“563. THE BURDEN OF BABYLON—ISAIAH 13”

The Burden of Babylon—Isaiah 13

We now come to the prophecies which have regard to the capture of Babylon by the Persians under Cyrus. This great subject of prophecy is again and again taken up by Isaiah, and re-appears at intervals from near the commencement to near the close of his book. It will therefore now be necessary, in order to bring this into its place, as the crowning act of the great king’s career, to look at these passages collectively, without regard to the position they severally occupy in the book. It is well that our plan necessarily does not confine us to the chapters, but allows us to make such an arrangement of our own as may seem most expedient, when, as in this case, it is desirable to preserve the thread which the history of an individual, as involved in these prophecies, presents. The occasion is rare, and needs this special treatment.

Walls of Babylon, from an Ancient Coin

We will first give the account of this great transaction as it appears in the statements of ancient historians, and then we shall return to the prophecies.

The breaking up of the great confederacy against the Medo-Persian power, which Croesus had organized, at length left Cyrus free to march against Babylon, where the self-created king, Nabonadius, had, in the lapse of time, greatly strengthened his power. This personage no sooner heard of the advance of the Persians, than he marched forth against them with a large army; but he was beaten with considerable loss, and was constrained to retreat behind the walls of the town. Having suitably stationed his forces, Cyrus delayed not to take a deliberate survey of the defenses of the city, around which he rode slowly, attended by his principal friends and allies. He at once saw that its reduction would be no easy enterprise. The walls were of prodigious height and thickness; the number of men to defend them was very great; and, in ordinary circumstances, the only mode of reducing the place would have been by cutting off its communications with the country, and so starving it into a surrender. But in anticipation of this, Nabonadius had taken immense pains to store the town with provisions, and it was reckoned to contain enough to sustain the inhabitants for twenty years—the rather, as the vast area of the city contained large and numerous gardens, in which no small quantities of vegetable produce might be raised. Cyrus, however, conceived that his only course was to cut off all the communications with the country; and to manifest every sign of a determination not to abandon the enterprise till the city had fallen into his hands, he caused a line of circumvallation to be drawn around it, with a large and deep ditch, and upon the banks thrown up in excavating it, he built towers at regular intervals, as watch-towers and stations for the troops on guard. It is doubtful whether he then knew that the city was too well provisioned for him to hope to starve it into a surrender. One would think that he could scarcely be ignorant of this fact; and although Xenophon declares that he did expect to reduce the place by famine, he assigns other reasons, which are sufficient to account for these laborious works, even in the supposition that he did know how well the city was provisioned. These are, that he from the first contemplated the use to which these trenches were eventually made subservient; and that, by the construction of this impassable barrier, he might relieve his troops from the fatigue of constantly guarding in full force so immense a circumference. Accordingly, no sooner were the works completed than the army was divided into twelve sections, each of which was, during the year, to guard the works in monthly rotation. It is interesting to recognize here the very same principle of rotatory divisional service which David had ages before introduced into the sacred services of the tabernacle, and which his son Solomon also introduced into the civil and military employments.

The Babylonians professed themselves to be mightily diverted by these proceedings, which they overwhelmed with derisive and taunting insults from the walls, believing themselves to be quite secure from military action by the strength and loftiness of their walls, and beyond all danger of famine by the immense stores which had been laid up. After nearly two years had been consumed in these proceedings—which was, however, but a short time when the ordinary character of ancient sieges is considered—Cyrus heard that a great nocturnal festival of the Babylonians approached, in which the inhabitants were certain to spend the whole night in drunkenness and debauchery; to which it seems, they were much addicted, and an instance of which occurs in the Book of Daniel, in the account of Belshazzar’s feast. There is nothing among the scanty existing memorials of Babylon that might illustrate this; but the Assyrian sculptures present us with a remarkable banqueting scene, in which the guests are seated four at each table, on high stools or couches, while the servants take wine from a large vase or tub, and carry it in small pails to the guests, who are seen to hold up their cups, as if drinking health to each other. Music is not wanting, the instruments being a kind of many-stringed lyre, with a square body and upright sides.

Assyrian Banqueting Scene

This festival seemed to Cyrus to offer him a suitable occasion of putting into execution the plan which he had probably preconceived. It must be understood that the river Euphrates flowed through the midst of Babylon, and its banks were lined with walls, pierced with many gates, which afforded access to the city. The river then, as at present, overflowed all its banks in the early spring—not so much from rain, as from the melting of the snows in the regions which it traverses in its upper course. The inundation is then, in some seasons, so redundant as to prove very injurious to the buildings near the river. To avert such consequences, advantage had been taken of a spacious natural depression of the soil at some distance above Babylon, which had been artificially deepened in part, so as to form a vast reservoir, into which the waters of the river could on occasion be turned, by means of a broad canal, so as for a time almost to exhaust the stream. This great basin, which in its ordinary aspect was a morass, then became a large lake, not less, it is said, than fifty miles in circuit. Now, on this important night., Cyrus sent up a strong detachment to the head of the canal leading to this lake, with orders at a given time, to break down the great bank or dam that was between the lake and the canal, and so turn the whole current of the river into the lake. At the same time, he stationed one body of troops at the point where the river entered the city, and another where it came out, ordering them to march in by the exhausted channel, as soon as they should find it fordable. Towards the evening, he also opened the head of the trenches on both sides of the river above the city, that the water might discharge itself into them, by which means, and the breaking down of the great dam, the waters in this part of the river were soon exhausted. The two bodies of troops then, according to the orders they had received, marched into the bed of the river, the water reaching no higher than their knees. The gates towards the river, from which quarter no one suspected danger, had been left open, amid the riot and disorder of that night, so that the Persians were enabled to penetrate, without opposition, to the very heart of the city. The two parties met, according to agreement, at the palace, where they surprised the guards, and cut them in pieces. Those who were in the palace opening the gates to learn the cause of this confusion, so unsuited to the festive night, the Persians rushed in, took the palace, and slew the king, who came out to meet them sword in hand.

Cyrus then sent bodies of horse through the city, to clear the streets, and to proclaim to the inhabitants that they were to keep within doors, on pain of death. The next day, those who held the forts perceiving that the city was in fact taken, and that the king was dead, gave up the strongholds, of which Cyrus immediately took possession, and garrisoned them with his own troops. It was then proclaimed by the heralds throughout the city, that all the inhabitants who possessed arms, were to bring them forth and deliver them up, and that the inhabitants of any house in which arms were afterwards found should be put to death. The order was obeyed. And thus the great city, so strongly fortified, so rich, so populous, and so abundantly provisioned, fell, almost without a blow, into the hands of the Persians.

It will be seen that there were many special and singular incidents in this siege. It is one, to the description of which no vague generalities could be applicable. It is, therefore, well calculated to strengthen any wavering faith in the glorious prophecies of the Old Testament—to point out how exactly the most minute and remarkable incidents of this transaction were foretold, long before their occurrence, by more than one prophet of the Lord. The coincidences are so striking, that when Cyrus was informed of these prophecies, so soon after the event, and had the means of satisfying himself that they had been for a long time in existence, he could not, without willful obduracy of heart, resist the conviction they were designed to produce, and which drew from him the memorable acknowledgement to which we have repeatedly referred.

Autor: JOHN KITTO