deal with. The house of Cyrus has not been raised up in order to deliver them from the Babylonian empire, but to deliver them from all their enemies (Isa 45:1-7), whoever they may be, and to be God’s instrument as Yahweh fulfils His purpose to restore Judah and the Temple (Isa 44:26-28) in readiness for God’s outpouring of righteousness and salvation (Isa 45:8; compare Isa 44:1-5). Isaiah does not pretend to know the details, and shows no awareness of the activities of Nebuchadnezzar. He still thinks in terms of Assyrian Babylon..
It will be noted that in what follows, describing the activities of Cyrus, it is his destruction of nations and taking of their cities and treasures, ‘for Jacob my Servant’s sake and Israel my chosen’, that is emphasised (Isa 45:1-3). While he would also certainly play his part in giving permission for the building of a new Temple (Isa 44:28 with Ezr 1:1), on our reading of it that is here seen as a by-product of his activity. The raising up of the new Temple was to be the work of Yahweh. That was not, of course, to prevent Cyrus having a part in the process. But no heathen king could establish the Temple of Yahweh. (Apart from the lessons learned however, it actually matters little which view we take for Cyrus II was undoubtedly involved in both). Cyrus’ main assignment was to be the defeat and denuding of the nations for Israel’s sake (Isa 44:27-28 a; Isa 45:1-6).
So as we go into this new section we carefully note God’s promise of a restored Judah, a new or restored Temple, and a new or restored Jerusalem, alongside of which the idolatrous city of Babylon will be destroyed because of all that it represents. This latter is, however, not connected with Cyrus, which from the point of view of accuracy was a good job because Cyrus did not desolate Babylon. Rather having taken it easily, and being welcomed by the priests of Marduk, he restored it to its previous importance within his empire. The final demise of Babylon in fulfilment of Isaiah’s words took place much later.
Isaiah accepts these strands of information without flinching, and without trying to fit them together. He is very much lacking in the full details. What he is aware of are the principles involved. The Temple must be restored, the exiles must return from all over the world, Babylon must be destroyed. But it is important from our point of view to recognise that while Cyrus is very much involved in the general picture, he is not described as being involved with Babylon, and once he has made the world ready for Yahweh’s Servant, he departs immediately from the picture.
So the consequence is that, having in His eternal counsels, brought Abraham to the land like a ‘bird of prey’ (Isa 46:11), He will not allow Abraham’s seed to fail, but will restore them so that they might fulfil their task as His Servant..
This description of Abraham as a ‘bird of prey’ is interesting and significant. There can seem little doubt that in using it he has in mind that having originally, within the eternal purposes of God, arrived in the land, Abraham had, like a great bird of prey, descended on the king of Babylon and had driven him off and spoiled him (Isa 41:2; Genesis 14), just as his seed would later do with the Canaanites. Thus Isaiah is now to see the continued presence of Abraham in the land in his seed (Isa 41:8; Isa 45:4) who are God’s Servant, as a guarantee that Babylon will again suffer through the hand of their Kinsman Redeemer as He acts on behalf of His people, as He did in the days of Abraham. Yahweh too will swoop on Babylon, but this time to destroy it completely.
Further Note on Babylon.
In view of all that he has previously said about Babylon (Isa 44:13-14) it is clear that Isaiah could have expected nothing less than its destruction. Nor could he have doubted that it was necessary. For the shadow of Babylon, the great Anti-God and proponent of the occult, continually hung over the world, and over the people of God, and had to be dealt with. Her evil spiritual influence was known throughout the Near Eastern world, and was affecting the future of Yahweh’s Servant. There was therefore no alternative to her permanent destruction.
And yet that has not been the theme of Isaiah’s message. Indeed Babylon has only been mentioned once, and that almost incidentally, in Isa 43:14. At this stage Isaiah is interested in the work of the Servant, not in Babylon. He does not see Babylon as the threat to Israel’s freedom and independence, (he does not even mention it in chapter 45), only as the centre of all that is devilish.
And this is despite the fact that Babylon had yet to appear in order to loot David’s house and take the errant sons of David to become eunuchs in the house of the king of Babylon as God had already revealed through him (Isa 39:6-7). But that was a different issue dealing with the rejection of the current house of David. It said nothing about the destruction of the Temple or the future of the Servant.
So while, as we have gathered in Isa 43:28, he was becoming more and more aware that the Temple had been profaned and must be replaced, he does not make any claim that he knows how or when it will come about. Nothing is said about the way in which it will come to be in that state. He simply knows that it will necessarily be so because God’s people have defiled it (Isa 43:22-28). But at no stage, when speaking of the restoration of the Temple, does he mention Babylon as involved, or connected with its destruction in any way. Had he known specifically he would surely have said so. But that was something not revealed to him. While he knew that the Temple must be replaced because defiled, and may well have suspected who the culprit might be, he clearly did not see it as part of his message to Israel.
What he did know was that it was through the folly and unbelief of Ahaz that Assyria had come to tread Israel down (Isa 10:5; Isa 52:4). And at this present time he sees that threat as slightly altered in that the direction of the threat now comes from a Babylon, through whom Assyria was operating. This is clear from the fact that later, when Manasseh was arraigned for misbehaviour against Assyria, it was to Babylon that he was carried off in chains to give account (2Ch 33:11). And this involvement of Babylon in the affairs of Israel as acting on behalf of Assyria would chill Isaiah’s heart, for he knew what God had said about Hezekiah’s children and that Babylon was the permanent enemy of God from the beginning. Indeed it was he who had been called upon to demand its permanent destruction, never to be restored (Isa 13:19-20; see also 14; Isa 21:9; Isa 23:13). And he knew that through the folly of Hezekiah Babylon had been awakened to the prosperity of Judah and would one day come for her treasures (Isa 39:6-7). So when it began acting as broker on behalf of Assyria, in Isaiah’s eyes Babylon, the great Anti-God, came to the fore. Esarhaddon, King of Assyria, rebuilt Babylon and appointed one of his sons there as crown representative and prince, and it would seem that Babylon was now the taskmaster acting on behalf of Assyria with regard to Judah. As the primeval rebellious city, and as the great Anti-God, it had even ingratiated itself with Assyria. It had to be destroyed
So that is why Babylon itself, with its encroaching ways, has to be got rid of, and Yahweh will now assure Israel from his own experience that the gods of Babylon, having been humiliated by the Assyrians, had been revealed as what they were (Isa 46:1-2). Babylon herself was thus doomed (47). All men are therefore to turn from any consideration of, or affinity, with Babylon and recognise the triumph of Yahweh in establishing His people (Isa 48:20). So physically Israel’s deliverance from the nations will be by the hand of a Persian king, but spiritually their spiritual life will be saved by the establishment of the new Temple (Isa 44:28) and by the destruction of Babylon (Isa 48:20), the great threat to Yahwism (47; compare Isa 14:13-15).
These then are now the matters with which Isaiah will deal, and the ideas that are mentioned are in huge contrast, and are all important for the work of the Servant, but he does not interconnect them. On the one hand there is to be the full restoration of a pure, new, and undefiled Temple, a place through which the Servant can operate if ‘he’ is willing, and on the other there is to be the destruction of the evil daughter of Babylon with all her false sorceries and idols. For until both these things have occurred the work of the Servant will continue to be hindered. However, this destruction of Babylon is more connected with Assyria (Isa 46:1-2) than with Cyrus.
Cyrus is rather seen as the one whose conquests will prepare the way for Israel by conquering the nations and acting on Israel’s behalf. For what Cyrus will do is to be ‘for Jacob, My servant’s sake, and Israel My elect’ (Isa 45:4). That is the specific reason why Yahweh has called him by name and put His own name on Him (surnamed him), even though he himself does not know Yahweh. It is because he is acting in order that the Servant might benefit. We must not confuse the two activities of preparing the way for the Servant, which was the purpose of raising up Cyrus, and the destruction of Babylon which will occur through the hand of Yahweh. Both were necessary but no connection is identified between them. To Isaiah they represented the good and the bad about the future as stunningly revealed by Yahweh.
There is no thought in these chapters that Isaiah is over-anxious. He is perfectly aware, on his pinnacle of faith and with his magnificent view of God (40), that the situation is no-contest. And once he has introduced the one who will restore the Servant (45), he puts the gods of Babylon firmly in their place as burdens on the backs of beasts which far from helping them can only make the weary beasts stumble (Isa 46:1-2), and proclaims the end of the daughter of the Chaldeans (47). Then, the great enemy having been dealt with, He reintroduces the Servant in his ministry to His people and to the world (49). It is clear that until Babylon is out of the way the Servant cannot finalise his ministry.
It should be noted how little detail is given with regard to these external threats. Isaiah is not necessarily aware of all the full ramifications of them, and is certainly not concerned about them. His whole thought is concentrated on what Yahweh is doing. It is those facts of which he is sure.
End of note.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Humiliation of the Daughter of Babylon
v. 1. Come down and sit in the dust, v. 2. Take the millstones, v. 3. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen, v. 4. As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, v. 5. Sit thou silent, v. 6. I was wroth with My people, v. 7. And thou saidst,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Isa 47:1-15
A SONG OF TRIUMPH OVER THE FALL OF BABYLON. The song divides itself into four strophes, or stanzasthe first one of four verses (Isa 47:1-4); the second of three (Isa 47:5-7); the third of four (Isa 47:8-11); and the fourth also of four (Isa 47:12-15). The speaker is either Jehovah (see Isa 47:3, ad fin.) or “a chorus of celestial beings” (Cheyne), bent on expressing their sympathy with Israel
Isa 47:1
.Come down, and sit in the dust; i.e. “descend to the lowest depth of humiliation” (comp. Isa 3:26 and Job 2:8). O virgin daughter of Babylon. The “virgin daughter of Babylon” is the Babylonian people as distinct from the city (comp. Isa 23:12). “Virgin” does not mean “unconquered;” for Babylon had been taken by the Assyrians some half-dozen times. Sit on the ground: there is no throne; rather, sit on the ground throneless, or without a throne. Hitherto the “virgin daughter” had sat, as it were, on a throne, ruling the nations. Now she must sit on the groundthere was no throne left for her. It is the fact that Babylon was never, after her capture by Cyrus, the capital. of a kingdom. Under the Achsemenian kings she was the residence of the court for a part of the year; but Susa was the capital. Under Alexander she was designated for his capital; but he died before his designs could be carried out. Under the Seleucidae she rapidly dwindled in consequence, until she became a ruin. Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate; or, delicate and luxurious (Cheyne). Babylon had hitherto been one of the chief seats of Oriental luxury. She was “the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency” (Isa 13:19), “the golden city” (Isa 14:4). She was given to revelry and feasting, to mirth and drunkenness, to a shameless licensed debauchery. All this would now be changed. Her population would have to perform the hard duties laid upon them by foreign masters.
Isa 47:2
Take the millstones, and grind meal. Do the hard work commonly allotted to female slaves. Turn the heavy upper millstone all day long upon the nether one (comp. Exo 11:5). Babylon having been personified as a female captive, the details have to be in unison. Uncover thy locks. Babylonian women are represented in the Assyrian sculptures as wearing closefitting caps upon their heads. Make bare the leg pass over the rivers. On the way from their own city to the land of their captivity, they would have to wade through streams, and in so doing to expose parts of their persons which delicacy required to be concealed.
Isa 47:3
I will not meet thee as a man; literally, I shall not meet a man; i.e. “I shall not find any one to oppose me.”
Isa 47:4
As for our Redeemer, etc. Mr. Cheyne suspects, with some reason, that this is “the marginal note of a sympathetic scribe, which has made its way by accident into the text.” It is certainly quite unlike anything else in the song, which would artistically be improved by its removal. If, however, it be retained, we must regard it as a parenthetic ejaculation of the Jewish Church on hearing the first strophe of the songthe Church contrasting itself with Babylon, which has no one to stand up for it, whereas it has as “Redeemer the Lord of hosts, the Holy One of Israel.”
Isa 47:5
Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness. The second strophe begins, like the first, with a double imperative. The fallen people is recommended to hide its shame in silence and darkness, as disgraced persons do who shrink from being seen by their fellows. Thou shalt no more be called The lady of kingdoms. Babylon can scarcely have borne this title in Isaiah’s time, or at any earlier period, unless it were a very remote one. She had been secondary to Assyria for at least six hundred years when Isaiah wrote, and under Sennacherib was ruled by viceroys of his appointment. But Isaiah’s prophetic foresight enables him to realize the later period of Babylon’s prosperity and glory under Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, when she became the inheritress of the greatness of Assyria, and exercised rule over a large portion of Western Asia. Nebuchadnezzar was, no doubt, as he is called by both Ezekiel (Eze 26:7) and Daniel (Dan 2:37), a “king of kings;” and Babylon was then an empress-state, exercising authority over many minor kingdoms. It is clear that, both in the earlier and the later chapters, the prophet realizes this condition of things (see Isa 13:19; Isa 14:4-6, Isa 14:12-17; as well as the present passage).
Isa 47:6
I was wroth with my people. I have polluted and given; rather, I polluted and gave. The reference is to the conquest of Judaea by Nebuchadnezzar. Thou didst show them no mercy. We have very little historical knowledge of the general treatment of the Jewish exiles during the Captivity. A certain small numberDaniel and the Three Childrenwere advanced to positions of importance (Dan 1:19; Dan 2:48, Dan 2:49; Dan 3:30), and, on the whole, well treated. On the other hand, Jehoiachin underwent an imprisonment of thirty-seven years’ duration (2Ki 25:27). Mr. Cheyne says that “the writings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel do not suggest that the [bulk of the] exiles were great sufferers.” This is, no doubt, true; and we may, perhaps, regard Isaiah’s words in this place as sufficiently made good by the “cruelties which disfigured the first days of the Babylonian triumph” (Lam 4:16; Lam 5:12; 2Ch 36:17). Still, there may well have been a large amount of suffering among the rank-and-file of the captives, of which no historic record has come down to us. Psa 138:1-8. reveals some of the bitter feelings of the exiles. Upon the ancient; rather, upon the aged. The author of Chronicles notes that Nebuchadnezzar, on taking Jerusalem, “had no compassion on young man or maiden, old man or him that stooped for age” (l.s.c.). There is no reason for giving the words of the present passage an allegorical meaning.
Isa 47:7
And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever. The idea of “continuance” is one of the primary instincts of human nature. Hence we regard it as certain that the sun will rise on the morrow. We expect things to “continue in one stay,” and “to-morrow to be as to-day,” if not even “more abundant.” Babylon was not much more arrogant than other nations when she assumed that silo would be “a lady for ever.” And she had more excuse than almost any other nation. Her capital was one of the most ancient cities, if not the most ancient city in the world (Gen 10:10; Gen 11:1-9). Though not unconquered (see the comment on Isa 47:1), she had yet for two millennia or more maintained a prominent position among the chief peoples of the earth, and had finally risen to a prouder eminence than any that she had previously occupied. Still, she ought to have remembered that “all things come to an end,” and to have so comported herself in the time of her prosperity as not to have provoked God to anger. So that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart. “These things” must refer to the calamities about to fall upon Babylon, of which she may have heard before the end camesince they had been prophesied so long previouslybut which she did not take to heart. The latter end of it; i.e. “the probable issue of her pride and cruelty” (Kay).
Isa 47:8
Therefore; rather, and now. The third strophe begins here, but with a single, instead of a double, imperative. So also the fourth strophe in Isa 47:12. Thou that art given to pleasures (see the comment on Isa 47:1, sub fin.). That dwellest carelessly; or, that sittest securely; i.e. in an imagined security. Herodotus says that, when Cyrus invested the city, the inhabitants “made light of his siege” (1.190), and occupied themselves “in dancing and revelry” (1.191). The Nabonidus Tablet seems to show that very slight and insufficient preparations for defence were made.! am, and none else Beside me. This is not self-deification, but only a boast of superiority to all other earthly powers. Zephaniah expresses in exactly similar terms the pride and arrogance of Assyria (Zep 2:15). I shall not sit as a widow; i.e. in solitude and desolation (Lam 1:1), deserted by the crowds who had sought her marts and delighted in her luxury. This result, which now impended, had never been anticipated by the “careless” one, who had expected to be for ever “the lady of kingdoms.” The loss of children; i.e. diminution of population.
Isa 47:9
In a moment in one day. The day of the capture of the city by Cyrus, which was the third of Marchesvan, b.c. 539. Then, “in a moment,” Babylon lost the whole of her prestige, ceased to reign, ceased to be an independent power, became a “widow,” had a portion of her population turn from her, was brought down to the dust. Loss of children, and widowhood came upon her in their perfection; i.e. “in the full extent of their bitterness” (Cheyne). Not that Cyrus imitated her common practice by carrying off her entire population; on the contrary, she continued for more than two centuries to be a flourishing and populous town. Twice she revolted from Darius Hystaspis (‘Beh. Ins.,’ col. 1. par. 16; col 3, par. 13), once, perhaps, from Xerxes (Ctes; ‘Ext. Pers,’ 22). Alexander the Great found her walls and her great buildings in ruins, but still she was a considerable place. Cyrus, however, no doubt, carried off a portion of her population, which thenceforth begun to dwindle, and continually became less and less as time went on, until she sank into a solitude. That extreme desolation which the prophets paint in such vivid colours (Isa 12:1-6 :19-22; Isa 14:22, Isa 14:23; Jer 50:10 :15, 38-40; Jer 2:36 -43) was potentially contained in the capture by Cyrus, which was the work of a single day. For the multitude of thy sorceries of thine enchantments (comp. Isa 47:13; and see also Dan 2:2; Dan 5:7). The word here translated “sorceries” probably means “incantations” or “enchantments,” while that translated “enchantments” means “spells.” The addiction of the Babylonians to marc is largely attested by the classical writers, and has been proved beyond a doubt by the lately discovered native remains. By these it appears that their magic fell under three principal heads:
(1) the preparation and use of spells and talismans, which were written forms engraved on stone or impressed on clay, and worn on the person or attached to the object on which their influence was to be exerted;
(2) the composition and recitation of formulae of incantation, which were supposed to act as charms, and to drive away demons and diseases; and
(3) the taking of observations and framing of tables of prognostics and of omens for general use, together with the casting of horoscopes for the special advantage of individuals. The first and second forms of marc are glanced at in the present passage; the third is noticed in Isa 47:13.
Isa 47:10
Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; i.e. in thy incantations and spells, which were supposed to work in secret, and which could not be counteracted if their victim was not aware of them. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee. The astronomical “wisdom and knowledge” of the Babylonians, confessed by the Greeks to have been the origin of their own astronomical knowledge, led them on to that perversion of true science, astrology, which, when once entered upon, seduces the mind from all genuine and fruitful study of the celestial phenomena, and leads it into a labyrinth of absurdities. It also puffed them up, and made them regard themselves as altogether superior to other nations (see the comment on Isa 47:8, sub fin.).
Isa 47:11
Therefore shall evil come upon thee. Connect this with the first clause of Isa 47:10, “Thou hast trusted in thine own evil (moral), therefore shall evil (physical) fall upon thee.” The same word, ra‘ah, is used in both places. Thou shalt not know from whence it riseth. So the Vulgate, Vitringa, Gesenius, and Dr. Kay. But the bulk of modern commentators (Hitzig, Ewald, Delitzsch, Nagelsbach, Weir, Cheyne) render, “Thou wilt not know how to charm it away.“ Both meanings are possible, and are almost equally good; but the parallelism of the clauses is in favour of the latter rendering. Shakhrah should correspond in construction, as in sound, with kapp’rah. To put it off; literally, to expiate; i.e. to get rid of it by means of expiatory rites. Which thou shalt not know; or, of which thou shalt not be aware. (On the carelessness and want of foresight displayed by the Babylonians, see the comment on Isa 47:8.)
Isa 47:12
Stand now. The fourth and concluding strophe now begins; it opens, like the third, with a single imperative. It has, as Mr. Cheyne observes, “a strongly ironical tinge, reminding us of Elijah’s language to the priests of Baal in 1Ki 18:27.” The irony is, however, confined to the first half (1Ki 18:12, 1Ki 18:13); giving place in 1Ki 18:14 and 1Ki 18:15 to a scathing sentence of judgment and ruin. Enchantments sorceries; rather, spells, enchantments (see the comment on 1Ki 18:9). If so be, etc.; rather, perchance thou wilt be able to profit; perchance thou wilt cause terror. The prophet gives a pretended encouragement to Israel’s adversaries. “If Babylon uses all the resources of her magical art, perhaps she may succeedwho knows? Perhaps she may strike terror into the hearts of her assailants.”
Isa 47:13
Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Mr. Cheyne’s rendering is more intelligible, “Thou hast wearied thyself with the multitude of thy consultations.” Those at the head of affairs had consulted the diviners of all classes, till they were utterly weary of so doing (compare the “consultations“ of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar with such persons, Dan 2:2-11; Dan 5:7, Dan 5:8). Yet let one further effort be made. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up. These are scarcely three classes of persons, but rather the same class under three designations: “astrologers” (literally, “dividers of the heavens”); “star-gazers,” or observers of the stars; and “monthly prognosticators,” or almanack-makers. The astronomy of the Babylonians consisted primarily in “dividing the heavens” into “houses,” or constellations, and thus mapping them out in such a way that the infinite multiplicity, which at first baffles the beholder, might be grasped, reduced to order, and brought within the sphere of distinct cognizance. This work was an eminently useful one, and maintains its place in astronomy to the present day. After the heavens were mapped out, and the courses of the sun and moon through the “houses” laid down, “star-gazers“ directed their attention mainly to sun, moon, and planets, noting eclipses, occultations, conjunctions, and the like. All this was legitimate science; but, finally, the greater part of the astronomers launched into astrology, and undertook to prognosticate events from the changing phenomena of the heavens. Almanacks were put forth, in which predictions were made, either specially for a particular year, or generally for all time, based upon astronomical considerations; and on these great dependence was placed.
Isa 47:14
Behold, they shall be as stubble (comp. Isa 5:24; Isa 40:24; Isa 41:2). A favourite metaphor with Isaiah for extreme weakness and incapacity of resistance. In Isa 5:24 it is connected, as here, with fire. No doubt in Palestine, as elsewhere, an accidental fire from time to time caught hold of a stubble-field, and speedily reduced it to a mass of blackened ashes. The threat here is that God’s wrath shall similarly sweep over Babylon. They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. Mr. Cheyne translates, with much spirit, “They cannot rescue their soul from the clutch of the flame.” Like those who are caught in the midst of a fire in a prairie or jungle, they have no escapethe flame is on all sidesand they cannot but perish. There shall not be a coal to warm at; rather, it is not a charcoal-fire to warm one‘s self at. A return to the sarcastic tone of Isa 5:12, Isa 5:13. The conflagration which spreads around is something more than a fire to warm one’s self atit is an awful widespread devastation.
Isa 47:15
Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured. The foreigners who have participated in the toils and labours of Babylon shall share in her punishment. The flame of judgment shall not spare even them. Even thy merchants. Babylonian commerce is the subject of an important chapter in Heeren’s ‘Asiatic Nations’, and is discussed also in the present writer’s ‘Egypt and Babylon’. It was carried on both by land and sea, and was very extensive, including both a large import and a large export trade. Her merchants were, in part natives, in part foreigners. It is the latter who are here specially intended. Seeing the gradual closing in upon Babylon of the Persian armies, and anticipating the worst, they fly in haste from the doomed city, each one making for his own country, and having no thought of interposing to save the people which have so long encouraged and protected them. Probably the greater number of these foreign merchants were either Phoenicians or Arabians. They shall wander every one to his quarter. Not his own quarter of the town, but his own quarter of the earth; i.e. his own country (comp. Isa 13:14, “They shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.”).
HOMILETICS
Isa 47:1-15
The fall of ancient states a warning to modern ones.
History has been defined as “philosophy teaching by examples.” It is only on the supposition that there are lessons to be learnt from them that historical inquiries or historical records can be regarded as of any value or importance. In a certain sense it is no doubt true to say that “history never repeats itself.” The exact circumstances, even of those historical events which most nearly resemble each other, are always in many respects dissimilar. But the value and use of history lies in the fact that, speaking broadly, history does repeat itself. Its events, as Thucydides observes, recur”the same, or nearly the same”and will do so “while human nature remains what it is” (Thucyd; i. 22). Hence history teaches lessons, and among its most important lessons are those that it teaches to existing states or communities, by the example which it sets before them of the careers and ultimate fates of former states and communities, which existed under more or less similar circumstances. In most cases we have to speculate on the causes which produced the decline and fall of empires, kingdoms, countries; and thus our conclusions can seldom be more than probable conjectures on the subject. Still, they are often of a high value. But a very much higher value attaches to the instances when an inspired writer delivers to us the Divine view of the causes which brought about the fall of a nation; for here we stand on firm groundwe have a solid and assured basis upon which to rest; and we may draw out the lesson which the writer’s words convey with a certainty that we shall not mislead or cause an unfounded alarm. Now, according to Isaiah, the downfall of Babylon was produced by four principal causes; and the lesson to be learnt from her fall is avoidance of four vices. The fall of Babylon warns states
I. AGAINST LUXURY. Babylon was “given to pleasure” (verse 8), was “tender and delicate” (verse 1), or “delicate and luxurious.” It is generally allowed that luxury saps the vigour of states, destroying the severer virtues of courage, manliness, and endurance, and at the same time producing a degeneracy of the physical nature, a loss of muscle, of tone, of fibre. It is, no doubt, difficult to draw the line, and to say what exactly constitutes luxury; but certain practices, common in most modern as well as in many ancient states, may be distinctly regarded as “luxurious.” The worst and most fatal of these is unchastity. If the manhood of a nation indulges generally, or widely, in licentiousness, if purity in man is a rare thing, we may be sure that the national character and the national strength are being undermined. The vice of unchastity gnaws at the roots of a nation’s vigour, and brings a premature decay. States should take such measures against it as they take against a pestilence. They should strive to keep it out. Having once admitted it, they should seek to stamp it out. If they cannot do this, if the vice is too deeply ingrained to be got rid of, then they must look out for speedy disaster, culminating in ruin. Another dangerous vice, likewise to be carefully guarded against, is intemperance. This, too, affects both body and soul, inflames and so exhausts the one, degrades and enfeebles the other. Of less account, but still coming under the head of luxury, and therefore to be avoided, are gluttony, sloth, effeminacy, over-refinement. Of such it may be said, “Hoc nigrum est; hoc tu, Romane, caveto.”
II. AGAINST CRUELTY. Babylon “showed no mercy” (verse 6); “upon the aged, very heavily she laid her yoke” (verse 6). Cruelty has less direct tendency to weaken a nation than luxury; but still it weakens in certain ways. It alienates the subject races towards whom it is shown. It exasperates foreign enemies, and causes a people to be hated even by those who have not themselves suffered at their bands. But its deleterious effect is probably, in the main, due to God’s hatred of it. God abominales oppressors (Isa 1:21-24; Isa 3:12; Isa 5:23, etc.), and takes care to punish them. “Woe to the oppressing city!” says God by Zephaniah (Zep 3:1); and again, by Nahum (Nah 3:1), “Woe to the bloody city!” “Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth” (Jer 51:25). God pours out his anger against the cruel and truculent, making them experience in their turn the sufferings they have caused to others, and thus bringing them to destruction.
III. AGAINST PRIDE. Babylon thought that she was “a lady for ever” (verse 7). She “said in her heart, I am, and none else beside me” (verses 8, 10). She had such an overweening opinion of herself that she “dwelt carelessly” (verse 8), despised her enemies, made slight preparation against them. Her pride, therefore, like her luxury, by its natural working, seriously diminished her strength for resistance, making her negligent and improvident. But it was also among the causes which especially called down God’s judgment. “Pride,” as we are told, “goeth before destruction” (Pro 16:18), and nothing seems so to provoke the Divine vengeance. “By that sin fell the angels.” God “brings down the high looks of the proud.” “The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day” (ch. Isa 2:11). When God brought low Assyria, the object was to “punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks” (Isa 10:12). When Babylon was chastised, it was “because she had been proud against the Lordtherefore were her young men slain in the streets, and all her men of war cut off” (Jer 1:1-19 :29, 30). Pride, therefore, is a vice especially to be eschewed by states, if they desire continuance, and would fain be “ladies for ever.”
IV. AGAINST FOOLISH SUPERSTITION. There is a which is praiseworthy, rather than blamable, as was that of the Athenians (Act 18:22, Revised Version). Babylon is not rebuked because she really venerated her gods, poor shadows of Divinity as they were. She is blamed because she superseded, or overlaid the worship of her gods with various meaner superstitions. Bereavement and widowhood came upon her “for the multitude of her sorceries, and for the great abundance of her enchantments” (verse 9). It is addiction to magic which is especially “her wickedness” (vet. 10), in which she has “trusted;” and it is this wickedness, together with the other three vices already spoken of, that has caused the sentence of destruction to go forth against her. Modern states may well take the warning to heart. When religion is discredited, superstitions speedily usurp her place. Such monstrosities as Mormonism and spirit-rapping, which disgrace the nineteenth century, are superstitions as degrading as any to which the Babylonians gave way, and may well bring down a Divine judgment on the nations which encourage them or think lightly of them. Such superstitions certainly cannot “save” those who trust in them (verse 13); but it is not so certain that they may not destroy.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Isa 47:1-15
The fall of Babylon.
This is a scoffing song at the overthrow of Babylon. It is divided into four nearly equal stanzas. Luxury, ambition, and the practice of magicthe one sin worse than the otherswere prevalent at Babylon. Each of these is lashed in the first three stanzas. There is a climax, the scorn of the prophet reaching its highest point in the last stanza (Ewald). Spiritually considered, the picture may represent the course of “this present world” in its godless pride.
I. BABYLON AS TYPICAL OF LUXURY. The city in ancient fancy is ever thought of as a womanin all her beauty and glory, or in all her shame. The great city here appears as the haughty and luxurious courtesan. The just judgment has fallen upon her impurity. She is violently torn away from her life of softness and refinement, and reduced to the status of a common slavehas to ply the hard labour of grinding meal (Exo 11:5, 12; Job 31:10). Or, like a captive stripped of all her finery, she has to wade barefoot through streams. Every hidden shame will be exposed to the light of day. Only in Israelas Isaiah 42-46, have repeatedly proclaimedis salvation to be found. These calamities of the proud city are in retribution for her sinsthe just vengeance of an offended God.
II. BABYLON AS TYPICAL OF PRIDE AND AMBITION. This “daughter of the Chaldeans” is no longer to be termed “lady, or mistress, of kingdoms.” When Jehovah was wroth with his people, and desecrated his heritage, giving them into her hands, she showed no pity, but laid a heavy yoke upon the aged, thinking in her heart, “I shall be mistress for ever.” She did not consider the end, which has now come upon her. While Israel enjoys freedom, she must pass into the darkness of the prison-house (Isa 42:7, Isa 42:22).
III. AS TYPICAL OF SUPERSTITION. In her carelessness and pride she has exalted herself above Jehovah (Zep 2:15). She thinks she will never lose her protector, the Chaldean king; and her children, the stout burghers of the city. But sudden conquest will deprive her of both, and she will be as a widow, forlorn. Her third and inexcusable sin is superstition. Her wisdom and science have led her astray to a point of blinding self-conceit. But now an evil has come upon her which no incantations and spells can charm awaya mischief for which none of her rites can atone. Her false confidence has blinded her to the true faith in the eternal God (with Isa 46:10, Isa 46:11, cf. Isa 45:18; Isa 19:11, etc.). And tile result must be sudden and crushing ruin.
IV. BABYLON‘S FALL AS TYPICAL OF THE WISDOM THAT IS BROUGHT TO NOUGHT. What can all her learned astrologers and magicians do for her nowthey whose guidance has so long been followed (cf. Isa 46:6, Isa 46:7; Isa 44:12; Isa 43:23)? Let them stand by her in her need, those star-gazers and moon-gazers. But all are dumb, and, so far from helping, flee for their own safety from the fireno gently warming hearth-fire (Isa 44:16), but one most horrible and devouring, from which there is no escape (Isa 1:11; Isa 33:11-14; Isa 5:24).
V. LESSONS. All the great sins are connected together as links in a chain. They are drawn as with a cart-rope. Sensuality and luxury bring pride and contempt in their train; and these, again, blindness and bewilderment of mind. And where no affliction nor humiliation have been known, there will be no sympathy nor pity towards others. Yet religion is ever a necessity to man; and, if the true religion be rejected, some counterfeit must take its place. The most foolish and the darkest superstitions flourish in such times. So it was again when Christianity was making its way in the decaying Roman world. True religion, rooted in humanity and the fear of God, and in light-loving intelligence, alone can deliver the nation and the individual.J.
HOMILIES BY W.M. STATHAM
Isa 47:13
Many counsellors.
“Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels.” The mind of man will seek counsel. For men everywhere, in the old Athenian groves and gardens, and in the fellowship of modern clubs and associations, will seek for “opinion” to guide and help them. They are so slow to trust alone to conscience and to God.
I. THE UNSATISFYING ORACLES. “Thou art wearied.” You have tried them so often without results of guidance and good. All is vain. Men go here and there, but, alas! too often to those who are the most likely to fall in with their desires and whims. Like Absalom, men consult counsellors like Ahithophel, who pander to their folly. Then, when times of real emergency and anxiety come, when the poor tired heart needs rest and peace, it is led to new pleasures, new excitements and interests, until weariness ensues. How contrasted is the Christian’s lot! “Commit thy way unto him.”
II. THE MANIFOLD FAILURE. It is a failure all round. Think of the multitude of counsellors. Men go to a minister instead of to the Bible; or to a priest instead of to a Saviour; or to their passions instead of their conscience; or to man instead of to God. Humbly let us seek the heavenly guidance. “The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way.”W.M.S.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON
Isa 47:6
What we owe to the aged.
“Upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.” This wrong-doing is selected, out of all others, to point the reproaches of the prophet. If Babylon would do that, it was merciless enough to do anything. Hard, indeed, is the heart that will show no pity for old age, but will lay a heavy yoke on its shoulders. We may let this sentence suggest to us the light in which a Christian man will look at age. What is its due? How shall we exhibit the temper our Master would approve in our bearing towards it?
I. THE CONSIDERATENESS WHICH IS DUE TO THE WEAK. Many passages from both Testaments invite our attention to the considerateness of the Divine Father, of the gracious Lord, to the weak, to the burdened, to the defenceless (see Isa 40:11). To be patient and considerate in our relations with those whose power is reduced, and who are going back to the feebleness out of which they once came, is to be “the children of our Father who is in heaven,” is to be “disciples indeed” of the great Exemplar.
II. THE RESPECT WHICH IS DUE TO THE EXPERIENCED. There are truths which nothing but experience seems able to teach. What evils might not be shunned, what sorrows escaped, what happiness and what usefulness secured, if we would but let the wisdom of the experienced direct our thoughts and guide our steps! They only who have sounded the waters of life can tell their depth; they only who have drunk of its many cups can tell us where the killing poison or where the curing medicine is to be found. Age, instructed by experience, has a wisdom Which youth and maturity do well to reverence and to master.
III. THE GRATITUDE WHICH IS DUE TO THOSE WHO HAVE SERVED US. There are many aged men who have lived selfish lives, and to whom we owe no gratitude at all; but there are others who have toiled and suffered, not perfunctorily or of constraint, but freely and magnanimously,to these far more is due than the pecuniary payment they may have received, and they win go to the grave unrecompensed if those who reap the fruits of their labours and trials do not render them the honour they have earned.
IV. THE SERVICE WE SHOULD RENDER TO THOSE WHO WILL SOON BE BEYOND OUR REACH It is an affecting and constraining thought that there remain but a very few times more when we can do anything for one of our neighboursthat he will soon be where our band cannot reach to rescue or to enrich him. The aged will soon be gone from amongst us. A few weeks or months will take them where no kindness of ours can make their path smoother, their heart happier, their character more noble. To them, most of all, applies the gracious sentiment ” Be kind to each other; The night’s coming on, When friend and when brother, Perchance, will be gone.”
1. Unkindness to the aged is peculiarly displeasing to God.
2. Considerateness and succour shown to the aged will draw down the special favour of Christ. They, too, are among the “little ones” whom it is at our peril that we “offend,” to render whom the simplest act of love is to win a Saviour’s blessing.C.
Isa 47:7-11
Spiritual infatuation.
This is a striking picture of infatuation. We note
I. ITS ESSENTIAL NATURE. Under the perverting influence of sin men come into a mental and spiritual condition in which everything is strange, unnatural, distorted. Something has “perverted” them (Isa 47:10). It is a condition in which things seem to them other than they arein which they fail to discern what ought to be quite palpable to them, in which they are subject to unhappy and hurtful delusions. Knowledge does not instruct them, facts do not affect them, reasons do not convince them, truth does not enlighten them. They are duped by semblances, betrayed by errors, ruined by the falsehoods which they entertain and cherish.
II. THE FORMS WHICH IT ASSUMES.
1. An extravagant and offensive egotism. “Thou sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me.” It is a very common effect of sin to produce in men a sense of their own importance carried to a painfully high degree; they think and feel as if their present interests were the only things to be consulted. Everything else must make way, every one else must give way to them; their comfort, their advantage, absorbs all other considerations whatever. None else beside them is of any account.
2. A blind disregard of the future. “Neither didst remember the latter end of it.” Many men regulate their lives as if they would always remain as strong and healthy as they are to-day. Many indulge in courses which tend to weakness or to dishonour, or even to utter ruin, without concerning themselves as to the goal toward which they are travelling. They know that death is in front of them, that judgment awaits them; but they do not “lay it to heart”they remember not “the latter end of it.”
3. An overweening estimate of their own power. “I shall be a lady for ever I shall not sit as a widow.” Men “say in their heart,” “Other men have made great mistakes, but I shall avoid them; other men have suffered in their circumstances or in their health, but I shall escape; on other men judgment and penalty have fallen, but I know how to avert the blow,” etc. They imagine themselves to be possessed of an ingenuity, a sagacity, a power of defeating the operation of penal laws, which does not. belong to them. No one else credits them with this extraordinary faculty; everybody else is convinced that they will he bitterly undeceived: they are infatuated by their sinful folly.
4. A belief in the excellency of animal enjoyment. They are “given to pleasures” (Isa 47:8). One of the infatuations of sin is that sensuous delights will satisfy a human soul. It is a complete delusion. As men yield to the temptations of the flesh they find that pleasure lessens as the craving grows: they eat, but are hungry still; they drink, but are thirsty as before. The lower gratifications do not fill the heart which God created for himself and for his service and friendship.
5. A fatuous infidelity. “None seeth me” (Isa 47:10).
III. ITS INEVITABLE DOOM. “Therefore shall evil come upon thee,” etc. (Isa 47:11). The doom of spiritual infatuation is:
1. Sometimes sudden. “Desolation comes suddenly;” when men are saying, “Peace, peace,” then sudden destruction.
2. Often mysterious. Men do “not know whence it ariseth.” Concealed beneath the surface are the seeds of sorrow and of death; they are invisible, but they are there.
3. Always inevitable. Men are “not able to put it off.“ Wealth cannot purchase its departure; authority cannot order it away; ingenuity cannot escape its power. A voice which none may disregard or disobey will be heart exclaiming, “Get thee into darkness” (Isa 47:5).C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Isa 47:1, Isa 47:2
Humiliation the Divine judgment on pride.
The point here, according to some, is that Babylon loudly boasted about her never having been captured; so she called herself, and was called, a “virgin” city. The figure suggests all the delicacy, all the luxuriousness, all the pride, of the Eastern princess. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” The humiliation of Babylon is presented in precise accordance with the circumstances and sentiments of a grand and proud princess. The hands that were never soiled shall do menial work; the lady who sat in state, in her lovely boudoir, shall sit on the ground and work the household handmill; she who walked alone, attended by her maids, shall be tied to a group of captives, and dragged to foreign slavery; and the delicate dame who had been royally clothed and modestly veiled shall be exposed to the jests and sneers and rude gaze of rough and brutal men. It is a picture of crushing judgments, such as must surely, sooner or later, overtake proud persons, proud cities, and proud nations. God works by humblings, as well as by actual sufferings. The force of the picture presented here lies in the command to the exquisite princess to “take the millstones, and grind meal.” This was the most servile form of female labour, and those engaged in it are often squalid and half-clad. Poor blind people go from house to house to grind, and thus earn a pittance. The indignity expressed in the command to “uncover thy locks” can only be understood as it is known that Jewish women are not permitted to show their hair after marriage, and their head-dress is so contrived as completely to conceal the hair. The expression, “pass over the rivers,” alludes to the demand to wade the streams as the humiliated princess journeys to the place of her captivity. Illustrate
I. THE HUMILIATION OF PROUD NATIONS. Such striking cases may be dealt with as the ruin of commercial Tyre; the dismantling of strong and gorgeous Babylon; the overthrow of imperial Rome; the discomfiture of Xerxes and his immense army; the prostration of :Napoleonic France. Bushnell has a fine argument for the dignity of human nature as shown by its ruins, and he illustrates by references to the utter desolation and ruin of what were once the great cities of great nations.
II. THE HUMILIATION OF PROUD CLASSES. The calamities of war, famine, pestilence, trade depression, most quickly and grievously affect them, because of the thousandfold fictitious wants which their pride creates. There are no miserable creatures so miserable as those who are born to riches, and, having none or losing all, are left in their helplessness.
III. THE HUMILIATION OF PROUD INDIVIDUALS. Show the various shapes it takes in this life, and illustrate from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the certainty and hopelessness of it in the next life. Of this we may be quite sureGod has woe in store, in this life and in the next, for all the proud.R.T.
Isa 47:6
Doing God’s work unworthily.
“Thou didst not show them compassion.” God had entrusted Babylon with the work of executing his Divine judgments on his people. The work was done, but God could not approve of the way in which it was done. Compare, for illustrative purposes, the cases of King Saul and of John. Saul was made executioner of the Divine judgment on Amalek, but God could not approve of his work: he erred on the side of laxity. Jehu was made executioner of the Divine judgment on the house of Ahab, but God could not approve of his work: he erred on the side of severity. The complaint God makes against Babylon is that it had “shown no mercy,” and one specific instance is giventhere had been no considerateness shown towards the aged among the captives; even “upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.” Even the old people were made to do the tasks of bond-slaves. “They respected not the persons of the priests, they favoured not the elders” (Lam 4:16); “Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured” (Lam 5:12); “I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease: for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction” (Zec 1:15). “The writings of Jeremiah and Ezekiel do not suggest that the Jewish exiles were great sufferers. Perhaps the prophet may refer to the cruelties which disfigured the first days of the Babylonian triumph; or possibly the conduct of the Babylonians varied, according to the flexibility and submissiveness of the conquered” (Cheyne). The general topic suggested is that God’s work entrusted to us becomes a Divine agency for the searching and testing of our characters. God will be sure to take account, not only of the fact that we have done the work, but also of the spirit and the manner in which we have done it. No parent can be satisfied with obedience that is a mere act. God watches the character of our obedience. It may be shown that we do God’s work unworthily, and come under his reproof, when we
I. DO IT TO SERVE SELFISH ENDS. This spoils all obedience. The motive in it is wrong. But how searching it would be to us all to try and read our actions in the light of the motives that prompted them! Babylon served itself, so it can expect no approval or acceptance from God.
II. DO IT OTHERWISE THAN AS GOD WISHES. For he who properly takes up a work for God keeps himself open to Divine leadings and teachings as to the way in which it should be carried out. We often err by taking up work, and then severing ourselves from any close and daily dependence on God in the doing of it.
III. DO IT WITHOUT DUE CONSIDERATIONS AND QUALIFICATIONS. Here the reproach is that no “mercy” was shown. God’s judgments are always considerate in their applications; they are mercy-tempered; they take due account of “remnants” and “faithful few.” In this man almost always tails, and so he does not represent or honour God even in his work for him.R.T.
Isa 47:7
Due regard to consequences.
“Neither didst remember the latter end of it.” The experiences of mankind have brought the conviction that moral laws are always and uniformly working, as surely as physical laws. Wrong universally leads on to ruin. Whatsoever a man sows he reaps. “Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death.” This is all so certain that, if any man proposes to take any particular course in life, he may duly consider the “latter end of it”he may estimate it in the light of that “latter end.” He is foolish indeed if he does not take into account final issues and results. And yet this is precisely what men usually fail to do. The thief takes no account of the prison; the forger of penal servitude; or the murderer of the gallows. The proud will not see the certainty of life-humblings, or the violent the evil which the bitterness of the crushed and insulted will bring upon them. If we asked ourselves, before entering on self-willed courses, Where shall we be, what shall we be, ten years hence? we should hesitate and step back. Babylon enjoyed pride, and refused to see any consequences resulting from high-handedness and defiance of God and cruelty to man. But if the Nemesis moves slowly, it moves surely; its tread is firm, its advance is certain. The “lady for ever,” in her own vain imaginations, sits down at last a desolate captive, a humbled, childless widow, the most helpless and miserable creature that Eastern imagination can conceive (Isa 47:8, Isa 47:9). “The guilt of Babylon is intensified by her reckless arrogance. She presumed that the colossus of her power would never be broken, forgetting the danger of provoking the God of gods.”
I. CONSEQUENCES HELP US TO UNDERSTAND THE CHARACTER OF THE COURSES WE CHOOSE. We may be hurried into acts and scenes of life by excitement and passions; we may be deluded by the mere appearances of things as they pass. We only know what things really are as we sit down quietly and count up their issues, see them working out their results. We know sensuality thus; for he that soweth to it reaps corruption. We know frivolity thus; for it works out into a wretched unfitness for all the solemn scenes and responsibilities that must come to us all. We know pride thus, when we see it driving from us all who could render us service of love, and leaving us to suffer and die in the hands of the hireling.
II. CONSEQUENCES SHOULD WARN US FROM EVIL COURSES. The drunkard should run from the cup, at the bottom of which lies the awful picture of the drunkard’s body, the drunkard’s mind, the drunkard’s home, the drunkard’s hell. And so of other deceitful sins and lusts. Alas! that men will not “consider their ways” in the light of their “latter end”!R.T.
Isa 47:11
Man’s helplessness in presence of Divine calamities.
The point impressed is that disaster takes unexpected and overwhelming forms, against which the wisest man fails to take precautions. Man can only affect the smallest of circumstances that are put into his control, and the few persons who are under his immediate influence. But each one of us belongs to a great whole, and is affected by great forces, which God alone controls. We are carried whither we would not. We are borne down by evils which we seem to have done nothing to create. We are helpless before the hurricanes and earthquakes and pestilences with which God can smite. After illustrating and impressing this point, show how we ought to stand to the Divine order. We may so stand that no event arranged by the Divine wisdom can take shape for us as calamity.
I. WE MAY STRIVE TO BE FREE OF THE DIVINE ORDER.
II. WE MAY RESIST THE DIVINE ORDER.
III. WE MAY PUT OURSELVES IN HARMONY WITH THE DIVINE ORDER, That involves our fitting our will to the Divine will; and that self-seeking man will never do until he is “humbled under God’s mighty hand.”R.T.
Isa 47:13
The weariness of self-service.
“Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels.” Babylon was trusting self, trying to find its own way out of calamities; and it was proving what weary, hopeless work that always is. Astrologer was the final resource of the despairing Babylonians.
I. THE WEARINESS OF VARIETY. A vain searching for some new device. A restless dissatisfaction with everything.
II. THE WEARINESS OF MULTIPLICITY. Bewildered with the many helpers, who yet were all vain helpers. Multitude is suggested by the different terms, “astrologers, star-gazers, monthly prognosticators.” Illustrate by the weariness of Athens, in her multiplicity of idols and altars.
III. THE WEARINESS OF REPEATED FAILURES. Nothing is more depressing than to fail again and again. Yet precisely this is the ever-repeated consequence of self-trust and self-help. Blessed is it when weariness does not pass into despair, but leads to the abandonment of self-reliances, that full trust may be placed in God.R.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Isa 47:1-3. Come down, and sit in the dust, &c. The prophet here commands Babylon to assume the habit and forms of the most abject state, most opposite to that state of honour and glory in which she had long flourished. She is addressed as a virgin, according to the usual modes of speaking, when cities or states are personified; though some say that she is called the virgin daughter of Babylon, because, according to Herodotus, she had never been conquered before. Take the mill-stones, and grind meal, that is, “Thou shalt be reduced from thy lofty seat, as mistress of kingdoms, to the lowest situation of a slave; thy captives shall be forced to grind at the mill, the lowest and most abject degree of drudgery.” The subsequent images are taken from a woman, who, from a state of elegance, is reduced to the lowest state of slavery, and exposed to the greatest indignities which could be offered to that sex. Instead of there is no throne, Isa 47:1 we may read unthroned.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
VIII.THE EIGHTH DISCOURSE
The Fall of Babylon, the Causes of it, and the uselessness of the means to prevent it
Isaiah 47
1. THE FALL OF BABYLON AND THE CAUSES OF IT
Isa 47:1-7
1Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon,
Sit on the ground:
1There is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans:
For thou shalt no more be called tender and 2delicate.
2Take the millstones, and grind meal:
Uncover thy 3locks, 4make bare the leg,
Uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers;
3Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,
Yea, thy shame shall be seen:
I will take vengeance,
5And I will not meet thee as a man.
46As for our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name,
The Holy One of Israel.
5Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans:
For thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.
6I was wroth with my people,
I 7have polluted mine inheritance,
And ggiven them into thine hand:
Thou didst shew them no mercy;
Upon the 8ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.
7And thou saidst, I shall be a lady forever:
So that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart,
Neither didst remember the latter end of it.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Babylon, hitherto shining in splendor and luxury, is threatened with extreme degradation and exposure (Isa 47:1-3). Israel confesses with joy that it recognizes its Redeemer in Him that does this (Isa 47:4). The cause of this deep downfall is two-fold: 1) the severity against Israel that has exceeded the purpose of the Lord; 2) Babylons secure defiance and haughtiness (Isa 47:5-7).
2. Come downHoly One of Israel.
Isa 47:1-4. The curt, monosyllabic imperatives are the expression of a decided, relentless purpose. Babylon must come down, hard as it will be for it. In the dust, on the bare ground, without a throne it must sit, that hitherto was used to be high enthroned. For from an empress it has become a slave. But the slave, as the wretched and lowly generally, sits in the dust (comp. Isa 3:26, and the contrary description Isa 52:2). Hence the expressions to lay, cast in the dust (Isa 26:5 sq.; Job 16:15; Job 30:19; Psa 7:6), to lie in the dust (Psa 22:30; Psa 119:25), to raise from the dust (Ps. 43:7; 1Sa 2:8; 1Ki 16:2); to lick the dust before one (Isa 49:23; Psa 72:9). In the same way it is said that the mourner does not sit on an elevated seat, but on the earth (Job 2:13; Lam 2:10). The expressions tender and delicate (abounding in voluptuousness) are taken from Deu 28:56; Deu 28:54. Babylon is described as a city very greatly given up to luxury and voluptuousness, not only in the Bible (Jer 51:39; Dan 5:1 sqq.; comp. Isa 21:5) but more still by profane writers. For instance Curtius, (V. I) says: Nihil urbis ejus corruptius moribus, nihil ad irritandas illiciendasque immodicas voluptates instructius. Comp. Herod. I. 195, 199. Grinding grain with a hand mill was chiefly the labor of female slaves, and it was even regarded as the hardest labor (Exo 11:5; Mat 24:41; Luk 17:35). Comp. Herz. R.-Encycl. X. p. 82 sq. (from unused root , Chald. , operuit, velavit) is the veil (comp. Son 4:1; Son 4:3; Son 6:7). As is well-known, the women in parts of the Orient consider it a greater disgrace to let their face be seen than other parts of their bodies. (from unused=fluxit, defluxit, comp. 27:12; Jdg 12:6) is the flowing garment, border, train. When the female slave comes to a stream in the way that can be forded, she is not carried over, as are ladies. She must wade through; no regard is paid to her womanly modesty. and correspond in the parallelism; hence the latter must be taken in essentially the same sense as the former. That the is seen is a . Comp. Isa 3:17; Jer 13:22; Jer 13:26; Eze 16:37; Nah 3:5. Thus the Lord threatens the Babylonians. What He intends by these judgments He says Isa 47:3 b: I will take vengeance. The negative clause is understood in a great variety of ways. means irruere, incidere, obviam ire, pertinere, then also, in a friendly sense precibus insistere, to apply to one. It does not suit here to take the word in a hostile sense: I will run on none (Stier), which only makes sense by arbitrarily supplying: out of whose way I must get. [The true sense is that expressed by Rosenmueller, I shall encounter no man, i.e., no man will be able to resist me. This simple explanation is at the same time one of the most ancient, as we find it distinctly expressed by Symmachus () and in the Vulgate (non resistet mihi homo.J. A. Alex.]. I do not think it right to take the word in the sense of to protect, pardon for the reason that there ever lies in the meaning obvenire, thus the notion of going against, getting in the way of. I cannot see why the well-approved meaning to apply to one with petition or intercession (Job 21:15; Rth 2:22; Jer 7:16; Jer 27:18) may not suit our context. Jehovah, as the only true God, neither desires nor uses human help. The taking of Babylon must appear as Gods doing, not as a fact accomplished by human power. And if it be asked, what God has showed Himself stronger than the gods of Babylon, thus who is the accomplisher of the said divine doing, Israel alone has the correct reply when it cries out: Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is His name (comp. Isa 48:2; Isa 54:5), the Holy One of Israel (see List). These words do not fit to what follows, and as little are they suited to be an antiphonal-like conclusion of the preceding strophe. They give the impression of a joyful welcome greeting, which meets one approaching, and who is recognized as a friend.
3. Sit thou silentend of it.
Vers.57. The Prophet, Isa 47:5, declares once again in general the downfall of Babylon, as in Isa 47:1, but makes prominent another contrast. There the contrast was between the loftiest height and the lowest humiliation; here it is between shining and darkness. Babylon shall now sit down in a still, dark place, she that before was the brilliant, far shining empress of kingdoms (Isa 13:19). This repeated announcement of punishment finds its reason in Isa 47:6-7. The Prophet assigns a double reason. First, Babylon abused the right of discipline deputed to it. The Lord was wroth with His people, and polluted His inheritance, by permitting profane heathen nations to trample land, city and Temple, and to carry away the holy people into captivity (comp. Lam 2:2; Psa 74:7, etc.). But He would only discipline His people, not destroy them; whereas Babylon sought to do the latter by every means (comp. Jer 5:11; Jer 5:24; Jer 5:28-29; Jer 5:31 sq.; Jer 51:6; Jer 51:11; Jer 51:24; Jer 51:34 sqq. Jer 51:56; Zec 1:15). For it shewed them no mercy (the expression only here). Even old age was not spared (comp. Lam 4:16; Lam 5:12). I am, with Delitzsch, of the opinion that by we are not to understand the nation as one grown old. The Prophet that wrote Isa 40:28 sqq., could hardly represent Israel, even in the Exile, as a worn-out old man. The second reason for the humiliation that threatens Babylon is its haughtiness. This mirrors to it the illusion of its dominion lasting forever. And by reason of this illusion (=so that, comp. 1Sa 20:41; Job 8:21; Job 14:6) Babylon does not lay to heart the guilt with which it is loaded because of its treatment of Israel, therefore it does not in the least think (comp. Isa 46:8) on the consequences of that treatment, viz: the vengeance (comp. l.c, and Jeremiah 50, 51), it must provoke. Isa 42:25; Isa 57:1; Isa 57:11. Isa 44:19; Isa 46:8. Isa 41:22. Isa 65:17.
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2. THE FRUITLESSNESS OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED TO SAVE BABYLON
Isa 47:8-15
89Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures,
That dwellest carelessly,
That 10sayest in thine heart,
I am, and none else beside me;
I shall not sit as a widow,
Neither shall I know the loss of children:
9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day,
The loss of children, and widowhood:
They shall come upon thee in their perfection
11For the multitude of thy sorceries,
And cfor the great abundance of thine enchantments.
1012For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness:
Thou hast said, None seeth me.
Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath 13perverted thee;
And thou hast said in thine, heart, I am, and none else beside me.
1114Therefore shall evil come upon thee;
15Thou shalt not know 16from whence it riseth:
And mischief shall fall upon thee;
Thou shalt not be able to 17put it off:
And desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.
12Stand now with thine enchantments,
and with the multitude of thy sorceries,
Wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth;
18If so be thou shalt be able to profit,
gIf so be thou mayest 19prevail.
13Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels.
Let now the 20astrologers, the stargazers,
21 22The monthly prognosticators,
Stand up, and save thee
From these things that shall come upon thee.
14 Behold, they shall be as stubble;
The fire 23shall burn them;
They shall not deliver 24themselves from the power of the flame:
lThere shall not be a coal to warm at.
Nor fire to sit before it.
15Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured,
Even thy merchants, from thy youth:
They shall wander every one to his quarter;
None shall save thee.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa 47:8. , which occurs forty-three times in the Old Testament. Especially the turn of expression or is encountered relatively so often in these chapters (Isa 45:6; Isa 45:14; Isa 46:9; Isa 47:8; Isa 47:10), that it may be regarded as a peculiarity of them. Only 2Sa 9:3 does the expression again occur. Hence we are justified in regarding it as an Isaianic expression, and thus a proof of our passage being genuine Isaianic. Isa 47:9. . Isa 47:11. . Isa 47:12. . Isa 47:15. .
Isa 47:9. from , only Neh 9:25, an adjective corresponding to the substantive . occurs only here in Isaiah; but comp. Isa 14:30. The expression is in the Pentateuch: Lev 25:18-19; Lev 26:5; comp. Jdg 18:7. It is more common in the later prophets: Jer 32:37; Jer 49:31; Eze 28:26; Eze 34:25, etc. Especially Zep 2:15 is to be noted, where the expression is borrowed from Isa 22:2; Isa 32:13, and the remainder of the verse from our passage. Even in Zeph. shows that what follows is a citation, is undoubtedly taken from the undisputed Isaianic passages Isa 22:2; Isa 32:13; for beside Zep 2:15; Zep 3:11, the expression occurs only in Isaiah.The in is very difficult to explain. Most expositors take it as compaginis (thus= ). But this is superfluous, and at the same time incorrect where there is no genitive relation. Hahn takes it as a feminine , as in , ,; but the Hebrew knows no distinction of gender in the first person. De Dieu and Coccejus take the clause as a question; Vitringa and Nolde regard as representing a doubled (el non est praeter me alia). But the question is not self-evident and must be indicated, and the absence of or is unexampled. It is best, with Delitzsch, to take in the sense of : (ego utique non sum amplius; therefore; I am not, as it were, found again in another sample. The sense would then be the same as Isa 46:9.
Isa 47:9. , from , of uncertain meaning, Piel, to bewitch, conjure, (Exo 7:11; Exo 22:17; Deu 18:10, etc.), occurs only in the plural, and in Isaiah only here and Isa 47:12 (comp. Mic 5:11; Nah 3:4; 2Ki 9:22). Also from ligare, fascinare, to bind, especially to bind by enchantment, thus to exorcise (Deu 18:11; Psa 58:6) occurs only here and Isa 47:12. is explained 1) from the verbal construction, and 2) from the qualitative meaning of (Isa 40:29).
Isa 47:10. stands in pause for and this for (1Ch 12:17).
Isa 47:12. , with which is here conjoined, is that of accompaniment: in the midst of her witchcrafts, etc., therefore, according to our idiom with her witchcraft, etc., shall Babylon stand up (comp. Isa 7:24; Isa 24:9; Isa 30:29, etc.). stands here oddly instead of the normal . This is one of the rare instances in which the adverbial appears in transition to an actual pronoun (Gen 31:32; Gesen., 123, 2; Comm. in loc.). with as in Isa 43:22-24; Isa 62:8.
Isa 47:13. is an abnormal formation, the plural suffix being attached to the nom. singular. Analogous examples occur Psa 9:15; Eze 35:11; Ezr 9:15. If it is not an error of writing, the abnormal suffix form is to be explained by the plural meaning of the collective in connection with the of the connecting form, as also other feminine endings in that are not plurals (as in , infin., , in , etc.), occur with plural suffixes. , so Kri; Kthibh reads . =. . .., means, according to the dialects, to divide, distribute. Still this meaning is not quite assured. Hence Knobel would take the word, according to the Arab. chabara, in the sense of gnari, those acquainted with the heavens; but Hahn, following Hitz. on Dan 2:26, would read ( to investigate, Ecc 3:18; Ecc 9:1).
Isa 47:14. To take for (for warming) seems to me forced. Moreover, what follows would then be tautology. I side with those who explain according to Isa 44:19 : the coals of their bread, i.e., the glow of the coals, on which they bake their bread. accusative of nearer definition.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Therefore hearbeside Me.
Isa 47:8-10. The whole section Isa 47:8-15 is mainly intended to show how ill-founded is that confidence of Babylon expressed in Isa 47:7, I shall be a lady forever. First, the Prophet makes Babylon repeat the assertion in an amplified form (Isa 47:8). With the contrastive now however (comp. Isa 43:1; Isa 44:1) hear this he introduces an address to Babylon, whom he here designates as a delicious one, as in Isa 47:1 he calls it delicate and voluptuous. Then he calls it the one dwelling in security because it knows no superior power, and thus no possibility of molestation (see Text. and Gram.). I, and none else; by this Babylon affirms that it is solitary of its kind, its like will no more be found. This is justly regarded as blasphemous pride. For the expression employed here recalls Isa 45:5-6; Isa 45:18; Isa 45:22; Isa 46:9, where God, who alone has the right to do it, affirms His incomparableness. Babylon affirms that it shall be neither a widow nor childless. Most expositors understand by widowhood the . But Knobel and Delitzsch justly object, that in ancient times kings were by no means regarded as the husbands of their cities or nations. Hence the widowhood is rather the being forsaken of the nations with which it had hitherto had active commerce (according to the Biblical view 23:16 sq.; Rev 18:9), thus sad loneliness, exclusion from intercourse with the world (Lam 1:1). Hahn understands the widowhood to mean, forsaken of God, or the gods (comp. Isa 54:4 sqq.). But one must guard against transferring theocratic representations to heathen relations. It is agreed by all that being childless means depopulation (comp. Isa 54:1 sqq.). Yet these strokes, so undreaded, will still come; and that not slowly, by degrees, but suddenly and in one day (Isa 9:13; Isa 10:17; Isa 66:8), i.e., not in intervening periods one after another, but all at once. , according to the measure of its completion, i.e., completely and totally (comp. 1Ki 22:34) they are come upon thee (perf. prophet.) spite of thine arts of sorcery and the great abundance of thine enchantments. Almost all expositors agree that signifies, with a certain irony, the useless presence, the unsuccessful connection and application, and thus corresponds to our spite of, for all your. Comp. Isa 5:25; Isa 9:11; Isa 9:16; Isa 9:20; Isa 10:4; Num 14:11; Deu 1:32; Psa 78:32. There lies in this the characteristic ingredient of this strophe: spite of all the means resorted to Babylon must fall.
Babylon is celebrated as the home of astronomy, astrology and magic (comp. Ideler, Sternkunde der Chald. in den Abhandl. d. Berl. Akad. d. Wissensch., 1814, 1815, Berlin, 1818; Gesen. im Komm. zu Jes. Beilage II.). Just these secret sciences and arts were relied upon as important means of protection against misfortunes of all kinds. Isa 47:10 may not be translated: and thou reliest on thy wickedness, as is done by most exegetes. For if by wickedness be understood tyranny and craft, that will not comport with: none seeth me. In fact this latter expresses just the ground of confidence. The same objection holds against our understanding by wickedness the false wisdom. But if be understood to mean godlessness itself, i.e., the belief that there is no God, all-wise, all-holy, and all-mighty, then again it could not be said: thou reliest on thy godlessness; just as little as it may be said: the pious man relies on his faith. As one must say: the pious man is confident in or by his faith, so, too, the Prophets meaning here must be: and thou wast secure in thy godlessness, thou saidst, There is none that sees me. Of course, there is here the underlying assumption, that the idols are no proper gods, all-wise, just and almighty avengers of the wicked. For the Prophet seems not to think at all of Babylons idols being present. According to his view, they do not disturb the wicked. But Babylon was secure in all its wickedness and godlessness because it believed it dared say: no one is present that sees me. By this can only be meant a seeing higher than that of idols. I construe absolutely: securum esse, which is undoubtedly its meaning (Jdg 18:7; Jdg 18:10; Jdg 18:27; Jer 12:5; Job 40:23; Pro 11:15). Therefore, we learn from these words that Babylon trusted, not only in outward things, as intimated in Isa 47:8, but that its proud confidence had also the inward ground, that it believed it might hold the conviction of there being no all-seeing God. So partly Hahn. The words: there is none that seeth me, express the result of a reflection on things religious. There were also in Babylon theologians and philosophers whose wisdom and knowledge amounted to that , whence the Prophet says to Babylon: thy wisdom and thy knowledge it hath perverted thee. Hence, when here a second time the words I and none else are ascribed to Babylon, it is to intimate that it so speaks, not only with reference to men, but even with reference to divinity. Babylon deifies itself, by exalting itself, not only above all men, but also above the gods.
2. Therefore shall evilcome upon thee.
Isa 47:11-13. Babylons overthrow is described as something that could neither be foreseen nor prevented. rhymes with , and hence is likely the same grammatical form, viz., inf. Piel. The meaning dawn, though at first sight the most likely, does not commend itself, because the dawn of a misfortune cannot be the first moment of its appearance, for that would be a contradiction; nor can it be the first moment of its disappearance, for the end of a thing cannot be its dawn. Hahns proposed rendering: unblacken, is far-fetched. The rendering proposed, first by J. D. Michaelis, and accepted by most, best suits the context. This identifies with the Arabic Sachara, incantavit, and gives the translation: and evil will come upon thee which thou wilt not know how to exorcise. Thus Isa 47:11 says in three clauses that Babylon will have no means of warding off the misfortune. The first declares the inadequacy of magic, the second of idol-sacrifices, the third exposes the disgrace of astrology, which will not even be able to know of the evil in advance.
The Isa 47:12-13 explain what is said in Isa 47:11. For the words: thou shalt not know how to exorcise it are evidently elucidated by Isa 47:12 : try now the (exorcism) by (enchantments) and (charms); may-be something will come of it! At the same time it seems to me that the is elucidated in Isa 47:12. For conjuring demons, as in general all sorts of sorcery were often joined with the offer of sacrifices, sometimes of pleasure, sometimes atrocious. The relation of all idolatry with sorcery lies in this that in the names of the gods the name of God is abused for egoistic, sinful ends, with the application of self-elected, senseless and mercenary forms of religion, says Lange in the article on witchcraft in Herz. R. Enc. XVIII. p. 395. The second half of Isa 47:11 is elucidated by Isa 47:13. We will need to take Isa 47:12 in the same sense as Isa 47:13. The latter can hardly be taken in the sense of to remain standing. Hence we must also take Isa 47:12 in the sense of to stand forth, come on, stand up (comp. Gesen. Thes. p. 1038), in which sense it is undeniably often used: 1Sa 17:51; 1Ki 20:38; Hab 3:11; Eze 22:30. From thy youth, thus from its first beginning Babylon had been busied with astrology, divination and magic. (Comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. p. 124, 127 sq.). The Prophet ironically concludes his challenge to try what help they can find in their secret arts with a double perhaps, if so be: perhaps thou mayest be able to profit (positive), perhaps thou wilt terrify, viz. the enemy (negative). Isa 47:13 relates to knowing future evil in advance, with reference to which the Prophet says Isa 47:11 b it shall not be. This is, of course, strange. For Babylon, from the earliest antiquity, practised divination, and especially astrological divination. The challenge of Isa 47:12 was attended with ill-success. Babylon worried itself in vain with its sorceries and enchantments. Thou art wearied by the multitude of thy counsels (see Text. and Gram.) i.e., by thy methodically arranged attempts (viz. in the sphere of enchantment); so the Prophet calls mockingly to the totality of the Babylonians. Therefore let some one help thee ( Isa 47:13), he continues. Let the astrologers appear now. This exposition results necessarily from the antithesis of and . are those that divide the heavens, i.e., who mark off the heavens into fields (the so-called houses) for the purpose of their observations (see Text. and Gram.). In any case astrologers, masters of the course of heaven are meant. They are also called . I doubt very much whether with has here the meaning to contemplate, look with pleasure. is used of prophetic seeing generally (Isa 1:1; Isa 2:1; Amo 1:1; Mic 1:1), and is a seer. Therefore may very well mean: those that look (viz. at the future) in the stars, or by means of the stars. In the words the Prophet seems to intimate an arrangement whereby the astrologers monthly ( comp. Isa 27:3; Isa 33:2) made communication to the people out of that which they had read in the stars (hence ). We have here perhaps the first trace of the calendar of later times (, ).
3. Behold they shall beshall save thee, Isa 47:14-15. In these verses is announced the final destiny of all those in whom Babylon trusted, and also its own destiny. The, wise masters of Babylon are compared to stubble. Fire consumes them. Not precisely actual fire is meant. He only compares generally the power that overthrows Babylon to a fire that devours stubble. They will not be able to save even themselves, much less others. For the fire will be no moderate glow like that used for baking bread, or for a genial hearth-fire, before which one sits to get warm (see Text. and Gram.). Such are they become (continues Isa 47:15), respecting whom thou hast taken pains. This is said in reference to Isa 47:12. The home resources of power and deliverance so carefully cultivated in Babylon are meant. But the allies from abroad also, its business friends, the numerous admirers and worshippers, that of old ( to be referred to ) came to Babylon to carry on trade and delight themselves, wander (involuntary departure from the way, being dispersed) off each to his vis-a-vis ( only here; is what lies directly before one), i.e. straight out. The word, therefore, does not mean: each to his home; but, as dispersed, they wander each his way in front of him (comp. 1Sa 14:1; 1Sa 14:4; 1Sa 14:40; Eze 1:9; Eze 1:12; Eze 10:22, etc.). That one may help Babylon is not to be thought of.Therefore in the section Isa 47:8-15 it is proved in every direction that all props for Babylon give way, that all means of deliverance in which it hoped are refused.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa 47:1 sqq. Fortune is round and unstable in the world, and all transitory things must have an end, and they that go about them pass away with them (Sir 14:19). For if the great Assyro-Babylonian empire could not last, but from a virgin and lady was made a serving maid, what must happen to other worldly things that can by no means be compared with it? Cramer.[Let those that have power use it with temper and moderation, considering that the spoke which is uppermost will be under. M. Henry.]
2. On Isa 47:6 sq. The minister of righteousness may himself become a transgressor if he does not execute the punishment according to the will of righteousness, but abuses his power of punishment for the gratification of his own love of violence. Thus there arises a chain-like connection of right and wrong that passes through all human history, till God, the only just One, solves all the discords of worldly judgments in the harmony of the worlds judgment.
3. On Isa 47:9 sqq. Sorcery is devil-service. For he that uses any sort of enchantment seeks to attain some object by means of supernatural powers that are not the powers of God. For we, too, by Gods power may do miracles and signs, as the holy men of God of the Old and New Testament show. But the power of God puts itself at the disposal of the office borne in Gods name and by His commission, or of believing prayer (Mat 17:20). But whoever would do miracles by hocus pocus of any kind, lets it be understood that he would make powers of the invisible world subservient to him, that are not the powers of God. But in the invisible world there are beside Gods powers only the powers of the devil. That is the great peril of witchcraft. For the devil never works for nothing. He exacts the soul for it.
4. On Isa 47:10. The omnipresence and omniscience of God are quite extraordinarily onerous to the natural man. He can never enjoy his life for it. If he lives along, as he pleases, genioindulgens, there still comes to him ever and anon the secret voice that whispers: God sees it. Hence, to-day, as the Babylonians did, he employs all his knowledge and wisdom to make himself white, so that he may say: , no one sees me. He would rather let the laws of nature grind him to pieces, than acknowledge a personal God that sees and judges all things. This endeavor to get the personal God out of the world, that has its source equally in fear and hatred, has not, however, its roots in human nature as such. For then it must be found in all men. It is rather the hatred and fear of the devil that reflect themselves in those men who, according to Joh 8:41-48, have the devil for their father.
[Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, as Doeg, Psa 3:7. Many have so debauched their own consciences, and have got to such a pitch of daring wickedness, that they stick at nothing; and this they trust to carry them through those difficulties which embarrass men who make conscience of what they say and do. They doubt not but they shall be too hard for all their enemies, because they dare lie, and kill, and foreswear themselves, and do anything for their interest. Thus they trust in their wickedness to secure them, which is the only thing that will ruin them. M. Henry.]
5. [On Isa 47:13. I confess I see not how the judicial astrology which some now pretend to, by rules of which they undertake to prophesy concerning things to come, can be distinguished from that of the Chaldeans, nor therefore how it can escape the censure and contempt which this text lays that under. Yet I fear that there are some who study their almanacs, and regard them and their prognostications more than their Bibles and the prophecies there. M. Henry.]
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 47:1-7. The mighty in this world should guard well against two Hs: 1) against Hardness toward the weak (Isa 47:6), for He avenges them (Isa 47:3); 2) against Haughtiness, for He humbles it (Isa 47:1-5; Isa 47:7).
2. On Isa 47:12 sqq. Warning against superstition.1) The essence of superstition: it is brother to unbelief (the unbeliever and superstitious) because it has lost what is truly transcendent, and hence, by reason of the ineffaceable drawing of men to what is super-terrestrial, falls into the hands of that which is false; the believer, on the other hand, is never superstitious, because as a child of God he knows that he is under the protection of the true, highest, super-terrestrial power. 2. The effects of superstition: a. it fosters coarse and refined idolatry; b. it robs men of the right comfort and the right help.
Footnotes:
[1]without a throne.
[2]voluptuous.
[3]veil.
[4]lift up thy train.
[5]And appeal to no man about it.
[6]omit As for.
[7]pollutedgave.
[8]aged.
[9]And now hear this, thou delicious.
[10]says in her heart.
[11]Spite of.
[12]And thou wast secure in.
[13]Or, caused thee to turn away.
[14]but evil comes.
[15]Which they shall not know how to exorcise.
[16]Heb. the morning thereof.
[17]Heb. expiate.
[18]Perhaps.
[19]terrify.
[20]Heb. viewers of the heavens.
[21]Heb. that give knowledge concerning the months.
[22]Who every month give report from them what shall come on thee.
[23]has burned.
[24]Heb. their souls.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa 48:1-2. We, for our part, are also quite fallen into Jewish security. For we take great comfort from this, that we know, that we have Gods word simple and pure, and the same is indeed highly to be praised and valued. But it is not enough for one to have the word. One ought and must live according to it, then will God make account of us. But where one lives without the fear of God and in sin, and hears the word without amendment, there God will punish all the harder, as Christ shows in the parable of the servant that knew his Lords will and did it not. Therefore one should let go such fleshly confidence, and labor to live in the fear of God, and hold faithfully to His word. Then if we fall into distress and pray for deliverance, it will surely be granted to us. But those who brag about God as do the Jews, and yet fear Him not, nor will live according to His word, will boast in vain. God will single them out and punish them as He did the Jews. For these two things must go together: trusting God, and fearing God. Neither can be right without the other. If thou fearest not God, thou becomest proud and presumptuous as the Jews. But if thou believest not, and only fearest, thou wilt become anxious and fall into despair. Therefore the Psalm says: The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy, Psa 147:10. Veit Dietrich.
2. [On Isa 48:3-8. The doctrine of providence supported by prophecy. 1) The method stated Isa 48:3; Isa 48:6; Isa 7:2) The reasons for Gods taking this method with them. a. He knew how obstinate they would be (Isa 48:4). b. How deceitful they would be. c. That they would be giving His glory to idols (Isa 48:5). After M. Henry.].
3. On Isa 47:9-11. The divine discipline of children. 1) Its course of procedure: a. God is patient (Isa 47:9); b. God punishes severely (Isa 47:10). 2) Its aims: a. God is patient a. for the sake of His honor (in order to reveal Himself as the good); . for our sakes (Isa 47:9 b that we may not be exterminated); b. God is severe a. for the sake of His honor (that He may not be blasphemed, Isa 47:11); . for our sakes (that we may be purified and confirmed in the furnace of affliction).
4. On Isa 48:17-19. That is our most blessed knowledge that we know God through His self-witness, and who, as one veiled, speaks from the prophets as the One Eternal Prophet; as the reflected splendor of the invisible Divinity that became flesh and blood in Jesus, and is now as our Brother constantly with us. Yea, blessed and forever safe is he that pays heed to Gods testimony of the very gracious condescension of God to us! God makes such heedful ones forever at peace in Himself, whose peace becomes overflowing and overwhelming as a river, because God in it imparts to us pardon and justification. Our righteousness in God is as waves of the sea, that continually swell up in great abundance, for Gods grace that works in us and accomplishes our righteousness is, in fact, infinite. Dost thou lack peace and righteousness, then believe assuredly that the only reason is that thou hast despised the word of thy God. Yea, whoever stablishes himself in God by believing acceptance of His word, he is forever established, and also has eternal bloom. He belongs to the innumerable family of God, that moves on through all times. How can he ever want for posterity? J. Diedrich.
5. On Isa 48:20. So God is wont to do: when the enemies of the churches pull hardest on the rope, it must break. We should mark this well, and comfort ourselves by it. For else we will become faint-hearted and despond, when matters go so ill. Veit Dietrich.
6. On Isa 48:20-22. Israels Egyptian and Babylonian captivity is a type of the church in the world, and of individual believing souls in the body of this death. But we are to a certain degree ourselves to blame for the pressure of this captivity. There is even very much that holds us back to the flesh-pots of Egypt. We are often wanting in proper love for the one thing needful, in proper faith, in courage, in fidelity, in diligence in good works. Yet the Lord has deprived the devil of his power. The enemy is even really conquered already; ein Woertlein kann ihn faellen. Hence the Christian must be exhorted to depart from Babylon courageously and intrepidly. This the Prophet does in our text. We see in it a warning call to depart out of Babylon. 1) The possibility of going out is a. objectively presented by redemption that is by Jesus Christ; but b. depends subjectively on our love to God and our faith. 2) The return home is difficult, indeed, as it was with Israel. It is through deserts of distress and danger. But God will not forsake His own. The spiritual rock (1Co 10:4) follows along with them. 3) At home, with the Lord, in communion with Him, they find peace, whereas the wicked nowhere and never shall find peace, not even in all the power, splendor and glory of this world.
7. [On Isa 48:22. The wicked, as a matter of sober truth and verity, have no permanent and substantial peace and joy. (1) In the act of wickedness; (2) in the business or the pleasures of life; (3) no peace of conscience; (4) on a death-bed; (5) there is often not only no peace, but the actual reverse, apprehension; despair: (6) beyond the grave, a sinner Can have no peace at the judgment bar of God; he Can have no peace in hell. Abbreviated from Barnes.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
The subject of this chapter is the destruction of Babylon. But the, Prophet, looking into gospel times, hath in view a much greater ruin than that of the Chaldean empire; even the universal ruin of Satan’s kingdom, which, in scripture language, is called Babylon, The pride, cruelty, and enchantment, here spoken of, are all typical of the great apostate spirit’s behaviour towards the Church of God.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
If we read these verses with an eye to the history of Babylon, as a people, we shall find, that the threatenings here denounced were all literally fulfilled: Babylon, which had conquered all nations, was herself at length conquered. But we shall lose the whole beauty of the scripture, if our principal attention be not directed to the spiritual sense of what the Lord here delivers, by his servant the Prophet. For the sins of his people, the Lord was pleased to raise up this scourge for them in Babylon, and caused them to be led into captivity. The Lord doth so now. When his people break his laws, and keep not his commandments, it forms a part in the covenant, to visit their offences with the rod, and their sins with scourges. Nevertheless, they are his people still. Though in themselves rebellious, yet in Jesus, their glorious head, they are accepted. Hence the Lord will correct them; but when the correction is over, he will cast the rod away. Their enemies shall be accounted with: and in this account, Jehovah, their friend, meets their opposers, not merely with the strength and power of a man, but with that of God. Oh! how fearful the judgment to the enemies of God, and of his Christ! Oh! how blessed to the people of God, to have God for their friend!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Precious Promises
Isaiah 45-47
In the fifty-fifth chapter we come upon the beginning of many exceeding great and precious promises. However long we may be detained by imagery that is hardly explicable, or by prophecies that appear too remote to be of use to ourselves, we are ever and anon refreshed with doctrines and promises which have a direct reference to our deepest necessities and purest desires. We need more than a grand Bible, as we need more than a high heaven to gaze upon. The heaven which we see would be of little use to us but for the earth which it blesses with its warmth and light: so the grander portions of the Bible might dazzle us by their brilliance or astound us by their mysteries, but we need the sweet promises, the tender words of special grace, medicaments prepared for the heart’s disease by the divine Physician. When we are most familiar with the spiritual portions of the Bible we are best prepared to survey within their proper boundaries the portions which lie beyond our verbal exposition. Who would distress himself because of the wildernesses of the earth when he has gardens around him which he can immediately and successfully cultivate? Who would feel so overpowered by the number and glory of the stars as to fail to light a fire on his own hearthstone or a lamp by which he can illuminate his own house? Yet it is true that men have so acted in many instances with regard to the Bible. They have been professedly overwhelmed by its majesty, stunned by its ineffable grandeur, and bewildered by the sublimity of its mysteries, so much so that they have neglected its commandments and declined to appropriate its promises and benedictions. It is furthermore noticeable that many of the tenderest words ever spoken by God to man were spoken in Old Testament times. The prophecies of Isaiah abound in tenderest sentiment. We shall now cull illustrations of this fact, and thus inspire and sustain ourselves by the recollection of the covenants and the oaths by which Almighty God has bound himself to defend and succour his people in all generations. It should always be noticed that God’s promises are addressed to human necessity. God does not call upon us first to be strong, and then to be blessed; he recognises our weakness and offers us strength; he looks upon all our poverty and loneliness, and proffers us the riches and companionship of heaven. God’s ministry, therefore, is always a ministry of condescension. God cannot talk to us as to equals; his voice must always come from above, and ours must always be the upturned ear and the expectant vision. It is necessity that prays; it is fulness that sings.
The first promise that we have ( Isa 55:1 ) is the promise of “waters.” A great appeal is addressed to those who are athirst. Thus the Lord accommodates his ministry to human necessity. When men are thirsting for water he does not offer them sublime visions of the future, or stately ideas concerning the economies and dominions of time. He would say to men, Let us, in the first place, supply your need; until your thirst is quenched your mind cannot be at rest; until your bodily necessities are supplied your imagination will be unable to exercise itself in high thoughts. The promises of God are addressed to our necessities for more than merely temporary reasons. There is a whole philosophy of government in such appeals. Only at certain points can we profess to understand God, and those points touch our need, our pain, our immediate desire; when we are quite sure that God gives us water for our bodily thirst we may begin at least to feel that there is a possibility that he may not neglect the more burning thirst of the soul. God approaches the spirit through the body. The God who grows corn for our hunger may also have bread for our spirit’s cry of weakness. We cannot estimate the blessing of water because we live in a land that is full of rivers and fountains; those only who live in desert countries know what it is to suffer from want of water. A gospel in one country may be no gospel in another. It is nothing to those who live in tropical climes to promise them warmth; but what a promise would that be to many who are shivering in the bitterest cold.
Not only is there a promise of water, there is a promise of a higher blessing still. May we not call it the all but ultimate blessing, the all but crowning benediction, forgiveness?
“Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye upon him while he is near: Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and he will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon” ( Isa 55:6-7 ).
The blessings promised in the Scriptures are always more of less conditional. Here, for example, is a condition of time, “while he may be found,” and again, “while he is near.” What these words mean in all their depth and breadth no man can tell, but he would be a superficial reader who does not detect in them a tone of pressure and of importunate urgency. We cannot tell how long the Lord will tarry at the door, so we should arise at once and open it. We know not but that in one moment the Lord may separate himself from us by the measure of the whole universe; we should therefore put out both our hands that we may at least grope after him, and show by that very sign that we are anxious to lay hold upon him. Then again, there are conditions on the part of men: the wicked man is to forsake his way, the unrighteous man is to forsake his thoughts, the sinner is to return unto the Lord, put himself in an attitude of coming back, that is, of coming home. This is the Gospel doctrine of repentance before the time. In the Old Testament we often have the word “return;” in the New Testament we have the word “repent;” both words may involve, practically, the same profound and vital meaning, that meaning being that the soul is utterly to change its course, to reverse its purposes, to reconstruct its motive, and to begin a new, a better, and a grander life. Sweet is the promise which follows this return on the part of the sinner the Lord will have mercy upon him, and our God will abundantly pardon. The last words may be rendered, The Lord will multiply to pardon; that is, he will not pardon as if with niggardliness or reluctance, but will add pardon to pardon, forgiveness to forgiveness, as wave chases wave over the face of the deep. Lest men should be overwhelmed by this great promise, or should be perplexed by its mystery, and deterred by the very extent of the offer, the Lord proceeds to reason, saying
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” ( Isa 55:8 ).
Thus the Lord will have the working according to his own will; he will not adopt another level; he will not accommodate himself to the usual standards of time; he will set up his mystery amongst the affairs of life as he has set up his tabernacle amongst the dwellings of men. As that tabernacle can never be confused or mistaken for an ordinary dwelling-place, so the mystery of the divine action is to be distinguishable above all philosophies and apart from them, as a new thing in the earth, new because it comes up from eternity, and startles as with sudden light and glory all the dimness of earth’s poor twilight. It is as if the Lord should say, Do not hesitate to accept the promise because you cannot understand my action; do not put away from you heavenly blessing because you have not earthly explanation; remember that a divine worker must have divine motives and purposes, and that in proportion to the divinity of the worker is the mystery of his whole action; receive this by faith, and prove your faith by the outstretching of your hand, that you may claim the pardon which is written in blood and laid upon the altar of the Cross.
The Lord now returns from purely spiritual blessings to give the assurance that he is not only the source of forgiveness but the source of the harvests which enrich and gladden the earth:
“For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater” ( Isa 55:10 ).
That is a revelation of nature intended to be a type of a higher revelation still. Everything on earth is made into a ladder by which we may scale higher meanings. The rain is not a self-contained blessing; it is a type, a symbol, a hint of a larger benediction. The seed which is given to the sower and the bread which is enjoyed by the eater signify more than is conveyed by merely literal meanings; there is a seed with which the soul is to be sown, and there is a bread on which the spirit is to feed. The Lord makes, however, another and most beautiful application of the imagery, for he applies it to the success of his own word.
“So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it” ( Isa 55:11 ).
So the Lord himself is to reap a great harvest upon the earth, a harvest of living souls, a harvest of redeemed and rejoicing spirits. The rain and the dew may represent the gracious influences which prepare the heart for the reception of the heavenly seed or the word of God. The sower is none other than the Son of man, and the harvest is the Lord’s own inheritance. How the Lord rejoices in the prospect of abundant harvesting. Jesus Christ is not satisfied with a small return; he wills that the whole earth may be brought to accept his dominion and own the righteousness and blessedness of his sceptre. How can God be ultimately disappointed? How can he who made the world for himself ever turn it over to the dominion of another? When God made man in his own image and likeness, it was that man might enjoy divine companionship and represent divine purposes. How long all this may take in accomplishment none can tell; the years are many to us, and we are weary because of the slowness of their lapse; in our souls we often sigh the question we dare not definitely articulate, saying in our very sighing, O Lord! how long? Canst thou not cut through this flow of weary time and bring in the eternal Sabbath? We have the promise, and we long for its fulfilment; we cannot but believe in its fulfilment because thine own mouth has spoken the holy words. Bless us with thine own patience, or we shall fall into despair, and in our despair we shall blaspheme against thy throne.
The great principle of evolution or progress is constantly affirmed in the Bible. It is notably affirmed in these words:
“Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree” ( Isa 55:13 ).
The Lord promises honour to obedience.
“For thus saith the Lord unto the eunuchs that keep my sabbaths, and choose the things that please me, and take hold of my covenant; even unto them will I give in mine house and within my walls a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters: I will give them an everlasting name, that shall not be cut off” ( Isa 56:4-5 ).
Some men have had this testimony, that they pleased God, that is to say, God looked upon them and derived pleasure from his survey, so simple was the motive, so candid the action, so beneficent the spirit, that he saw in the advancing saint a type and symbol of his own holiness. God promises permanence of blessing. The men who please him are to have a place in his house, and within his walls they are to have a place and a name better than of sons and of daughters; none shall take them out of the place to which God assigns them; they shall dwell in an inviolable temple; their home shall be a sacred sanctuary, where the angels come whose windows open upon eternal spheres, and from whose elevation can be heard supernal music. Thus blessing upon blessing is given to earnest souls, as if God could never give enough; it is we who must declare our vessels are exhausted, for God’s great benefactions can know no end.
Chapter fifty-seven opens with a most gracious and precious promise:
“The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart: and merciful men are taken away, none considering that the righteous is taken away from the evil to come. He shall enter into peace: they shall rest in their beds, each one walking in his uprightness” ( Isa 57:1-2 ).
The words may have been written in presence of the actual persecution inaugurated by Manasseh. The writer may have seen one prophet after another cruelly destroyed. Several prophets have vexed their souls even to death on account of the evils by which they were surrounded and overwhelmed. It was given to the prophet to see, even in the removal of the righteous, a deliverance from a fate unrelieved by a single gleam of light. If in this life only we had hope we should be of all men most miserable. Unless we interpret the littleness of time by the greatness of eternity we should be overwhelmed by daily distress. “Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory: while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.” The world is never to be looked at in its solitariness, as if it were one world only, a poor unrelated wanderer in the infinite spaces. Time has a relation to eternity, earth to heaven, the present to the future; and unless we grasp all the elements that are involved in the unity of life, we shall continually be distracted and our spirits will be darkened by despair. When the good man dies we should say, he has escaped the evil of life; when the merciful man dies we should say, he has entered into peace. The “bed” referred to in the second verse is the grave. The Christian does not terminate his thought by the grave, for he lives in the light of a larger and nobler revelation. The grave is no longer a bed, a final resting-place; it is but a point to halt at; the spirit has gone beyond the boundaries of the tomb, and is already rejoicing in the dewy morning of eternal day. Thus we are lifted up in contemplation, thus we are strengthened in faith, thus we are ennobled in all intellectual thought, by coming into contact with the spirit and revelation of Jesus Christ. The grave is no longer a boundary line; it is but a transient shadow soon to be driven away by the rising light. Beyond it lies the garden of the Lord; one inch beyond, and all heaven glows in infinite summer.
We next come upon the greatest spiritual promises that can be offered to the souls of men. We see those promises the more clearly by reason of the contrast in which God the Giver and Author of these promises establishes himself. Thus
“For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones” ( Isa 57:15 ).
The fifty-seventh chapter ends with a declaration which shows that amid all the goodness and graciousness of the divine way the standard of righteousness is never lowered, never is the dignity of law impaired. Read these awful yet gracious words: “There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked” ( Isa 45:1 ). If we thought that God was about to lose righteousness in sentiment, we are thus suddenly with a very startling abruptness brought back to the remembrance of the fact that wickedness is infinitely and eternally hateful to God, and that peace and wickedness are mutually destructive terms. The wicked man may create a wilderness and call it peace, but real contentment, benignity, resignation, or harmony, he can never know in wickedness. Herein we find the testimony of the divine presence, the assertion and glory of the divine law. God does not take away peace from the wicked in any arbitrary sense. Wickedness is itself incompatible with peace: the wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt The unrest is actually in the wickedness; the tumult does not come from without, it comes from within; whenever a man touches a forbidden tree, in that day he dies. He may find momentary pleasure in the fruit which he has stolen, but no sooner will he have appropriated that fruit than the very tree itself withers away, and the whole garden is as a blighted landscape. If any man who is out of harmony with God claim to have peace he is a liar, and the truth is not in him. Peace is obtainable in one way only, and that is by the divinely revealed way of repentance, confession, contrition of heart, and unreserved and grateful trust in all the mystery of the priesthood of Christ Unity with Christ means peace. It does not mean that the peace is superimposed upon a man as a crown might be set upon his head; it means that in his heart there springs up holy harmony with the divine nature, an assurance and consciousness of rest because the whole motion of the life is in movement with the purpose and law of heaven. We cannot buy peace, we cannot sell peace, we cannot lend one another peace; we can only have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayer
We are fearfully and wonderfully made: truly how great and how little is man: yet thou hast made him in thine image and likeness, thou mighty and loving Maker. Now we are so triumphant, and anon so dejected; new brighter than any summer day, now more desolate than winter. Thou hast put a song in our mouth, and yet there is sorrow in our heart, which spoils the music. Our life, how changeful! without consistency; now sunny, now cloudy; now on the hill-top, now in the deep valley; now planting flowers, now digging graves. Vanity of vanities! surely all is as a veering wind; there is none abiding, there is only One eternal; as for men, their breath is in their nostrils, they die whilst they say they live. Yet how wondrous art thou to the children of men, in all care and love, in all pity and redeeming compassion! Thou dost care for each one; there is none neglected, there are no orphans; all men say, Our Father in heaven. This is thy purpose; if they do not say it now they will say it some day, brighter than any that has yet dawned upon the hills of time; glad will be that day, brightest of mornings will be that morning. We pray for it, we live in its anticipation, and when men chide us because of our hope we say, the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. We bless thee for what revelation of thee we have seen. Sometimes we look upon thee as righteous and terrible; at other times as fatherly, approachable, all love, always welcoming us to thy smile and protection: but whether we see thee in the one aspect or the other we know that thy way is right, thy purpose is love, and thou wilt, by way of the Cross, bring men to restoration, pardon, sonship. Verily, by way of the Cross! Other way there is none; that way is open; it is filled with angels of love; we are continually invited to walk therein and find the dying yet living Christ, the priestly Sacrifice, the Intercessor and the Victim in one. We have seen him of whom Moses and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, and we have given our whole love to him. Other king shall not reign over us. He is to us Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and the End, the All-in-all; and to him we give our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength, our hand, our whole being: if he will take it we shall thus be enriched evermore. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
XXVII
THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST IN ISAIAH
The relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy is that the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. To him give all the prophets witness. All the scriptures, the law, the prophets, and the psalms, testify of him. And we are fools, and slow of heart to credit adequate testimony when we distrust any part of the inspired evidence.
Of the ancient prophets Isaiah was perhaps the most notable witness of the coming Messiah. An orderly combination of his many messianic utterances amounts to more than a mere sketch, indeed, rather to a series of almost life-sized portraits. As a striking background for these successive portraits the prophet discloses the world’s need of a Saviour, and across this horrible background of gloom the prophet sketches in startling strokes of light the image of a coming Redeemer.
In Isa 2:2-4 we have the first picture of him in Isaiah, that of the effect of his work, rather than of the Messiah himself. This is the establishment of the mountain of the Lord’s house on the top of the mountains, the coming of the nations to it and the resultant millennial glory.
In Isa 4:2-6 is another gleam from the messianic age in which the person of the Messiah comes more into view in the figure of a branch of Jehovah, beautiful and glorious. In sketching the effects of his work here the prophet adds a few strokes of millennial glory as a consummation of his ministry.
In Isa 7:14 he delineates him as a little child born of a virgin, whose coming is the light of the world. He is outlined on the canvas in lowest humanity and highest divinity, “God with us.” In this incarnation he is the seed of the woman and not of the man.
The prophet sees him as a child upon whom the government shall rest and whose name is “Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6 ). This passage shows the divinity of Christ and the universal peace he is to bring to the world. In these names we have the divine wisdom, the divine power, the divine fatherhood, and the divine peace.
In Isa 11:1-9 the prophet sees the Messiah as a shoot out of the stock of Jesse, i.e., of lowly origin, but possessing the Holy Spirit without measure who equips him for his work, and his administration wrought with skill and justice, the result of which is the introduction of universal and perfect peace. Here the child is presented as a teacher. And such a teacher! On him rests the seven spirits of God. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge, and the fear of the Lord. He judges not according to appearances and reproves not according to rumors. With righteousness he judges the poor and reproves with equality in behalf of the meek. His words smite a guilty world like thunderbolts and his very breath slays iniquity. Righteousness and faithfulness are his girdle. He uplifts an infallible standard of morals.
In Isa 40:3-8 appears John the Baptist, whom Isaiah saw as a voice crying in the wilderness, preparing the way for the coming King.
In Isa 11:2 ; Isa 42:1 ; Isa 61:1-3 the prophet saw the Messiah as a worker in the power of the Spirit, in whom he was anointed at his baptism. This was the beginning of his ministry which was wrought through the power of the Holy Spirit. At no time in his ministry did our Lord claim that he wrought except in the power of the Holy Spirit who was given to him without measure.
In Isa 35:1-10 the Messiah is described as a miracle worker. In his presence the desert blossoms as a rose and springs burst out of dry ground. The banks of the Jordan rejoice. The lame man leaps like a hart, the dumb sing and the blind behold visions. The New Testament abounds in illustrations of fulfilment. These signs Christ presented to John the Baptist as his messianic credentials (Mat 11:1-4 ).
The passage (Isa 42:1-4 ) gives us a flashlight on the character of the Messiah. In the New Testament it is expressly applied to Christ whom the prophet sees as the meek and lowly Saviour, dealing gently with the blacksliding child of his grace. In Isa 22:22 we have him presented as bearing the key of the house of David, with full power to open and shut. This refers to his authority over all things in heaven and upon earth. By this authority he gave the keys of the kingdom to Peter one for the Jews and the other for the Gentiles who used one on the day of Pentecost and the other at the house of Cornelius, declaring in each case the terms of entrance into the kingdom of God. This authority of the Messiah is referred to again in Revelation:
And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead. And he laid his right hand upon me, saying. Fear not: I am the first and the last, and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore and I have the keys of death and of Hades. Rev 7:17
And to the angel of the church in Philadelphis write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth and none shall shut, and shutteth and none openeth. Rev 3:7
In Isa 32:1-8 we have a great messianic passage portraying the work of Christ as a king ruling in righteousness, in whom men find a hiding place from the wind and the tempest. He is a stream in a dry place and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land.
In Isa 28:14-18 the Messiah is presented to w as a foundation stone in a threefold idea:
1. A tried foundation stone. This is the work of the master mason and indicates the preparation of the atone for its particular function.
2. An elect or precious foundation stone. This indicates that the stone was selected and appointed. It was not self-appointed but divinely appointed and is therefore safe.
3. A cornerstone, or sure foundation stone. Here it is a foundation of salvation, as presented in Mat 16:18 . It is Christ the Rock, and not Peter. See Paul’s foundation in 1 Corinthians:
According to the grace of God which was given unto me; as a wise masterbuilder I laid a foundation; and another buildeth thereon. But let each man take heed how he buildeth thereon. For other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1Co 3:10-11 .
In Isa 49:1-6 he is presented as a polished shaft, kept close in the quiver. The idea is that he is a mighty sword. In Revelation, Christ is presented to John as having a sharp, twoedged sword proceeding out of his mouth.
In Isa 50:2 ; Isa 52:9 f.; Isa 59:16-21 ; Isa 62:11 we have the idea of the salvation of Jehovah. The idea is that salvation originated with God and that man in his impotency could neither devise the plan of salvation nor aid in securing it. These passages are expressions of the pity with which God looks down on a lost world. The redemption, or salvation, here means both temporal and spiritual salvation salvation from enemies and salvation from sin.
In Isa 9:1 f. we have him presented as a great light to the people of Zebulun and Naphtali. In Isa 49:6 we have him presented as a light to the Gentiles and salvation to the end of the earth: “Yea, he saith, It is too light a thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth.”
In Isa 8:14-15 Isaiah presents him as a stone of stumbling: “And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem. And many shall stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken, and be snared, and be taken.”
The prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection are found in Isa 50:4-9 ; Isa 52:13-53:12 . In this we have the vision of him giving his “back to the smiters, and his cheeks to them that plucked off the hair.” We see a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. His visage is so marred it startled all nations. He is a vicarious sacrifice. The chastisement of the peace of others is on him. The iniquity of others is put on him. It pleases the Father to bruise him until he has poured out his soul unto death as an offering for sin.
The teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews is his teaching concerning the “holy remnant,” a favorite expression of the prophet. See Isa 1:9 ; Isa 10:20-22 ; Isa 11:11 ; Isa 11:16 ; Isa 37:4 ; Isa 37:31-32 ; Isa 46:3 . This coincides with Paul’s teaching in Romans 9-11.
In Isa 32:15 we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit: “Until the Spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness become a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be esteemed as a forest,” and in Isa 44:3 : “For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, and streams upon the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed, and my blessing upon thine offspring.”
In Isa 11:10 he is said to be the ensign of the nations: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the root of Jesse, that standeth for an ensign of the peoples unto him shall the nations seek; and his resting place shall be glorious.”
Isa 19:18-25 ; Isa 54:1-3 ; Isa 60:1-22 teach the enlargement of the church. The great invitation and promise are found in Isa 55 .
The Messiah in judgments is found in Isa 63:1-6 . Here we behold an avenger. He comes up out of Edom with dyed garments from Bozra. All his raiment is stained with the blood of his enemies whom he has trampled in his vengeance as grapes are crushed in the winevat and the restoration of the Jews is set forth in Isa 11:11-12 ; Isa 60:9-15 ; Isa 66:20 . Under the prophet’s graphic pencil or glowing brush we behold the establishment and growth of his kingdom unlike all other kingdoms, a kingdom within men, a kingdom whose principles are justice, righteousness, and equity and whose graces are faith, hope, love, and joy, an undying and ever-growing kingdom. Its prevalence is like the rising waters of Noah’s flood; “And the waters prevailed and increased mightily upon the earth. And the water prevailed mightily, mightily upon the earth; and all the high mountains, that are under the whole heavens, were covered.”
So this kingdom grows under the brush of the prophetic limner until its shores are illimitable. War ceases. Gannenta rolled in the blood of battle become fuel for fire. Conflagration is quenched. Famine outlawed. Pestilence banished. None are left to molest or make afraid. Peace flows like a river. The wolf dwells with the lamb. The leopard lies down with the kid. The calf and the young lion walk forth together and a little child is leading them. The cow and the bear feed in one pasture and their young ones are bedfellows. The sucking child safely plays over the hole of the asp, and weaned children put their hands in the adder’s den. In all the holy realms none hurt nor destroy, because the earth is as full of the knowledge of the Lord as the fathomless ocean is full of water. Rapturous vision! Sublime and ineffable consummation! Was it only a dream?
In many passages the prophet turns in the gleams from the millennial age, but one of the clearest and best on the millennium, which is in line with the preceding paragraph, Isa 11:6-9 : “And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together: and a little child shall lead them. And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder’s den. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain; for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea.”
The prophet’s vision of the destruction of death is given in Isa 25:8 : “He hath swallowed up death for ever; and the Lord Jehovah will wipe away tears from off all faces; and the reproach of his people will he take away from all the earth: for Jehovah hath spoken it,” and in Isa 26:19 : “Thy dead shall live; my dead bodies shall arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust; for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast forth the dead.”
The clearest outlines of the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained” are to be found in Isa 25:8 , and in two passages in chapter Isa 66 : Rejoice ye with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all ye that love her: rejoice for joy with her, all ye that mourn over her; that ye may suck and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith Jehovah, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream: and ye shall suck thereof; ye shall be borne upon the side, and shall be dandled upon the knees, as one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. And ye shall see it, and your heart shall rejoice, and your bones shall flourish like the tender grass: and the hands of Jehovah shall be known toward his servants ; and he will have indignation against his enemies. Isa 66:10-14
For as the new heavens and the new earth, which I will make shall remain before me, saith Jehovah, so shall your seed and your name remain. And it shall come to pass, that from one new moon to another, shall all flesh come to worship before me, saith Jehovah. Isa 66:22-23
QUESTIONS
1. What is the relation between the New Testament Christ and prophecy?
2. What can you say of Isaiah as a witness of the Messiah?
3. What can you say of Isaiah’s pictures of the Messiah and their background?
4. Following in the order of Christ’s manifestation, what is the first picture of him in Isaiah?
5. What is the second messianic glimpse in Isaiah?
6. What is Isaiah’s picture of the incarnation?
7. What is Isaiah’s picture of the divine child?
8. What is Isaiah’s vision of his descent, his relation to the Holy Spirit, his administration of justice, and the results of his reign?
9. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah’s herald?
10. What is the prophet’s vision of his anointing?
11. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a miracle worker?
12. What is the prophet’s vision of the character of the Messiah?
13. What is the prophet’s vision of him as the key bearer?
14. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a king and a hiding place?
15. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah as a foundation stone?
16. What is the prophet’s vision of him as a polished shaft?
17. In what passages do we find the idea of the salvation of Jehovah, and what the significance of the idea?
18. What is Isaiah’s vision of the Messiah as a light?
19. Where does Isaiah present him as a stone of stumbling?
20. What is the prophet’s vision of his maltreatment and rejection?
21. What is the teaching of Isaiah on the election of the Jews?
22. Where do we find Isaiah’s teaching on the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?
23. Where is he said to be the ensign of the nations?
24. What passages teach the enlargement of the church?
25. Where is the great invitation and promise?
26. Where is the Messiah in judgment?
27. What passages show the restoration of the Jews?
28. What is the prophet’s vision of the Messiah’s kingdom?
29. What is the prophet’s vision of the millennium?
30. What is the prophet’s vision of the destruction of death?
31. What is the prophet’s vision of “Paradise Regained?”
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
XX
THE BOOK OF ISAIAH PART 12
Isaiah 46-48
The general theme of these chapters is the victory over idolatry; the fall of Babylon and its idols. The special theme of Isa 46 is “The Overthrow of the Gods of Babylon.”
There are two of the Babylonian deities named in Isa 46:1-2 , Bel and Nebo. Bel, the local representation of Baal, the Phoenician sun-god, is identified with Merodach and, in the BabyIonian astrology, he is connected with the planet, Jupiter. Bel appears in several names of the Babylonian princes, as in Belshazzar and Belteshazzar. Nebo, the Babylonian god of learning, the son of Merodach, was the messenger of their gods to men. He is thought by some to have been connected with the planet, Mercury. Nebo, appears, also, in the names of their princes, as in Nebopolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nebuzaradan. According to Herodotus there was a golden statue of Bel in the temple of Belus, twelve cubits high, which was carried away by Xerxes.
The picture here in these two verses is that of the conquered gods bowing to their victors. Now instead of being borne lightly along in the procession they are borne away on beasts of burden. These gods and their subjects together go into captivity.
In Isa 46:3-7 we have a contrast with the preceding picture of the captives of Babylon bearing their gods away on beasts of burden. Here Jehovah pictures himself bearing his people. They have been borne by him from their birth, and will be borne by him down to old age and to hoary hairs. This reminds us of the stanza in “How Firm a Foundation,” which embodies this truth and the sentiment of which was taken from this passage. Then the prophet follows with another description of the process of making a god. This time it is the process of molding it rather than shaping it out of wood. But the results are the same. They fall down and worship it. They pray unto it but it cannot answer, nor save them out of trouble. So the contrast between Jehovah and idols is this: Jehovah bears his people, but the idols have to be borne by their people; Jehovah saves his people out of their troubles, but the idols cannot save out of trouble.
The exhortation to the transgressors of Israel found in Isa 46:8-10 is an exhortation to remember. The first thing to remember is “this,” which refers to the contrast between Jehovah and idols. Since Jehovah bears Israel, then let Israel show themselves men. The marginal reading here is “stand firm.” This reminds us of the conflict on Mount Carmel between Jehovah and Baal. Elijah said, “Why go limping between two opinions? If Jehovah is God serve him; if Baal, then serve him.” The people here were weak in their conviction and, doubtless, needed Just such an exhortation as this: “Stand firm for Jehovah, for he is the only God.” The prophet here also intimates that to waver between Jehovah and idols was transgression.
Remember the First and Second Commandments: “Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shall not make unto thee a graven image and bow thyself down to it.” Remember this is transgression. Then remember “the former things of old”: that Jehovah is God, and there is none else: that there is none like him; that he declares the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things that are not yet done. Remember that he is a God who foreknows all things and tells them beforehand, even things that are yet unfulfilled, O ye Radical Critics. Remember your former experiences, O House of Israel. How ye saw that Jehovah was the great and terrible God. It sounds like the war cry, “O ye Mexicans, Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!” or Abraham’s voice across the impassable gulf, “Remember, son, remember that thou in thy lifetime hadst thy good things, and Lazarus, his evil things.” Remember, O remember. If God’s people and the world would only remember! “Remember, too, O Israel, that my counsel never fails and that I will do my pleasure; that I have already told you that I will call that ravenous bird, Cyrus, from the East, to do my counsel, and remember that what I have purposed I will do.”
The prophet closes this chapter with an exhortation to the stubborn in Israel, who were far from righteousness. Jehovah then announces the speedy approach of his righteous judgments upon the godless and his salvation in Zion for Israel.
The special theme of Isa 47 is “the overthrow of Babylon, the mistress of kingdoms.” This chapter is a song of triumph and divides itself into four stanzas, as follows: (1) Isa 47:1-4 ; (2) Isa 47:5-7 ; (3) Isa 47:8-11 ; (4) Isa 47:12-15 the first two commencing with a double imperative and the last two, with a single imperative.
Jehovah is the speaker all the way through except in Isa 47:4 which is a kind of parenthetical ejaculation by Isaiah and his God-given children, or, maybe a chorus in Israel.
There is here a call by Jehovah to Babylon, who boasted that she had never been captured, to come down from her lofty throne and sit in the dust. Babylon had hitherto been one of the chief seats of Oriental luxury, the glory of kingdoms and the beauty of the Chaldean excellency, the golden city. She was given to revelry and feasting, to mirth and drunkenness, to shameless licensed debauchery. All this must now be changed (Isa 47:1 ).
She was now to sit at the mill and grind like a slave. She must remove the veil, strip off the train, and uncover the leg to cross the streams, etc. This, of course, is taken from the figure of the female who had been taken captive, and represents the great humiliation that must come to the proud and luxurious Babylon, in which also no man shall be spared.
Isa 47:4 in this song, which is so different from the rest of it, is thought by some to be a marginal note of a sympathetic scribe, which has made its way by accident into the text. It is admittedly different from the rest of the song and its removal would artistically improve it. But it may be consistently retained as an outburst of the chorus upon recognizing their Redeemer, when they exclaim: “Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts, the Holy One of Israel.”
The first part of Isa 47:5 is an entreaty to the fallen people to hide their shame in silence and darkness, as disgraced persons do who shrink from being seen by their fellows.
Babylon was not mistress of the kingdoms in Isaiah’s time, or at any earlier period, unless at a very remote one. She had been subject to Assyria for centuries when Isaiah wrote, and it was ruled under Sennacherib by viceroys of his own appointment. The explanation then is that inspiration and prophetic foresight enabled Isaiah to see Babylon at the height of her glory, as in the days of Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar, when she had taken to herself the greatness of Assyria and ruled a large part of Western Asia.
The reason assigned for letting Israel go into captivity is that he was wroth with them, and therefore profaned them. They did not receive any mercy at the hand of the Chaldeans but they laid a heavy yoke upon the aged. This God will not tolerate and with man it is a mark of the crudest barbarism. The attitude of Christianity toward the aged is, Be kind to each other The night’s coming on, When friend and when brother Perchance will be gone.
An additional cause cited (Isa 47:7 ) is her pride and boastfulness. Without due consideration she said, “I shall be mistress forever.” This is true to the primary instincts of human nature. We confidently expect the sun to rise tomorrow because it has never failed yet to rise on a single day. Peter tells us that in the last days mockers will come, saying, “Where is the promise of his coming? for, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” And so the world goes on. Perhaps Babylon had more excuse for making such a boast than other nations. Her capital was one of the most ancient cities in the world. For two thousands years or more she had maintained a prominent position among the chief peoples of the earth, and had finally risen to a very proud eminence. But she ought to have remembered that all things come to an end, and to have so deported herself as not to have provoked God to anger. If the management and passengers of the Titanic had remembered this, one of the greatest disasters in the world, perhaps, would have been averted. But the boast of the “unsinkable” and the vainglory of the “world-beater” came to nought. “And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto heaven? thou shalt be brought down to hell.”
The characteristics of Babylon are set forth in Isa 47:8-11 as follows:
1. She was given to pleasures. Herodotus says that when. Cyrus invested the city the inhabitants made light of his siege and occupied their time in dancing and revelry.
2. She was self-confident. The evidence goes that, when Cyrus captured the city, very slight and insufficient preparations had been made for the defense of the city.
3. She was boastful. “I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children.”
4. She was conceited. “None seeth me.”
Jehovah made reply to these characteristics of the boastful city, thus:
1. Jehovah warns her that loss of children and widowhood should come upon her in a moment in one day, notwithstanding her multiplied sorceries and enchantments. This was fulfilled when Cyrus took the city 539 B.C. Then “in a moment” Babylon lost the whole of her prestige, ceased to reign, ceased to be an independent power, became a “widow,” had a portion of her population taken away from her, and was brought down in the dust.
2. Jehovah warns her that her wisdom and knowledge had perverted her, and that evil should come upon her unawares; that mischief should fall upon her that she should not be able to put away and that sudden desolation would overtake her unexpectedly.
The import of Isa 47:12-15 is “sorcery cannot remove the impending calamity” and the contest between their sorcery and Jehovah is precipitated by Jehovah’s challenge to the soothsayers and enchanters to the conflict pretty much in the same way that Elijah challenged the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel. There is a touch of irony in Isa 47:12-13 , which would paraphrase thus: “If Babylon uses all the resources of her magical art, perhaps she may succeed, who knows? Perhaps she may strike terror into the hearts of her assailants.”
The three terms, “astrologers,” “star-gazers,” and “prognosticators” in Isa 47:13 , do not mean three classes of persons, but rather the same class under three designations. “Astrologers” were dividers of the heavens; “star-gazers” were observers of the stars; and “monthly prognosticators” were almanac-makers. The astronomy of the Babylonians consisted (1) of dividing the heavens into constellations for purposes of study and comprehension; (2) of observing the sun, moon, and planets, noting eclipses, occultations, conjunctions, and the like, all of which was legitimate science; (3) of prognostication of events from the changing phenomena of the heavens. Almanacs were prepared and put forth in which these predictions were made and on these much dependence was placed. This phase of their work is called astrology, and is that which the prophet here ridicules.
The result of this contest here as foretold by the prophet is that these men and their means shall be as stubble, i.e., they will offer no more resistance to Jehovah than dry stubble offers to fire. It burns up so clean that there is not left a coal to warm at or sit before. This shall be such a complete desolation that the traders shall flee to their own countries and the commerce of the great and flourishing city shall be destroyed forever. The special theme of Isa 48 is the expostulations with, and exhortations to Israel in view of its stubbornness and impenitence. Its profession is indicated in Isa 48:1-2 by the expressions, “called by the name of Israel,” “swear by the name of Jehovah,” “make mention of the God of Israel,” “call themselves of the holy city,” and “stay themselves upon the God of Israel,” all of which indicate their adherence to the names and formalities of their religion. Their professions were loud but they were “not in truth, nor in righteousness.”
Jehovah here (Isa 48:3-11 ) reveals Israel’s characteristics, as obstinacy, stiff-neckedness, brazen-faced, dull of hearing, treacherous, and transgressing. These characteristics Jehovah endeavored to offset by revelations beforehand, in two cycles of predictions, the earlier and the later being reserved for the emergency of the occasion such as the present crisis in their history.
All these were not sufficient to save Israel, therefore, he, for his name’s sake, deferred the just punishment of destruction and put them in the furnace of affliction that he might purify them, at the same time save his own name from profanation and reserve the glory to himself.
The meaning and application of Isa 46:11 is that God had selected Israel out of all the nations of the earth to be his “peculiar” people, and having declared this he supported them by miracles in their struggles with other nations and peoples. Thus he was committed to protect and defend Israel “for his name’s sake,” lest his name should be blasphemed among the Gentiles. He had rolled away the reproach of Egypt when he landed them safe in Canaan, so that Egypt could never say that he had failed in his promise to Israel to carry them into their Promised Land. So now he must save his name from profanation by deferring his anger and chastising Israel. A great lesson is this. God’s people will not be utterly destroyed nor forsaken, but they cannot escape the Lord’s chastisements if they sin. He takes care of his name and his people at the same time. This is far-reaching in its application. All Jehovah’s promises to Israel, and the world through Israel) were at stake. Israel occupied an important position with respect to the scheme of salvation in its relation to the whole world, and therefore Jehovah could not let Israel go. He must refrain his anger, and preserve Israel through the furnace of affliction or the plan of redemption for the world fails and the name of Jehovah is profaned and his glory given over to another.
The appeal to Israel in Isa 48:12-16 is an appeal to profit from the work of Cyrus. Jehovah asserts his eternity of being and his creative work, and then challenges the nations to match it if they can. Then he introduces Cyrus as the instrument of his pleasure on Babylon and invites them to take notice that this is by the authority of Jehovah, who had sent the prophet, and his Spirit.
The possibilities for Israel here (Isa 48:17-19 ) pointed out are the possibilities of peace, like a river; righteousness, like the waves of the sea; their offspring, like the grains of sand on the shore; and a perpetual name before Jehovah; all this on the one condition that Israel hearken to his commandments. His purpose throughout their existence was to teach them for their profit. Thus he had led them through the many dark valleys of affliction and brought them to their own good land where they had enjoyed his loving favor and protection, with a bright hope for their future. But they sinned and forfeited the divine favor, and now they must hear the sad refrain, “Oh that thou hadst hearkened to my commandments! then had thy peace been as a river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea; thy seed also had been as the sand, and the offspring of thy bowels like the grains thereof; his name would not be cut off nor destroyed from before me,” which is much like the saying of the poet: Of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: “It might have been.”
The exhortation of Isa 48:20-22 was to “go forth from Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans.” At first thought such an exhortation would seem superfluous. It might be reasonably expected that, when the prison doors should fly open, there would be a mighty rush from Babylon back to their native land, but not so. The history of the return shows how poor was the response to the exhortation. So this exhortation, to “go forth from Babylon, and flee from the Chaldeans,” was far from being superfluous.
They were to go in the spirit of joy, singing the song of their redemption, as at the deliverance from the land of Egypt. With a voice of singing they were to recite the history of Jehovah’s gracious dealings with them in the wilderness, which were paralleled here in their deliverance from Babylon.
There was a distinct advance here. The subject of the last twenty-seven chapters of Isaiah is not merely the return of Judah from Babylon to Jerusalem. Higher themes engage the prophet’s mind, viz: That preparation of the way of Jehovah, and the manifestation of his glory, for all flesh to see it together. All this was in the mind of the prophet, and the deliverance from Babylon was only a prefiguring of the far greater deliverance of the world from the thraldom of sin. As the exodus from Egypt was the high-water mark of God’s grace to his people of the Old Testament dispensation, so is this last mention by Isaiah of the struggle with Babylon. There is joyous victory here like that which it typifies in Revelation where the mystical Babylon falls and God’s people shout their everlasting praises to him who rules over the kingdoms of the earth.
There is a connection between Isa 48:22 , “There is no peace, saith Jehovah to the wicked,” and the fall of Babylon. God’s judgments fell heavily on Egypt at the deliverance of Israel at the Red Sea and his judgments are heavier on Babylon at the deliverance of his people from the captivity. But Egypt and Babylon are types of the great spiritual enemies of God’s kingdom. So when the Babylon of Revelation falls there is fear and trembling because of the judgments on her from Jehovah. When God stretches forth his hand in judgments, there is no peace to the wicked.
QUESTIONS
1. What is the general theme of these three chapters?
2. What is the special theme of Isa 46 ?
3. What is the principal gods of Babylon and what the prophetic picture of Isa 46:1-2 ?
4. What is the contrast found in Isa 46:3-7 ?
5. What is the exhortation to the transgressors of Israel found in Isa 46:8-10 ?
6. How does the prophet close this chapter?
7. What is the special theme of Isa 47 ?
8. What is the nature of the composition and what the divisions of it?
9. Who is the speaker of this song?
10. What is the great change in the position of Babylon to be brought about by its capture?
11. What was to be her new occupation and what the shame of her new condition?
12. How do you account for Isa 47:4 in this song, which is so different from the rest of it?
13. What is the import of Isa 47:5 and how is it that Isaiah saw Babylon as the mistress of kingdoms?
14. What is the reason assigned here for Babylon’s having Israel in captivity and how are they said to have been treated while in captivity?
15. What is the added cause of Babylon’s downfall given in Isa 47:1 ?
16. What are the characteristics of Babylon as set forth in Isa 47:8-11 ?
17. What reply does Jehovah make to these characteristics of the boastful city?
18. What is the import of Isa 47:12-15 ?
19. How is the contest between their sorcery and Jehovah precipitated and what the irony of their passage?
20. What is the meaning of “astrologers,” “star-gazers,” and “prognosticators” in Isa 47:13 , and what the value of the work of these men?
21. What is the result of this contest here as foretold by the prophet?
22. What is the special theme of Isa 48 ?
23. How is Israel’s profession here set forth (Isa 48:1-2 )?
24. What arethe characteristics of Israel herein set forth and what Jehovah’s efforts to counteract this disposition?
25. What is the result of these favors from Jehovah and in view of such result what course did Jehovah take with them?
26. What is the meaning and application of Isa 48:11 ?
27. What is the appeal to Israel in Isa 48:12-16 ?
28. What are the possibilities for Israel here (Isa 48:17-19 ) pointed out and why had it not realized them?
29. What is the exhortation of Isa 48:20-22 and what the special need for such exhortation?
30. In what spirit were they to go from Babylon?
31. How does the exodus here compare with the exodus from Egypt i.e., was there any advance to something greater and higher as one might expect in the work of God?
32. What is the connection between Isa 48:22 , “There is no peace, saith Jehovah to the wicked,” and the fall of Babylon?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Isa 47:1 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 thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Ver. 1. Come down. ] From thy lofty top and towering state, as the head city of the world. a
Sit in the dust.
O virgin daughter of Babylon.
Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
a Sic transit gloria mundi. , So fleeting is the glory of the world.
b Cyrillus wrote .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Isaiah Chapter 47
This chapter shows us the degradation of Babylon itself, as in the preceding chapter we had judgement executed against its gods.
“Come down, and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground: [there is] no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove thy veil, strip the train, uncover the leg, pass over rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will meet no man. [As for] our Redeemer Jehovah of hosts [is] his name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit silent, and get thee into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called Mistress of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. And thou saidst, I shall be a mistress for ever; [so] that thou didst not lay these [things] to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end thereof” (vv. 1-7).
The anger of God at His guilty people was no justification for the merciless behaviour of Babylon; and her confidence in the stability of her resources would be the precursor of ruin. “Now therefore hear this, [thou that art] given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thy heart, I [am], and all besides me [is] nothing; I shall not sit [as] a widow, neither shall I know loss of children. But these two [things] shall come to thee in a moment in one day, loss of children, and widowhood: in full measure shall they come upon thee, in spite of the multitude of thy sorceries, of the great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thy heart, I [am], and all besides me [is] nothing. And there cometh upon thee evil; thou shalt not know the dawning thereof: and mischief falleth upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it away; and desolation thou knowest not shall come upon thee suddenly” (vv. 8-11).
We must remember too that what made the taunt the more cutting was Babylon’s boast in their sorceries and enchantments; but even so, they could not profit nor prevail. “Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest terrify. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels: let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from [the things] that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble, the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: [it shall] not [be] a coal to warm at, a fire to sit before. Thus shall they be unto thee wherein thou hast laboured; they that have trafficked with thee from thy youth shall wander every one to his quarter none shall save thee” (vv. 12-15). As they could not really predict, still less could they save; so He predicts, Who is the Saviour God. And it is to be feared that such as believe not His prophetic word are strangers to His saving grace. For without faith it is impossible to please God. To predict, divine as it is, must be regarded as a small thing compared with the grace that saves righteously. Comparatively few in Christendom accept that man here as elsewhere is wholly lost in himself, or that in Christ the believer is truly saved. Those who trust in ordinances and in such as administer them never rise above the uncertainties of probation. Human contingency is not the true grace of God in which we are called to stand.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Isa 47:1-7
1Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
Sit on the ground without a throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans!
For you shall no longer be called tender and delicate.
2Take the millstones and grind meal.
Remove your veil, strip off the skirt,
Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.
3Your nakedness will be uncovered,
Your shame also will be exposed;
I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.
4Our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is His name,
The Holy One of Israel.
5Sit silently, and go into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans,
For you will no longer be called
The queen of kingdoms.
6I was angry with My people,
I profaned My heritage
And gave them into your hand.
You did not show mercy to them,
On the aged you made your yoke very heavy.
7Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’
These things you did not consider
Nor remember the outcome of them.
Isa 47:1 Come down This is one of three literary models used by the Hebrew prophets to communicate their divine messages.
1. funeral dirge
2. court scene
3. promise oracle
O virgin daughter of Babylon This was a Semitic idiom of security and preciousness in family metaphors. She (the Neo-Babylonian Empire) who was so secure and protected, has now become vulnerable.
sit in the dust. . .sit on the ground without a throne This is literally sit (BDB 442, cf. Isa 47:1[twice],5,8 [twice]). It was one of the physical signs of mourning.
SPECIAL TOPIC: GRIEVING RITES
Chaldeans This is parallel to Babylon, see note at Isa 43:14.
shall no longer be called tender and delicate These two terms (BDB 940 and 772) are used in Deu 28:56 for luxurious, extravagant living. This is contrasted with Isa 47:2-3, where she is now
1. a slave
2. a prostitute
Isa 47:2-3 This is a series of phrases used to describe one who used to be the queen of the nations (Isa 47:5; Isa 47:7) and is now a slave.
1. she grinds meal, Isa 47:2
2. she removes her veil, Isa 47:2
3. she had to prepare her clothes for hard labor, Isa 47:2
4. she had to cross the rivers herself and not be carried (possibly into exile), Isa 47:2
5. her nakedness was uncovered, Isa 47:3
a. as a punishment for sin (cf. Isa 20:4)
b. simply the lot of slaves who were poorly clad and sexually vulnerable
Isa 47:3
NASBand will not spare a man
NKJVI will not arbitrate with a man
NRSVI will spare no one
TEVno one will stop me
NJBno one stands in My way
JPSOAlet no man intercede
REBshow clemency to none
This is somewhat ambiguous but the term (BDB 803) had an etymological relationship to prayerful intercession (cf. Isa 53:12; Isa 59:16; Jer 36:25). It seems to mean that no one could intercede for Babylon or that no human was powerful enough in prayer to stop YHWH’s predetermined plan for her judgment.
Isa 47:4 This is an exclamation from the author which interjects itself into the flow of poetry. Three of the beautiful titles for God are seen here as the prophet praises God for Who He is. The titles are
1. Redeemer – an emphasis on God as Savior; He is the One who buys people back from slavery
2. Lord of hosts – a Persian title which focuses on one of two areas
a. the angelic council, Isa 24:21-22
b. the astral deities of Babylon, Isa 40:26
3. the Holy One of Israel – the title for God who will bring this to pass on behalf of His people
Isa 47:5 Sit silently, and go into darkness This major world power has now become a peasant. This verse tells her to seek obscurity and be silent (two IMPERATIVES).
The queen of kingdoms This is an idiom of Neo-Babylon’s view of itself and its power (cf. Isa 47:7). The queen has become a sex slave (cf. Isa 47:2-3; Isa 47:8 a). What she did to exiles will now happen to her (i.e., divinely caused role reversal).
It is just possible that this idiom relates to Nabonidus leading Neo-Babylon away from Marduk to the worship of the moon goddess called the Queen of heaven. She was called Sin (Akkadian) or Nanna (Summerian).
SPECIAL TOPIC: MOON WORSHIP
Isa 47:6 I was angry with My people This explains why the Jews were taken into exile. In the ancient world the deity of the nation protected them. The fact that both Israel and Judah were taken captive was seen by the world as the gods of the Fertile Crescent being more powerful than the God of Israel, but this was not the case. God was using the powers of the Fertile Crescent to judge His people for their sin (cf. Isa 42:24).
You did not show mercy on them Although God gave His people to Assyria and Babylon in order to punish them, they went too far and now they will be judged for their lack of mercy.
Isa 47:7 These things you did not consider
Nor remember the outcome of them
The two VERBS are Qal PERFECTS, which denote a settled attitude.
1. did not consider, lit. did not lay these things to heart
2. did not remember their end
Notice how Isa 47:8 continues the thought.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
ground = earth. Hebrew. ‘arez.
there is no throne = throneless.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Chapter 47
Now in chapter 47, God speaks of the judgment that is going to come against Babylon. Now this is before Babylon ever conquered them. But God has declared that Babylon shall conquer them, but because of the treatment that Babylon gives to the people of God, she herself, though used as an instrument of God in judgment against His people, will also be brought into judgment by God.
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 thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. For thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: and I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man ( Isa 47:1-3 ).
He’s going to meet them as a God in judgment.
As for our Redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into your hand: but you did not show them mercy; upon the ancient ( Isa 47:4-6 )
That is, the very old men.
you have laid a very heavy yoke ( Isa 47:6 ).
So the Babylonians were not really kind to their captives. They were very hard on the people of Israel when they took them captives. And even upon the old men they laid very heavy burdens, made them bondslaves and made them work hard. And so because of their treatment, He said,
You have said, I shall be a lady for ever: so that you did not lay these things to thy heart, neither did you remember the latter end of it. Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwell carelessly, that say in your heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of your sorceries, and for the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness: and you have said, None seeth me ( Isa 47:7-10 ).
Now God speaks of the judgment that is going to come against Babylon because of their treatment of His people. You remember Jesus spoke when He returns to the earth, He said, “Then will I gather together the nations for judgment and I will separate them as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And to those on the right hand I will say, ‘Come ye blessed of the Father, inherit the kingdom that was prepared for you from the foundations of the earth. For I was hungry, you fed Me. Thirsty and you gave Me to drink.'” And so forth. “‘Lord, when did we see You hungry? When did we see You thirsty?’ Inasmuch as you did it unto My brethren, the least of My brethren, you did it to Me” ( Mat 25:32-40 ). And so the nations will be judged for their treatment of God’s people, the Jews. Be careful about speaking against the Jews. For God has chosen them and God has said, “I will bless those that bless thee, and curse those that curse thee” ( Gen 12:3 ). “For those on His left He said, ‘Depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity, into everlasting judgment that was prepared for Satan and his angels. For I was hungry, and you did not feed Me; thirsty, and you did not give Me to drink; naked, and you did not clothe Me; in prison, you did not visit Me.’ ‘Lord, when did we see You and not help You out?’ ‘Inasmuch as you did it not to the least of these My brethren, you did it not to Me'” ( Mat 25:41-45 ).
Now here because of the ill treatment of His people, though God was angry with the Jews and had a cause against them because they had polluted the name of God by their false worship, yet though He gave them over in the hand of the Babylonians, they did not show them mercy. And thus, God’s judgment and heavy hand. Now one of the things the Babylonians were saying, notice here, is that our kingdom is going to last. “I will be a lady forever. The Babylonian kingdom will endure forever. We will never be widows. We will never lose our children. Our husbands will never be slain in battle. We’ll never have to face widowhood.” And God said, “You’ve said these things and you’ve lived in pleasure and you’ve lived carelessly. But in a moment, in one night, you’re going to be both, the loss of children and become widows.”
Now you remember when Nebuchadnezzar had this dream that troubled him. He could not remember the dream. He felt it had significance and so they called in all the wise men and astrologers, soothsayers and so forth to interpret for him the dream. These astrologers were very active in Babylon at that time. In fact, we get a little kick against them down in verse Isa 47:13 . Astrology was a very popular thing. They had those that could tell your horoscope and tell you when to do what according to the influence of the stars upon your life. And finally, Daniel was brought in.
And Daniel said to him, “Now the other night before you went to sleep in your mind you were wondering, ‘What is going to happen to my great kingdom and what is going to happen to the world?’ And so the God who dwells in heaven has shown unto thee what is going to happen to your kingdom and what is going to happen to the world. For in your dream, you saw this great image that had a head of gold, chest of silver, stomach of brass, legs of iron, feet of iron and clay, with ten toes. And as you watch this great image, there came a rock not cut with hands. It hit the image in its feet and the whole image fell. It crumbled and there grew from the rock. The rock grew into a mountain that covered the whole earth.” He said, “God has shown to you the kingdoms that are going to rule over the earth. And you, Nebuchadnezzar, are the head of gold. But your kingdom is going to be replaced by an inferior kingdom, as silver is inferior to gold. That kingdom will be replaced by a yet inferior kingdom, the stomach of brass, as brass is inferior to silver. And that will be replaced by iron, which is hard and stamps everything to pieces. And the final kingdom will be of ten kings, as iron and clay are mixed together. It will not have the power of the iron but they will be mixed together and it is during the time of these ten kings that the Lord of heaven shall come and set up a kingdom that shall never end.”
Nebuchadnezzar said, “I proclaim that there is no God in all the earth like the God of Daniel that is able to reveal dreams and secrets and tells things that are going to be” ( Dan 2:47 ). Acknowledged God, but turned right around and he commanded that they build a huge idol, ninety feet tall, of all gold. Now that huge idol of all gold was a direct defiance to what God had just declared.
Now there are a lot of people who proclaim there’s no god like the God of heaven, and then they go do their own thing or they defy Him. And he was defying God with this huge idol. And as Isaiah declared here, their attitude here is, “Babylon will live forever. Babylon will never be destroyed. Babylonian will never be conquered. It’s the eternal kingdom. It will rule forever.” But the prophecy is here, is in a moment, in a day, the kingdom will fall. And Babylon fell in one night as Daniel came in before Belshazzar and interpreted to him the writing that was on the wall. “MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. For your kingdom has been weighed in the balances, you’re found wanting. And this night, thy soul shall be taken from thee and your kingdom will be divided among the Medes and the Persians this night” ( Dan 5:26-28 ). And that night, Cyrus the king of Persia came under the walls of Babylon where they had diverted the river Euphrates up into the city. And that night, Belshazzar and all of his lords were slain.
Now Isaiah here is talking a hundred and fifty years before the king Cyrus was born. He’s talking, really, well in advance of the attitude that would prevail in Babylon. Declaring that they would not have mercy on the people of God. Thus Babylon was to be judged, and in a moment, in one day, they would experience the loss of their children and widowhood. “For they shall come upon thee,” the Lord said, verse Isa 47:9 , “in their perfection for the multitude of your sorceries, and for the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.'”
So many times we think that our sin is done in secret. We say, “Nobody sees me.” But when Nebuchadnezzar was walking through the garden, he heard a voice and it said, “The watchers have been watching you and you’ve not been behaving yourself. And you’re going to get cut off.” And he came to Daniel and said, “What’s this all about?” And he says, “Walk carefully, O king, you’re in a bad way. Because of the pride of your heart, you’ve exalted yourself against God.” You see, he made this golden idol. He was defying God. He was lifted up with pride and so he said, “Walk softly before the Lord that you might continue your days upon the earth.” And for a year he behaved himself and he walked softly. But at the end of the year as he was walking through the hanging gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, he said, “Is this not the great Babylon that I have built?” And he heard that voice, for the watchers were still watching. And they declared, “Because you have been lifted up in pride, you are going to be driven forth with the wild beasts for seven seasons until you know that the God in heaven rules over the earth and He sets into the kingdoms those whom He will.” And Nebuchadnezzar went insane and lived with the animals out in the field like a wild beast until his hair grew like feathers and his nails grew like claws until seven seasons have passed over him until he knew that the Lord of heaven reigns over the earth and set up the kingdoms and set on the kingdoms those whom He would. You say none sees, but there are watchers. God sees.
Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and you’ve said in your heart, I am, and there is no one beside me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it rises: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you will not know. Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, wherein you have labored from your youth; if so be that thou shalt be able to profit, if so be that you may prevail. For thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels ( Isa 47:10-13 ).
Now you remember Nebuchadnezzar calling the counselors, the wise men, soothsayers, astrologers and so forth, and here again.
Let now the astrologers, and the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee ( Isa 47:13 ).
I am really amazed in a world of science in which we live where we have made such positive scientific advancement and we’ve come to know so much about the universe in which we live. I am amazed that in this world of modern technology, that most of the newspapers publish a daily horoscope, which is superstition and comes from the ancient religions in Babylon. The charting of a person’s life, the monthly prognosticating of a person’s highs and lows and positive signs and so forth. All has superstitious origin as though the stars and the position of the stars has some kind of a mystic influence over our lives. Some people seek to govern their activities by the position of the stars in heaven. How ridiculous can you be? And yet, people have to believe in something and it is amazing the foolish things that people believe in when they’ve rejected the truth of God.
You see, the Bible declares that, “Professing themselves to be wise, they’ve become fools” ( Rom 1:22 ). The minute you rule God out of your life, you are open and susceptible to every foolish thing. And men can believe the most stupid things when they once reject God. For the Bible speaks that, “God will give them over to a delusion that they may believe a lie rather than the truth” ( 2Th 2:11 ). You don’t want to believe in God? All right, Mr. Wise Guy, we’ll show you how wise you are. And God lets people believe in such stupid, foolish, ridiculous things once they’ve rejected Him. And I look at these. What can you say that won’t get you into trouble? These professed wise people and I read of some of their actions and activities and all and I think, “And they are supposed to be so smart.” But it’s because once you have put God out of your life, you are open and susceptible to every kind of gimmick, religious or otherwise. And so people are looking into psychic phenomena and into the occult and so forth.
Having rejected God they’re open, they’re susceptible to anything. And they’re gullible. Ready to believe anything. And professing themselves to be wise, God has allowed them to become fools. “For their foolish minds are darkened. And because they do not want to retain God in their minds, God gives them over to minds that are reprobate and void of God” ( Rom 1:21 , Rom 1:28 ). So that men end up in the pit.
Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom you have labored, even your merchants, from your youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee ( Isa 47:14-15 ).
All of these wise men and astrologers, they won’t be able to save themselves, much less you. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Isa 47:1-11
Isa 47:1-4
This chapter is a prophecy of the destruction of Babylon. The Lord, through Isaiah, had already denounced the idols of that great city and had foretold their worthlessness and impotence for providing any kind of assistance to the city in the time of her calamity; but here he detailed the doom and destruction of Babylon itself. The speaker throughout is God Himself except for Isa 47:4, which may be attributed to a heavenly chorus, after the manner of the proleptic passages in Revelation, to the prophet Isaiah, or to the faithful among the captives.
The chapter consists of four strophes or stanzas, composed of 4 verses (Isa 47:1-4), 3 verses (Isa 47:5-7), 4 verses (Isa 47:8-11), and 4 verses (Isa 47:12-14). Cheyne’s rendition of the first stanza is so interesting that we have chosen it instead of the American Standard Version for the text here:
Isa 47:1-4
“Come down and sit in the dust; sit on the ground without a throne, O virgin daughter of Chaldea, for thou shalt no more be called Delicate and Luxurious. Take the millstone and grind meal; remove thy veil, strip off the train; uncover the leg, wade through the rivers. Let thy nakedness be uncovered, yea, let thy shame be seen: I will take vengeance, neither shall I meet any. As for our Goel, Jehovah Sabaoth is his name, the Holy One of Israel.”
First, we should notice the snide, derogatory remark of Wardle who wrote that, “Babylon is here erroneously personified as a virgin, as if never before captured.” The source of such a ridiculous remark is Mr. Wardle’s blind allegiance to one of the silly dictums of critical butchers of the Word of God, namely, that the application of the word “virgin” to any nation means that such a nation had never suffered defeat; but the rule is absolutely worthless. The prophet Jeremiah in the very discussion of the terrible defeat of Israel, and in fact after the loss of all the ten northern tribes wrote this: “Let mine eyes run down with tears night and day, and let them not cease, for the virgin daughter of my people is broken with a great breach” (Jer 14:17). He also, a moment later, referred to “the virgin of Israel” (Jer 18:13). It is too bad that critics like Wardle are simply ignorant of the Biblical usage of certain terminology.
Babylon indeed had frequently been defeated in her past history; it will be remembered that Sennacherib defeated Babylon and placed his son on the throne. Nothing however depreciates the appropriate beauty of this passage’s reference to the nation as “Virgin daughter of Babylon.” That, of course, was not God’s estimate of her character, but her position in the world at that time, not only as she considered it, but as all the world also recognized it.
No one should fail to see the “signature of Isaiah” in every line of this. As Delitzsch noted, “Isaiah’s artistic style may be readily perceived.”
“Our Goel …” (Isa 47:4). Has the meaning of `Our Redeemer,’ employing a Pentateuchal word for `next of kin,’ the relative who was obligated to buy back a brother Israelite sold into slavery.
“Without a throne …” (Isa 47:1). This prophecy removed forever the existence of a throne in Babylon. How could any alleged Second Isaiah have known anything like this? Yet, “It is a fact that after the capture of Babylon by Cyrus she was never more the capital of a kingdom.” Furthermore, this prevailed forever, even in the face of Alexander the Great’s announced intention of making Babylon his capital. He died before he could achieve that, and the Seleucidae retained the capital at Shushan (Susa); and Babylon gradually became a total ruin. What a powerful demonstration of the power of three little words in the sacred text of God’s Word! Without a throne!
“Take the millstones and grind meal …” (Isa 47:2). This task was considered the lowest kind of drudgery, generally assigned to slave women. Water mills or other types of power grinders were not known until the times of Augustus Caesar. No greater shame and reduction could be imagined than that of a princess, or queen, undergoing such a calamity. In place of her royal clothing and finery, she would wear the coarse garments of a peasant. Moreover, her work would be as a domestic among the numerous canals of suburban Babylon, where she would have to wade them, exposing her legs, or in cases of even deeper water, lifting her skirts to reveal her nakedness!
Such humiliation of women was also mentioned in Nahum where the Lord said of Nineveh:
“Behold, I am against thee, saith Jehovah of hosts, and I will uncover thy skirts upon thy face: and I will show the nations thy nakedness, and the kingdoms thy shame” (Nah 3:5).
The exact meaning of Isa 47:3 is disputed, but Henderson wrote that it means, “I will not meet thee as a man but as God, whom none can resist.”
Summarizing the teaching of these first four verses(Isa 47:1-4), Archer has this:
“The passage presents vanquished Babylon, cast down from imperial power, reduced to the status of a half-naked slave gift grinding meal with the heavy grindstones. Babylon would never rise again to independence or imperial power.”
Hailey stressed the fact that such terrible punishments upon Babylon were deserved. “The very foundation upon which the throne of God rests demands an avenging of all unrighteousness, a vindication of His righteous and holy Godhead, and of his sacred laws. God will neither withdraw the declaration of his judgments nor make exceptions to them.”
Before leaving this first strophe, we must note that Babylon here, and throughout the Bible, is a symbol of carnal pride and enmity against the eternal God. There are no less than three Babylons in scripture: (1) the literal Babylon here spoken of, (2) the spiritual Babylon, identified as the beast coming up out of the earth in Revelation 13, and (3) Babylon the Great, also called Mystery Babylon the Great, which was defined by Leon Morris as, “Man in organized community, and opposed to God.” This Babylon, in short is urban civilization in its corporate rebellion against Almighty God. It is given three names in Rev 11:8, where it is called Egypt, Sodom, and Jerusalem (where the Lord was crucified); but it is not a single city anywhere on earth; it is all the cities of mankind, where are entrenched the luxuries, the godlessness, the sensual pleasures, the wickedness, the pride, arrogance and atheism which were the essential characteristics of the first Babylon. The three Babylons are: Ancient Babylon, The Apostate Christian Church, and Godless Urban Civilization.
And we have pointed all this out in order to emphasize that the doom of Babylon here is a type of the ultimate doom of Mystery Babylon the Great, which will occur at the eschatalogical conclusion of the present dispensation of the Mercy of God.
Isa 47:5-7
“Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people, I profaned mine inheritance, and gave them into thy hand: thou didst show them no mercy; upon the aged hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. And thou saidest, I shall be mistress forever; so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end thereof.”
God here revealed why His anger was kindled against Babylon. For the necessary punishment of Israel, God, for a season had committed them to Babylon to achieve that punishment; but Babylon went far beyond anything that was just. “They exceeded the bounds of justice and humanity by oppressing and destroying God’s people; and although they were punishing God’s rebellious people, yet as it regarded themselves, they were only indulging their greed, lust, ambition, and violence.” The Prophet Zechariah gave this comment on what happened: “I was but a little angry, and they helped forward the affliction” (Isa 1:15).
There is a similar pattern throughout God’s dealings with mankind. When a nation’s wickedness has exceeded all boundaries, God uses another wicked nation to punish them; but that punishment is usually excessive with a result that the erstwhile executor of God’s punishment becomes itself the object of punishment by still another! The revelation should not be overlooked here that God controls and directs all history, according to his will. See Dan 4:25.
“The sorrows of Babylon are her proper fate; there can be no mercy, for she has shown none (Jas 2:13). Yet the terrible description here arouses an emotion of pity on our part. Yes, it is the triumph of justice, but it is equally the exhibition of an unspeakable tragedy, that of sinful departure from the will of God.
Isa 47:8-11
“Now therefore hear this, thou that art given to pleasures, that sittest securely, that sayest in thy heart, I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: but these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come upon thee, in the multitude of thy sorceries, and the great abundance of thine enchantments. For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; thou hast said, None seeth me; thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thy heart, I am, and there is none else besides me. Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know the dawning thereof: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou knowest not.” The various sins of Babylon are listed here: (1) her egotistical boasting; (2) her reliance upon the black arts of sorcery and enchantments; (3) her having given herself wholly to lustful, sinful pleasures; (4) her trusting in her wickedness; (5) her over-confident sense of security; (6) her reliance upon her own wisdom and knowledge; and (7) most importantly of all the attitude that is mentioned twice, in Isa 47:8; Isa 47:10, her self-deification visible in her thoughts that, “I am, and there is none else besides me!” What is glaringly plain in such an attitude is that there is no consciousness of God or belief in Him whatsoever. This was the greatest and the worst of Babylon’s sins.
The false sense of security in Babylon was described by Xenophon thus: “The inhabitants of Babylon could not but have laughed at the siege of Cyrus, knowing that they had provisions for more than twenty years; and they treated his siege with mockery.” They had never learned the lesson that “Unless the Lord build the house, they labor in vain that build it; and unless the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain” (Psa 127:1).
Isa 47:1-6 ABASED: Babylon is going to come down from its pinnacle of world rulership. In fact, she is going to lose her identity as a nation altogether. The Hebew word bethulath is translated virgin. It probably refers to the idea that Babylon (from her conquest of Nineveh about 612 B.C. until being conquered by Cyrus 539 B.C.) never suffered foreign invasion. She was untouched until Cyrus spoiled her.
The words raccah and anuggah, translated tender and delicate probably emphasize the luxuriousness of Babylonian life; raccah literally means effeminancy and anuggah means pleasure, luxury, sport. They are descriptive of the indulgent, immoral wickedness of Babylon. From her position as pampered, indulged, haughty queen of the world she would be dethroned and abased. She would become like the lowliest servant-girl doing the most humiliating tasks. Grinding meal is the hardest, most menial task for women slaves. Removal of the veil and stripping off the train means to take off the clothing of a lady of leisure and put on the clothing of a common slave. Uncovering the leg and passing through the rivers probably pictures a slave-girl rolling up her garments to walk across streams and rivers bearing burdens for her master. Slaves were simply the property of their owners and could be treated anyway the owner desired. Most of them, especially women, were treated shamefully. When sold in the slave market they were undressed and their bodies exposed, more to humiliate them than anything else. Jehovah is going to expose Babylon for what it really is. The whole world will see Babylon naked, without all the false luxury and haughtiness she arrogated to herself. God will spare no man-no human being on the face of the earth will deter Jehovah from His humiliation of Babylon.
Verse four is a pause of praise on the part of the prophet. It is like those digressions of the apostle Paul in Ephesians and Romans. The sovereign program of Gods redemption for Israel elicits spontaneous testimony from Isaiah to Babylon that the Redeemer of Israel is Jehovah (Covenant-God) of hosts, the Holy One of Israel. The testimony also serves to show the contrast between Israels God and the gods of Babylon. Israels God would raise her out of humiliation to glory (through the Servant-Messiah to come), while Babylons gods would be impotent to save them from going from glory to humiliation.
When Babylons degradation comes at the hand of Jehovah she will sit silently dumbfounded. Her shameful humiliation by the conquering Medes and Persians was totally unexpected and incomprehensible from a human point of view. She was the one upon whom the spotlight of the world was focused; but her prominence will soon be gone-all will be darkness for her. She shall no longer be the queen of the world. The Hebrew word gevereth is translated mistress but it does not mean mistress in the sense of a kept woman or a fornicator. Gevereth means mistress in the sense of royalty, hence, a queen. The proper name Gabriel comes from the same root. The wealth and luxury and power of Babylon was almost unbelievable. No other empire before had exerted such influence on the world. But it would all disappear suddenly because she opposed and humiliated the covenant people of Jehovah.
God has been talking of mighty Babylon, but suddenly the little nation of Judah moves into the center of the picture. The center of history is Gods covenant people not the mighty empires which seem to dominate the world. Gods people strayed from their messianic destiny and incurred the holy wrath of God. He allowed profane Babylon to swallow up Judah for a proper period of chastening. But even profane and pagan people are subject to certain moral standards before the Absolute God (cf. Amos ch. 1-2). The obvious standards of humane treatment were not observed toward the Jews, especially toward older people. Babylon apparently ignored the commonest laws of reasonableness and mercifulness (cf. Rom 1:18 f) written on the consciences of most human beings (cf. comments on verse ten below). Therefore Jehovah will judge her. One should read Isaiah ch. 13-14; Jeremiah 50-51; Daniel 1-5 in connection with these verses.
Isa 47:7-11 ABUSED: Babylon boasted that she would be gevereth (mistress) or queen forever. She never gave a thought to the warnings of conscience or the lessons of history. Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it! She seemed unaware of the natural law all around that whatever is sown is eventually reaped. She did not seem to consider where such haughty disregard for humaneness and mercy might lead. The failure of tyrants and dictators to learn where cruelty and immorality ends is almost incredible! It was difficult for most of the world of the 1940s to believe Adolph Hitler was ignorant that the atrocities of the Third Reich would lead to self-destruction. But Hitler did not remember the latter end thereof and slaughtered over six million people in his concentration camps which eventuated in degradation and partitioning of Germany which it had never known before.
Aediynah is from the Hebrew root adan and means voluptuousness, pleasurable, luxurious, sensuous. It is the same root from which we get Eden (Gen 2:8, etc.). One only has to read Daniel ch. 5 to understand that Babylon was characterized by its bent to pleasure. The kings of Babylon apparently had as their goal the satisfaction of their every pleasure. Wealth, wine and women gave them security. They used their wealth to build gold-plated gods and temples; a massive city with huge, thick walls; hanging gardens and banquet halls; then retired to admire the work of their hands and revel in the sensuous luxury of it all. They told themselves this is great Babylon. . . (cf. Dan 4:28-30). All the world, even the majority of the Jewish people, stood in awe of mighty Babylon. The world expected Babylon to exist forever. Certainly Babylon herself never expected to mourn like a widow or a mother who has lost her children. She anticipated eternal reveling and gaiety and luxury. Apparently the emperors of Babylon decreed themselves to be gods (cf. Isa 14:12-14), and believed themselves to be invincible (much like Adolph Hitler, centuries later). But the real Sovereign of the world, Jehovah, predicts that exactly what Babylon said could never happen would happen suddenly and fully. The haughty and satiated Babylonians would one day mourn and grieve like a woman who has lost her husband and a young mother whose children have died tragic deaths. Their affliction would be without warning and in full measure. One day on top of the world; the next day devastated and conquered by the Persians. Babylon fell in one night! (cf. Dan. ch. 5). Babylon was noted for its multitude of astrologers and sorcerers. She was famous for her magic. No other nation since has been as prolific or elaborate in its cultivation of such sorcery. Babylons whole culture, political, economic and religious was built around its astrologers and enchanters and wise-men. In spite of this elaborate and long established system of pseudo-science and religion, Babylon would fall. Her star-gazers would not be able to work magic or charm away the judgment of Jehovah.
Babylon trusted in its wickedness. There is a false sense of autonomy and sovereignty that comes as a result of deliberately practiced wickedness. That is what the devil promised Eve in the Garden of Eden (. . . in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil . . .). Professing to be wise, they became fools. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie. They refused to have God in their knowledge (cf. Rom 1:22-32). Babylon trusted in her cruelty and cunning and decided she could do as she pleased and no one could stop her. She believed she was sovereign. There was no One to whom she could be held accountable (None seeth me . . .). This wicked exercise of power seared Babylons conscience-it perverted her reason. She went against the most fundamental revelation of nature itself (that there is a divine power higher than man to whom man is morally responsible-cf. Rom 1:18-21) and denied the existence of God.
But judgment (evil) will surely come upon haughty Babylon. She will now know the shakherah (dawning) of it. This probably means (in keeping with the context) she will not be able to conjure away or able to keep it from coming by all her incantations and sorceries. There are three different Hebrew words used to describe the judgment: raah (break in pieces, calamity, evil); hovah (mischief, or, literally, yawning-utter destruction); shoah (deserted, wasted, desolation). These words give a graphic description of the process of Babylons judgment. It will come suddenly. Daniel; ch. 5, records that Babylons overthrow came in one night! It was completely unexpected! First she was broken, then came the destruction and to this day there is only a deserted waste place where once mighty Babylon stood. The fall of Babylon is inexplicable except as one understands the prophecy of God by Isaiah!
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The prophecy is now addressed to Babylon itself, and in language full of force and beauty describes its judgment. The description is fourfold. First, the degradation of the city is foretold. From a proud position it is to descend to grinding and shame.
Moreover, this is to be a position of disgrace. Babylon is to pass into darkness, and no more to be called “The Lady of Kingdoms.”
Yet again the judgment is to issue in desolation. The proud city which had made its boast that it could not be moved, and would never know sorrow, is to be made childless and widowed in a day, and this in spite of all sorcery and enchantment.
Finally, the judgment will be the utter destruction of the city. The fire will not be for comfort, but for burning, and all those who had trafficked with the city from her youth will abandon her, there being none to save.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
the Penalty of Trusting in Wickedness
Isa 47:1-15
Babylon dwelt in careless security. She was given to pleasures, Isa 47:8; and said in her heart that her vast crowd of astrologers, magicians, and priests, would certainly warn her of impending evil and deliver her. But nothing could be more absolute than her fall. For centuries she has been buried under mounds of desolation, while the Hebrew people, whom she so cruelly oppressed, are the monument of Gods preserving mercy. The fact is that Babylon exceeded her duty. She was used as Jehovahs chastising rod upon the Hebrews, but she was merciless in the extreme in her behavior and for this excess she suffered. Compare Isa 47:6 with Zec 1:15.
Notice Isa 47:4. The prophet turns from the overthrow of the proud city to remind his people that Babylons tribulation is due to the redeeming arm of God; and we must never forget that in the midst of her overthrow there was a thread of golden mercy. The loved that brooded over Nineveh must have been there. See Jon 4:10-11.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
EXPOSITORY NOTES ON
THE PROPHET ISAIAH
By
Harry A. Ironside, Litt.D.
Copyright @ 1952
edited for 3BSB by Baptist Bible Believer in the spirit of the Colportage ministry of a century ago
ISAIAH CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
THE DOWNFALL OF BABYLON
“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 thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. As for our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms” (verses 1-5).
IN THE first part of this book we drew attention to the fact that Babylon was the very fountainhead of idolatry. According to the best records idolatry began there. A famous book, The Two Babylons, (by Alexander Hislop) gives the details and proofs of this.
Babylon, by her sorceries, her enchantments, is said to have bewitched the nations. Nation after nation followed her in the practice of idolatry. She was called, “The Lady of Kingdoms”; her wealth, and her culture surpassed those of any nation around her. But GOD, looking far ahead to the time when Cyrus and his army would come against her, says, “Thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms” (vs. 5).
The day was coming when she would be stripped and laid bare, all her treasures destroyed, and everything taken away from her, when GOD would prove that her idols had absolutely no power, but His word should stand. He speaks of her folly in turning for confidence to the star-gazers, the astrologers, the monthly prognosticators.
“Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the star-gazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at,
nor fire to sit before it. Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander everyone to his quarter; none shall save thee” (verses 12-15).
Wherever people turn away from the one, true and living GOD and refuse the Word of GOD, they are always ready to turn to other things. It has been characteristic down through the centuries that when men, great leaders, gave up confidence in GOD and His Word they readily became the prey of all sorts of charlatans. Even the infamous Hitler had a special astrologer whom he consulted as to lucky and unlucky days, and suitable times to attack nations. He consulted the map of the stars to see what was indicated. That began at Babylon. Centuries ago they had their astrologers, their star-gazers.
An astrologer and an astronomer must not be confused. Astronomy is an exact science, astrology is a fraud, a fake. Yet how many people give heed to it. Many of our newspapers contain astrologers’ reports from month to month, and people are foolish enough to believe them. Some of the greatest operators on the Market in New York City, I have been credibly informed, when it comes to making big deals never do a thing without consulting an astrologer. Men still believe in these worse than follies. They turn away from the Word of the living GOD to turn unto fables.
While in Los Angeles years ago I went down one day on the electric line to Long Beach, just to have a little relaxation on a Saturday. I was all worn out with so many meetings and I had hardly taken my seat when a Bulgarian gypsy came along in a red dress with some spangles across her brow, and long braids of black hair. She sat right down beside me, and took my hand.
Then she said, “Gentleman-gentleman – you cross my palm with silver- 25 cents – I tell you past, present, future. I am seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. I born with a veil on. I can tell all mysteries.”
I said, grabbing her by the hand, “Well, it isn’t really necessary – because I’ve had that all told already.”
“But oh!” she said, “I am expert – I know very exact – past, present, future.”
“Yes, but I got it from an expert – I have it here in a little book.” And I pulled out, with my other hand, my New Testament and turned to the second chapter of the book of the Ephesians. I said, “Here, I’ve got my past, present and future. Here’s the past: ‘You hath He quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according . . . to the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience.'”
“Oh, what is that, a Bible? I got the wrong man. I got the wrong man. Let go.”
“No,” I said, “I won’t let go, I didn’t ask you to come down here and take hold of me. Now that I’ve got you, you’re going to stay here. Now I’ll give you the rest of it.
Now I’ll give you my present: ‘But God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, Even when we were dead in sins, hath quickened us together with Christ . . .
by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.’ – That’s my present.”
“That’s all right. That’s all right. I’ve got enough. Good-bye.”
I said, “Wait a minute. I haven’t given you it all yet. Now,” I said, “here’s my future: ‘That in the ages to come He might shew the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.'”
“Yes, gentleman – I’ve got enough,” and she gave such a pull she was gone. And down the car she went saying, “I got the wrong man – I got the wrong man.”
A passenger in a railroad train one day was reading his Bible when a dapper-looking gentleman came along, looked at it and said, “Oh, reading the Bible? Do you believe the Bible? I didn’t think that any educated people believed in the Bible any more. You look like a cultured man, and I’m surprised that you’re reading that. I believe the day will soon come when people will no more believe in the Bible than they believe in ghosts and witches, like our forefathers.”
“My friend,” remarked the Bible-reading gentleman, “when people reach the place where they do not believe in the Bible any more, they believe in witches and ghosts again.”
That is true. How many have turned away from the Word of GOD to Spiritism and Theosophy and other occult systems that profess to have to do with the dead. That is Babylonianism, come right down through the centuries.
GOD has judged it all and He puts it all, as it were, to one side. “Why do men need this? Here am I, infinite in wisdom, power and might, and ready in grace to reveal Myself to the man who seeks My face.”
~ end of chapter 47 ~
http://www.baptistbiblebelievers.com/
***
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Isa 47:11-15
I. Look at this picture of utter and most painful bewilderment. It is the necessary and inevitable result of sin.
II. Hear the Divine challenge addressed to the false powers in which we have trusted.
III. See the doom of false securities. (1) We cannot escape the trial of our securities. (2) If we set ourselves against God, we challenge all the forces of His creation.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 114; see also Pulpit Notes, p. 214.
References: Isa 47:14.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 444. Isa 48:8.-Ibid., vol. xiii., No. 779; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 353. Isa 48:9-11.-Ibid., Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1041. Isa 48:10.-Ibid., vol. i., No. 35, vol. xxiv., No. 1430; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 63; Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., p. 501. Isa 48:10.-G. Calthrop, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 33; J. Keble, Sermons for Saints’ Days, p. 199.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 47
A Description of the Fall of Babylon
1. Babylons degradation announced (Isa 47:1-3) 2. Israel acknowledges the redeemer (Isa 47:4) 3. Retribution for Babylon (Isa 47:5-7) 4. The destruction swift and sure (Isa 47:8-15) In chapter 14 a similar description of Babylon and the fall of the king of Babylon is recorded. All has its meaning for the future.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
down: Isa 3:26, Isa 26:5, Isa 52:2, Job 2:8, Job 2:13, Psa 18:27, Jer 13:18, Jer 48:18, Lam 2:10, Lam 2:21, Eze 26:16, Eze 28:17, Oba 1:3, Oba 1:4, Jon 3:6
O virgin: Isa 37:22, Jer 46:11
daughter: Psa 137:8, Jer 50:42, Jer 51:33, Zec 2:7
there is: Isa 14:13, Isa 14:14, Psa 89:44, Hag 2:22
thou shalt: Isa 47:7-9, Isa 32:9-11, Deu 28:56, Deu 28:57, Lam 4:5, Rev 18:7
Reciprocal: 2Ki 19:21 – The virgin Isa 13:1 – of Babylon Isa 14:6 – is persecuted Isa 23:7 – her own Isa 23:12 – thou oppressed Isa 32:11 – strip Jer 25:12 – perpetual Jer 25:26 – drink Jer 27:7 – until Jer 50:1 – against Babylon Jer 51:29 – every Lam 1:1 – sit Lam 1:21 – thou wilt Dan 5:20 – deposed Dan 5:26 – God Nah 3:18 – nobles 1Ti 5:6 – in pleasure
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
A LOWLY SEAT
Come down, and sit in the dust.
Isa 47:1
I. To Israel the Divine summons is to arise from the dust and sit on the throne; to Babylon to come down from the throne and sit in the dust.He that humbleth himself shall be exalted, he that exalteth himself shall be made low.
The sin charged on Babylon is her mercilessness. She was sent by God to execute judgment on the chosen people, but she performed her work very cruelly, and, therefore, she herself fell under the just judgment of the Almighty. The Jews were Gods chosen instruments in consummating the death of Jesus, but because they did it with wicked hands their city was left to them desolate.
II. God even now is judging nations, and we may well lift our prayers on behalf of our beloved country.She has been undoubtedly chosen of all the nations under heaven for great pioneering work. To colonise, to civilise heathen races, to make roadways across the ocean, to link the whole world by the nerves of telegraph wires, to carry the Gospel to every peoplesuch has been her mission. But how much sin has mingled with its performance!the evil example of the soldiers, sailors, and civilians; lust, drink, fire-water, rapacity, land-grabbing. Let Great Britain be warned by the fate of Babylon.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
Isa 47:1-2. Come down From thy throne; and sit in the dust As a mourner for thy approaching calamities; O virgin daughter of Babylon Thou that art tender and delicate like a virgin. Sit on the ground In a condition the most abject and degraded. There is no throne Namely, for thee. Imperial power is taken from thee, and translated to the Persians. Thou shalt no more be called tender Thou shalt be reduced to the greatest hardships and miseries. Take the millstones Thou shalt be subjected to the basest kind of slavery, which grinding at the mill was esteemed; for that work was most generally performed by slaves. The reader will observe, they used hand-mills: water-mills were not invented till a little before the time of Augustus Cesar: wind-mills long after. It was not only the work of slaves to grind corn, but the hardest work; and often inflicted upon them as a severe punishment. And in the East it was the work of female slaves, Exo 11:5; Exo 12:29; (in the version of the LXX.;) Mat 24:41. And it is the same to this day. Women alone, says Shaw, p. 297, are employed to grind their corn. They are the female slaves, says Sir. J. Chardin, that are generally employed in the East at those hand-mills: it is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest employment in the house. Bishop Lowth. Uncover thy locks Take off the ornaments wherewith such women as were of good quality used to cover and dress their heads. These are predictions of what they should be forced to do or suffer. Make bare the leg, &c. Gird up thy garments close and short about thee, that thou mayest be fit for travelling on foot, and for passing over those rivers through which thou wilt be constrained to wade in the way to the land of thy captivity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 47:2. Take the millstones and grind meal. Prepare the weekly loaf, as was anciently the custom, a work which the servants performed with handmills.
Isa 47:4. Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts. He who redeemed us from Egypt, will redeem us from Babylon by the Persians, and throw the yoke of servitude on our oppressors.
Isa 47:7. Thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever. Oh virgin, how couldst thou dream of this, seeing every city within the grasp of thy wide empire has been stormed and ravished by thine invading armies. Shall the Lord visit other metropolitan cities for their sins, and never visit thee for the blood of all nations.
Isa 47:9. These two things shall come to thee in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood. This was partly fulfilled in the sudden manner in which Cyrus stormed Babylon. But about twenty years afterward, when the Chaldeans had gotten a little strength, taking advantage of the absence of the Persian kings, they rebelled; and on being closely besieged by Darius, when the provisions grew short, it was agreed in counsel that every man should go home, and kill all his wives, with the exception of one, and all other persons who could not be useful in defending the city. So in one night they were made widowers. From that time, Babylon was gradually deserted, and the city of Seleucia rose in grandeur. Bagdad is built on the ruins of Seleucia, at the confluence of the Euphrates and the Tigris by the canal.
Isa 47:10. Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness. Babylon, like most other nations, was very religious in the time of trouble. She fled to her star- gazers and sorcerers for counsel and comfort. They all promised her deliverance and relief, and doubled her misery by deception.
Isa 47:13. Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. The confusion of the Chaldaic oracles greatly augmented their distress of mind. Heaven made their diviners mad.
REFLECTIONS.
Isaiah had severely censured the vain and haughty women of Zion, chap. 3:32.; and now he was directed to censure with equal severity the delicate women of Babylon. He in effect addresses them in language of the keenest satire that can possibly be composed. He calls Babylon a virgin, who was in idolatries the mother of harlots. They had sat on couches and thrones; now they must bewail their dead, sitting on the cold earth. They had been cruel to the captive women of Israel, and made no distinction between the old and the young; now their delicate hands must take hold of the handmills, and grind the corn for their Persian lords. They indulged in superb dresses; now they must go into captivity almost naked, and ford rivers with their tender feet. They had been addicted to nocturnal pleasures, had lived carelessly, and were soothed by sorcerers; they had trusted in their wickedness, and said, none seeth. Therefore the anger of heaven burned against them to the last extreme; and the Lord would not meet them as one who might be softened by their tears, but as an avenging God. In one night the loss of children and widowhood should come upon them. Cyrus took the city in the night; and notwithstanding his famed humanity, there was a most dreadful carnage; they put to death all they found in the streets. But the wicked, reprieved for a moment, proved themselves unworthy of life. The haughty Babylonians soon rebelled against Darius; and being pressed with a sore siege in order to hold out to the last extremity, every man who had more than one wife, chose the woman he loved best, and strangled all the others, that useless persons might not exhaust the provisions. What a stroke at polygamy! But what a striking completion of prophecy; and what a contrast between those who trust in the Lord, and those who trust diviners and earthly hopes. And were the women of Babylon more vain and effeminate, more secure and corrupt, than the fashionable ladies of our own times? Were they more disposed to dress, and to indulge in nocturnal entertainments and pleasures? In this reverse of life, from the summit of Babylonian pride to the dregs of misery, we have a most instructive mirror for modern ages, and for the fashionable circles of society in particular. Happy is that soul, truly disposed to reformation, and to learn wisdom from the divine counsel.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 47:1-15. A Taunt-Song of Triumph on the Fall of Babylon.
Isa 47:1-7. Babylon, erroneously personified as a virgin, as if never before captured, is bidden descend from the effeminate ease of her throne to the menial task of grinding the hand-mill. The garments of a secluded princess she must lay aside, to wade through the fords. For Yahwehs vengeance is inexorable, and she who queened it over the kingdoms of the earth must go into the darkness of captivity. When Yahweh, angry with His people, suffered His land to be profaned by the invader, and His people to be taken captive to Babylon, she treated them with cruelty, thinking ever to maintain her proud position, unaware that this was Yahwehs doing and that He would control its issue.
Isa 47:8-15. But though she lives in voluptuous ease and, serenely insolent, boasts her unrivalled position, she shall be bereaved of husbandthe figure changes to that of a favourite wife in the haremand children in one moment, nor shall the magic in which the Babylonians were pre-eminent and arrogantly confident ward off the danger. Calamity shall come which all these resources will be powerless to avert. Let her try these impotent magical arts! Let the astrologers and compilers of the monthly calendars of lucky and unlucky days help her now! They shall be as stubble licked up by the flame of disaster. Unable to save themselves, how can they deliver her? They stumble to destruction and she is left to her fate.
Isa 47:3 f. and will . . . redeemer: read, and will not refrain saith our redeemer.
Isa 47:7. Render, I shall live for ever, a queen to eternity. Thou didst not, etc.
Isa 47:8. carelessly: care-free.
Isa 47:9. in their full measure: LXX and Syr. suddenly.
Isa 47:11. Read mg.
Isa 47:12. Stand now: render, persist, pray.strike terror (mg.): i.e. into the demon who causes the calamity.
Isa 47:13. from . . . thee: connect with prognosticators, and render, prognosticators of the quarters whence (evil) shall come upon thee.
Isa 47:15 b. Render, Such have they proved to thee for whom thou didst toil from thy youth (omitting they that have trafficked).
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
47:1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O {a} virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: [there is] no {b} throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
(a) Which has lived in wealth and wantonness and has not yet been overcome by any enemies.
(b) Your government will be taken from you.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
A call to Babylon 47:1-4
The first four verses constitute the introduction to the oracle.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
God depicted Babylon here as a rather prissy virgin. The city, representing the kingdom of Babylon, had, like a virgin, thus far not experienced the breaching of her walls by invaders. The Lord summoned her to sit on the ground, rather than on the throne that she intended to occupy. Sitting in the dust was an act that depicted great mourning (cf. Jon 3:6). She thought that she would be a queen, but in reality she would become a common, even a humiliated, beggar. Other peoples had regarded her as superior, but she would no longer be that. The Chaldeans were the residents of southern Mesopotamia, who had been the leaders in throwing off Assyrian dominance, and had provided the leadership for Neo-Babylonia.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22
CHAPTER IX
FOUR POINTS OF A TRUE RELIGION
Isa 43:1-28 – Isa 48:1-22
WE have now surveyed the governing truths of Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22 : the One God, omnipotent and righteous; the One People, His servants and witnesses to the world; the nothingness of all other gods and idols before Him; the vanity and ignorance of their diviners, compared with His power, who, because He has a purpose working through all history, and is both faithful to it and almighty to bring it to pass, can inspire His prophets to declare beforehand the facts that shall be. He has brought His people into captivity for a set time, the end of which is now near. Cyrus the Persian, already upon the horizon, and threatening Babylon, is to be their deliverer. But whomever He raises up on Israels behalf, God is always Himself their foremost champion. Not only is His word upon them, but His heart is among them. He bears the brunt of their battle, and their deliverance, political and spiritual, is His own travail and agony. Whomever else He summons on the stage, He remains the true hero of the drama.
Now, chapters 43-48 are simply the elaboration and more urgent offer of all these truths, under the sense of the rapid approach of Cyrus upon Babylon. They declare again Gods unity, omnipotence, and righteousness, they confirm His forgiveness of His people, they repeat the laughter at the idols, they give us nearer views of Cyrus, they answer the doubts that many orthodox Israelites felt about this Gentile Messiah; chapters 46 and 47 describe Babylon as if on the eve of her fall, and chapter 48, after Jehovah more urgently than ever presses upon reluctant Israel to show the results of her discipline in Babylon, closes with a call to leave the accursed city, as if the way were at last open. This call has been taken as the mark of a definite division of our prophecy. But too much must not be put upon it. It is indeed the first call to depart from Babylon; but it is not the last. And although chapter 49, and the chapters following, speak more of Zions Restoration and less of the Captivity, yet chapter 49 is closely connected with chapter 48, and we do not finally leave Babylon behind till Isa 52:12. Nevertheless, in the meantime chapter 48 will form a convenient point on which to keep our eyes.
Cyrus, when we last saw him, was upon the banks of the Halys, 546 B.C., startling Croesus and the Lydian Empire into extraordinary efforts, both of a religious and political kind, to avert his attack. He had just come from an unsuccessful attempt upon the northern frontier of Babylon, and at first it appeared as if he were to find no better fortune on the western border of Lydia. In spite of his superior numbers, the Lydian army kept the ground on which he met them in battle. But Croesus, thinking that the war was over for the season, fell back soon afterwards on Sardis, and Cyrus, following him up by forced marches, surprised him under the walls of the city, routed the famous Lydian cavalry by the novel terror of his camels, and after a siege of fourteen days sent a few soldiers to scale a side of the citadel too steep to be guarded by the defenders; and so Sardis, its king and its empire, lay at his feet. This Lydian campaign of Cyrus, which is related by Herodotus, is worth noting here for the light it throws on the character of the man, whom according to our prophecy, God chose to be His chief instrument in that generation. If his turning back from Babylonia, eight years before he was granted an easy entrance to her capital, shows how patiently Cyrus could wait upon fortune, his quick march upon Sardis is the brilliant evidence that when fortune showed the way, she found this Persian an obedient and punctual follower. The Lydian campaign forms as good an illustration as we shall find of these texts of our prophet: “He pursueth them, he passeth in safety; by a way he (almost) treads not with his feet. He cometh upon satraps as on mortar, and as the potter treadeth upon clay. {Isa 12:3} I have holden his right hand to bring down before him nations, and the loins of kings will I loosen,” (poor ungirt Croesus, for instance, relaxing so foolishly after his victory!) “to open before him doors, and gates shall not be shut” (so was Sardis unready for him), “I go before thee, and will level the ridges; doors of brass I will shiver, and bolts of iron cut in sunder. And I will give to thee treasures of darkness, hidden riches of secret places.” {Isa 45:1-3} Some have found in this an allusion to the immense hoards of Croesus, which fell to Cyrus with Sardis.
With Lydia, the rest of Asia Minor, including the cities of the Greeks, who held the coast of the Aegean, was bound to come into the Persians hands. But the process of subjection turned out to be a tong one. The Greeks got no help from Greece. Sparta sent to Cyrus an embassy with a threat, but the Persian laughed at it and it came to nothing. Indeed, Spartas message was only a temptation to this irresistible warrior to carry his fortunate arms into Europe. His own presence, however, was required in the East, and his lieutenants found the thorough subjection of Asia Minor a task requiring several years. It cannot have well been concluded before 540, and while it was in progress we understand why Cyrus did not again attack Babylonia. Meantime, he was occupied with lesser tribes to the north of Media.
Cyrus second campaign against Babylonia opened in 539. This time he avoided the northern wall from which he had been repulsed in 546. Attacking Babylonia from the east, he crossed the Tigris, beat the Babylonian king into Borsippa, laid siege to that fortress and marched on Babylon, which was held by the kings son, Belshazzar, Bil-sarussur. All the world knows the supreme generalship by which Cyrus is said to have captured Babylon without assaulting the walls, from whose impregnable height their defenders showered ridicule upon him; how he made himself master of Nebuchadrezzars great bason at Sepharvaim, and turned the Euphrates into it; and how, before the Babylonians had time to notice the dwindling of the waters in their midst, his soldiers waded down the river bed, and by the river gates surprised the careless citizens upon a night of festival. But recent research makes it more probable that her inhabitants themselves surrendered Babylon to Cyrus.
Now it was during the course of the events just sketched, but before their culmination in the fall of Babylon, that chapters 43-48 were composed. That, at least, is what they themselves suggest. In three passages, which deal with Cyrus or with Babylon, some of the verbs are in the past, some in the future. Those in the past tense describe the calling and full career of Cyrus or the beginning of preparations against Babylon. Those in the. future tense promise Babylons fall or Cyrus completion of the liberation of the Jews. Thus, in Isa 43:14 it is written: “For your sakes I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down as fugitives all of them, and the Chaldeans in the ships of their rejoicing.” Surely these words announce that BabyIons fate was already on the way to her, but not yet arrived. Again, in the verses which deal with Cyrus himself, Isa 45:1-6, which we have partly quoted, the Persian is already “grasped by his right hand by God, and called”; but his career is not over, for God promises to do various things for him. The third passage is Isa 45:13 of the same chapter, where Jehovah says, “I have stirred him up in righteousness, and” changing to the future tense, “all his ways will I level; he shall build My city, and My captivity shall he send away.” What could be more precise than the tenor of all these passages? If people would only take our prophet at his word; if with all their belief in the inspiration of the text of Scripture, they would only pay attention to its grammar, which surely, on their own theory, is also thoroughly sacred, then there would be today no question about the date of Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22. As plainly as grammar can enable it to do, this prophecy speaks of Cyrus campaign against Babylon as already begun, but of its completion as still future. Chapter 48, it is true, assumes events as still farther developed, but we will come to it afterwards.
During Cyrus preparations, then, for invading Babylonia, and in prospect of her certain fall, chapters 43-48 repeat with greater detail and impetuosity the truths, which we have already gathered from chapters 40-42.
1. And first of these comes naturally the omnipotence, righteousness, and personal urgency of Jehovah Himself. Everything is again assured by His power and purpose; everything starts from His initiative. To illustrate this we could quote from almost every verse in the chapters under consideration. “I, I Jehovah, and there is none beside Me a Saviour. I am God”-El. “Also from today on I am He. I will work, and who shall let it? I am Jehovah. I, I am He that blotteth out thy transgressions. I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God”-Elohim. “Is there a God,” Eloah, “beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any. I Jehovah, Maker of all things. I am Jehovah, and there is none else; beside Me there is no God. I am Jehovah, and there is none else. Former of light and Creator of darkness, Maker of peace and Creator of evil, I am Jehovah, Maker of all these. I am Jehovah, and there is none else, God,” Elohini, “beside Me, God-Righteous,” El Ssaddiq, “and a Saviour: there is none except: Me. Face Me, and be saved all ends of the earth; for I am God,” El, “and there is none else. Only in Jehovah-of Me shall they say-are righteousnesses and strength. I am God,” El, “and there is none else; God,” Elohim, “and there is none like Me. I am He; I am First, yea, I am Last. I, I have spoken. I have declared it.”
It is of advantage to gather together so many passages-and they might have been increased-from chapters 43-48. They let us see at a glance what a part the first personal pronoun plays in the Divine revelation. Beneath every religious truth is the unity of God. Behind every great movement is the personal initiative, and urgency of God. And revelation is, in its essence, not the mere publication of truths about God, but the personal presence and communication to men of God Himself. Three words are used for Deity-El, Eloah, Elohim-exhausting the Divine terminology. But besides these, there is a formula which puts the point even more sharply: “I am He.” It was the habit of the Hebrew nation, and indeed of all Semitic peoples, who shared their reverent unwillingness to name the Deity, to speak of Him simply by the third personal pronoun. The Book of Job is full of instances of the habit, and it also appears in many proper names, as Eli-hu, “My God-is-He,” Abi-hu, “My-Father-is-He.” Renan adduces the practice as evidence that the Semites were “naturally monotheistic,”-as evidence for what was never the case! But if there was no original Semitic monotheism for this practice to prove, we may yet take the practice as evidence for the personality of the Hebrew God. The God of the prophets is not the it, which Mr. Matthew Arnold so strangely thought he had identified in their writings, and which, in philosophic language, that unsophisticated Orientals would never have understood, he so cumbrously named “a tendency not ourselves that makes for righteousness.” Not anything like this is the God, who here urges His self-consciousness upon men. He says, “I am He,”-the unseen Power, who was too awful and too dark to be named, but about whom, when in their terror and ignorance His worshippers sought to describe Him, they assumed that He was a Person, and called Him, as they would have called one of themselves, by a personal pronoun. By the mouth of His prophet this vague and awful He declares Himself as I, I, I, – no mere tendency, but a living Heart and urgent Will, personal character and force of initiative, from which all tendencies move and take their direction and strength. “I am He.”
History is strewn with the errors of those who have sought from God something else than Himself. All the degradation, even of the highest religions, has sprung from this, that their votaries forgot that religion was a communion with God Himself, a life in the power of His character and will, and employed it as the mere communication either of material benefits or of intellectual ideas. It has been the mistake of millions to see in revelation nothing but the telling of fortunes, the recovery of lost things, decision in quarrels, direction in war, or the bestowal of some personal favour. Such are like the person, of whom St. Luke tells us, who saw nothing in Christ but the recoverer of a bad debt: “Master, speak unto my brother that he divide the inheritance with me”; and their superstition is as far from true faith as the prodigals old heart, when he said, “Give me the portion of goods that falleth unto me,” was from the other heart, when, in his poverty and woe, he cast himself utterly upon his Father: “I will arise and go to my Father.” But no less a mistake do those make, who seek from God not Himself, but only intellectual information. The first Reformers did well, who brought the common soul to the personal grace of God; but many of their successors, in a controversy, whose dust obscured the sun and allowed them to see but the length of their own weapons, used Scripture chiefly as a store of proofs for separate doctrines of the faith, and forgot that God Himself was there at all. And though in these days we seek from the Bible many desirable things, such as history, philosophy, morals, formulas of assurance of salvation, the forgiveness of sins, maxims for conduct, yet all these will avail us little, until we have found behind them the living Character, the Will, the Grace, the Urgency, the Almighty Power, by trust in whom and communion with whom alone they are added unto us.
Now the deity, who claims in these chapters to be the One, Sovereign God, was the deity of a little tribe. “I am Jehovah, I Jehovah am God, I Jehovah am He.” We cannot too much impress ourselves with the historical wonder of this. In a world, which contained Babylon and Egypt with their large empires, Lydia with all her wealth, and the Medes with all their force; which was already feeling the possibilities of the great Greek life, and had the Persians, the masters of the future, upon its threshold, -it was the god of none of these, but of the obscurest tribe of their bondsmen, who claimed the Divine Sovereignty for Himself; it was the pride of none of these, but the faith of the most despised and, at its heart, most mournful religion of the time, which offered an explanation of history, claimed the future, and was assured that the biggest forces of the world were working for its ends. “Thus saith Jehovah, King of Israel, and his Redeemer Jehovah of Hosts, I First, and I Last; and beside Me there is no God. Is there a God beside Me? yea, there is no Rock; I know not any.”
By itself this were a cheap claim, and might have been made by any idol among them, were it not for the additional proofs by which it is supported. We may summarise these additional proofs as threefold: Laughter, Gospel, and Control of History, -three marvels in the experience of exiles. People, mournfullest and most despised, their mouths were to be filled with the laughter of truths scorn upon the idols of their conquerors. Men, most tormented by conscience and filled with the sense of sin, they were to hear the gospel of forgiveness. Nation, against whom all fact seemed to be working, their God told them, alone of all nations of the world, that He controlled for their sake the facts of today and the issues of tomorrow.
2. A burst of laughter comes very weirdly out of the Exile. But we have already seen the intellectual right to scorn which these crushed captives had. They were monotheists and their enemies were image worshippers. Monotheism, even in its rudest forms, raises men intellectually, -it is difficult to say by how many degrees. Indeed, degrees do not measure the mental difference between an idolater and him who serves with his mind, as well as with all his heart and it not for the additional proofs by which it is a difference that is absolute. Israel in captivity was conscious of this, and therefore, although the souls of those sad men were filled beyond any in the world with the heaviness of sorrow and the humility of guilt, their proud faces carried a scorn they had every right to wear, as the servants of the One God. See how this scorn breaks forth in the following passage. Its text is corrupt, and its rhythm, at this distance from the voices that utter it, is hardly perceptible; but thoroughly evident is its tone of intellectual superiority, and the scorn of it gushes forth in impetuous, unequal verse, the force of which the smoothness and dignity of our Authorised Version has unfortunately disguised.
1.
Formers of an idol are all of them waste,
And their darlings are utterly worthless!
And their confessors – they! they see not and know not
Enough to feel shame.
Who has fashioned a god, or an image has cast?
Tis to be utterly worthless.
Lo! all that depend ont are shamed,
And the gravers are less than men:
Let all of them gather and stand.
They quake and are shamed in the lump.
2.
Iron-graver-he takes a chisel,
And works with hot coals,
And with hammers he moulds;
And has done it with the arm of his strength. –
Anon hungers, and strength goes;
Drinks no water, and wearies!
3.
Wood-graver-he draws a line,
Marks it with pencil,
Makes it with planes,
And with compasses marks it.
So has made it the build of a man,
To a grace that is human-
To inhabit a house, cutting it cedars.
4.
Or one takes an ilex or oak,
And picks for himself from the trees of the wood
One has planted a pine, and the rain makes it big,
And tis there for a man to burn.
And one has taken of it, and been warmed;
Yea, kindles and bakes bread, –
Yea, works out a god, and has worshipped it!
Has made it an idol, and bows down before it!
Part of it burns he with fire,
Upon part eats flesh,
Roasts roast and is full;
Yea, warms him and saith,
“Aha, I am warm, have seen fire!”
And the rest of it-to a god he has made-to his image!
He bows to it, worships it, prays to it,
And says, “Save me, for my god art thou!”
5.
They know not and deem not!
For He hath bedaubed, past seeing, their eyes
Past thinking, their hearts.
And none takes to heart,
Neither has knowledge nor sense to say,
“Part of it burned I in fire-
Yea, have baked bread on its coals,
Do roast flesh that I eat, –
And the rest ot, to a
Disgust should I make it?
The trunk of a tree should I worship?”
Herder of ashes, a duped heart has sent him astray,
That he cannot deliver his soul. neither say,
“Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
Is not the prevailing note in these verses surprise at the mental condition of an idol-worshipper? “They see not and know not enough to feel shame. None takes it to heart, neither has knowledge nor sense to say, Part of it I have burned in fire and the rest, should I make it a god?” This intellectual confidence, breaking out into scorn, is the second great token of truth, which distinguishes the religion of this poor slave of a people.
3. The third token is its moral character. The intellectual truth of a religion would go for little, had the religion nothing to say to mans moral sense-did it not concern itself with his sins, had it no redemption for his guilt. Now, the chapters before us are full of judgment and mercy. If they have scorn for the idols, they have doom for sin, and grace for the sinner. They are no mere political manifesto for the occasion, declaring how Israel shall be liberated from Babylon. They are a gospel for sinners in all time. By this they farther accredit themselves as a universal religion.
God is omnipotent, yet He can do nothing for Israel till Israel put away their sins. Those sins, and not the peoples captivity, are the Deitys chief concern. Sin has been at the bottom of their whole adversity. This is brought out with all the versatility of conscience itself. Israel and their God have been at variance; their sin has been, what conscience feels the most, a sin against love. “Yet not upon Me hast thou called, O Jacob; how hast thou been wearied with Me, O Israel I have not made thee to slave with offerings, nor weaned thee with incense but thou hast made Me to slave with thy sins, thou hast wearied Me with thine iniquities”. {Isa 43:22-24} So God sets their sins, where men most see the blackness of their guilt, in the face of His love. And now He challenges conscience. “Put Me in remembrance; let us come to judgment together; indict, that thou mayest be justified” (Isa 43:26). But it had been age long and original sin. “Thy father, the first had sinned; yea, thy representative men”-literally “interpreters, mediators-had transgressed against Me. Therefore did I profane consecrated princes, and gave Jacob to the ban, and Israel to reviling” (Isa 43:27-28). The Exile itself was but an episode in a tragedy, which began far back with Israels history. And so chapter 48 repeats: “I knew that thou dost deal very treacherously, and Transgressor-from-the-womb do they call thee” (Isa 48:8). And then there comes the sad note of what might have been. “O that thou hadst hearkened to My commandments! then had thy peace been as the river, and thy righteousness as the waves of the sea” (Isa 48:18). As broad Euphrates thou shouldst have lavishly rolled, and flashed to the sun like a summer sea. But now, hear what is left. “There is no peace, saith Jehovah, to the wicked” (Isa 48:22).
Ah, it is no dusty stretch of ancient history, no; long-extinct volcano upon the far waste of Asian politics, to which we are led by the writings of the Exile. But they treat of mans perennial trouble; and conscience, that never dies, speaks through their old-fashioned letters and figures with words we feel like swords. And therefore, still, whether they be psalms or prophecies, they stand like some ancient minster in the modern world, -where, on each new soiled day, till time ends, the heavy heart of man may be helped to read itself, and lift up its guilt for mercy.
They are the confessional of the world, but they are also its gospel, and the altar where forgiveness is sealed. “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. O Israel, thou shalt not be forgotten of Me. I have blotted out as a thick cloud thy transgressions, and as a cloud thy sins; turn unto Me, for I have redeemed, thee. Israel shall be saved by Jehovah with an everlasting salvation; ye shall not be ashamed nor confounded world without end.” {Isa 43:25; Isa 44:21-22; Isa 45:17} Now, when we remember who the God is, who thus speaks, -not merely One who flings the word of pardon from the sublime height of His holiness, but, as we saw, speaks it from the midst of all His own passion and struggle under His peoples sins, -then with what assurance does His word come home to the heart. What honour and obligation to righteousness does the pardon of such a God put upon our hearts. One understands why Ambrose sent Augustine, after his conversion, first to these prophecies.
4. The fourth token, which these chapters offer for the religion of Jehovah, is the claim they make for it to interpret and to control history. There are two verbs, which are frequently repeated throughout the chapters, and which are given together in Isa 43:12 : “I have published and I have saved.” These are the two acts by which Jehovah proves His solitary divinity over against the idols.
The “publishing,” of course, is the same prediction, of which chapter 41 spoke. It is “publishing” in former times things happening now; it is “publishing” now things that are still to happen. “And who, like Me, calls out and publishes it, and sets it in order for Me, since I appointed the ancient people? and the things that are coming, and that shall come, let them publish. Tremble not, nor fear: did I not long ago cause thee to hear? and I published, and ye are My witnesses. Is there a God beside Me? nay, there is no Rock; I know none”. {Isa 44:7-8}
The two go together, the doing of wonderful and saving acts for His people and the publishing of them before they come to pass. Israels past is full of such acts. Chapter 43, instances the delivery from Egypt (Isa 43:16-17), but immediately proceeds (Isa 43:18-19): “Remember ye not the former things”-here our old friend rishonoth occurs again, but this time means simply “previous events”-“neither consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing; even now it springs forth. Shall ye not know it? Yea, I will set in the wilderness a way, in the desert rivers.” And of this new event of the Return, and of others which will follow from it, like the building of Jerusalem, the chapters insist over and over again, that they are the work of Jehovah, who is therefore a Saviour God. But what better proof can be given, that these saving facts are indeed His own and part of His counsel, than that He foretold them by His messengers and prophets to Israel, -of which previous “publication” His people are the witnesses. “Who among the peoples can publish thus, and let us hear predictions?-again rishonoth, “things ahead-let them bring their witnesses, that they may be justified, and let them hear and say, Truth. Ye are my witnesses, saith Jehovah,” to Israel. {Isa 43:9-10} “I have published, and I have saved, and I have shewed, and there was no strange god among you; therefore”-because Jehovah was notoriously the only God who had to do with them during all this prediction and fulfilment of prediction” ye are witnesses for Me, saith Jehovah, that I am God” (id. Isa 43:12). The meaning of all this is plain. Jehovah is God alone, because He is directly effective in history for the salvation of His people, and because He has published beforehand what He will do. The great instance of this, which the prophecy adduces, is the present movement towards the liberation of the people, of which movement Cyrus is the most conspicuous factor. Of this Isa 45:19 ff. says: “Not in a place of the land of in Secret have I spoken, darkness. I have not said to the seed of Jacob, In vanity seek ye Me. I Jehovah am a speaker of righteousness, a publisher of things that are straight. Be gathered and come in; draw together, ye survivors of the nations: they have no knowledge that carry about the log of their image, and are suppliants to a god that cannot save. Publish, and bring it here; nay, let them advise together; who made this to be heard,”-that is, “who published this, -of ancient time?” Who published this of old? I Jehovah, and there is none God beside Me: a God righteous,”-that is, consistent, true to His published word, -“and a Saviour, there is none beside Me.” “Here we have joined together the same ideas as in Isa 43:12.” There “I have declared and saved” is equivalent to “a God righteous and a Saviour” here. “Only in Jehovah are righteousnesses,” that is, fidelity to His anciently published purposes; “and strength,” that is, capacity to carry these purposes out in history. God is righteous because, according to another verse in the same prophecy, {Isa 44:26} “He confirmeth the word of His servant, and the advice of His messengers He fulfilleth.”
Now the question has been asked, To what predictions does the prophecy allude as being fulfilled in those days when Cyrus was so evidently advancing to the overthrow of Babylon? Before answering this question it is well to note, that, for the most part, the prophet speaks in general terms. He gives no hint to justify that unfounded belief, to which so many think it necessary to cling, that Cyrus was actually named by a prophet of Jehovah years before he appeared. Had such a prediction existed, we can have no doubt that our prophet would now have appealed to it. No: he evidently refers only to those numerous and notorious predictions by Isaiah, and by Jeremiah, of the return of Israel from exile after a certain and fixed period. Those were now coming to pass.
But from this new day Jehovah also predicts for the days to come, and He does this very particularly, Isa 44:26, “Who is saying of Jerusalem, She shall be inhabited; and of the cities of Judah, They shall be built; and of her waste places, I will raise them up. Who saith to the deep, Be dry, and thy rivers I will dry up. Who saith of Koresh, My Shepherd, and all My pleasure he shall fulfil: even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built, and the Temple shall be founded.”
Thus, backward and forward, yesterday, today and for ever, Jehovahs hand is upon history. He controls it: it is the fulfilment of His ancient purpose. By predictions made long ago and fulfilled today, by the readiness to predict today what will happen tomorrow, He is surely God and God alone. Singular fact, that in that day of great empires, confident in their resources, and with the future so near their grasp, it should be the God of a little people, cut off from their history, servile and seemingly spent, who should take the big things of earth-Egypt, Ethiopia, Seba-and speak of them as counters to be given in exchange for His people; who should speak of such a people as the chief heirs of the future, the indispensable ministers of mankind. The claim has two Divine features. It is unique, and history has vindicated it. It is unique: no other religion, in that or in any other time, has so rationally explained past history or laid out the ages to come upon the lines of a purpose so definite, so rational, so beneficent-a purpose so worthy of the One God and Creator of all. And it has been vindicated: Israel returned to their own land, resumed the development of their calling, and, after the centuries came and went, fulfilled the promise that they should be the religious teachers of mankind. The long delay of this fulfilment surely but testifies the more to the Divine foresight of the promise; to the patience, which nature, as well as history, reveals to be, as much as omnipotence, a mark of Deity.
These, then, are the four points, upon which the religion of Israel offers itself. First, it is the force of the character and grace of a personal God; second, it speaks with a high intellectual confidence, whereof its scorn is here the chief mark; third, it is intensely moral, making mans sin its chief concern; and fourth, it claims the control of history, and history has justified the claim.