CHAPTER 47 BABYLON IS TO BE DESTROYED. If salvation is to triumph, and if righteousness is to be exalted, and if God's people are to be glorious (Isaiah 46:12) then it can only come about through the destruction of evil and of idolatry, and from Isaiah's religious viewpoint that means the destructi... [ Continue Reading ]
‘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 riv... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Our redeemer, Yahweh of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.' But Who is this ‘I'. This interjected comment gives the answer. It is an indication of how Isaiah sees it. This judgment on Babylon will in fact deliver Israel from Babylon's unwanted attentions. Yahweh is acting as Israel's Redee... [ Continue Reading ]
‘Sit there silently, and get into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, For you will no more be called ‘the Lady of the kingdoms'.' Here Babylon is depicted as being degraded and becoming like a lowly ladies' maid or servant who is dismissed to sit quietly in the darkness, away from the lighting,... [ Continue Reading ]
“I was angry with my people, I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You have very heavily laid your yoke on the aged.'” At certain stages Babylon fronted for Assyria in oppressing God's people. It was to Babylon that Manasseh was taken in chains. But tha... [ Continue Reading ]
“And you said, ‘I will be a lady for ever, So that you did not lay these things to your heart, Nor did you remember its latter end.' ” But Babylon was supremely arrogant (compare chapter 14). She abrogated the role of the everlasting God. No one could be sure of the future for ever except God. Bu... [ Continue Reading ]
“Now therefore hear this, you are who are given to pleasures, You who dwell carelessly, who say in your heart, ‘I am and there is none else beside me. I will not sit as a widow, nor will I know the loss of children.' ” This is all one with the previous statement. She was given to excessive pleasu... [ Continue Reading ]
“But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, The loss of children, and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, In spite of the multitude of your sorceries, And the great abundance of your enchantments.” Her claims would be repudiated by events. She would lose h... [ Continue Reading ]
“For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.' Your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you, And you have said in your heart, ‘I am and there is none else beside me'.” Her trust was in her wickedness. This probably signifies all the host of her methods of magi... [ Continue Reading ]
“Therefore will evil come on you. You will not know its dawning. And mischief will fall on you. You will not be able to ward it off by atonement. And desolation will come on you suddenly, Which you know not.” Because she has trusted in extreme wickedness, wicked things (same word) will come on... [ Continue Reading ]
“Stand now with your enchantments, And with the multitude of your sorceries, In which you have laboured from your youth. If so be that you will be able to profit. If so be that you may prevail. You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the mont... [ Continue Reading ]
“Behold they will be as stubble, The fire will burn them. They will not deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It will not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit in front of.” All such people will be burned up along with all their paraphernalia, as stubble is burned in the fields. They... [ Continue Reading ]
“Thus will be the things to you in which you have laboured. Those who have traded with you from your youth, Will wander every one to his quarter. There will be none to save you.” The things in which they have laboured, all their magic and sorcery, will have been burned up along with the practiti... [ Continue Reading ]