The Book of Isaiah

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Isaiah opens a new section of his book. Chapters 13 through 23 are a collection of "burdens," oracles of judgment against Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Egypt, and the other nations. The first and heaviest is against Babylon. In Isaiah's own day Assyria was the great threat and Babylon a lesser power, but the Spirit shows Isaiah the future: Babylon would rise to be "the glory of kingdoms," and Babylon would fall.

The chapter opens with the sights and sounds of a gathering army. A banner is lifted "upon the high mountain," a voice is raised, a hand beckons the soldiers through the gates. God calls them "my sanctified ones" and "my mighty ones," set apart for His purpose. Then comes the roar: "The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people... the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle." They come "from a far country, from the end of heaven," bearing "the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land." The point is unmistakable: the army that will crush Babylon is God's army, gathered and commanded by Him.

Gospel Focus

The most striking thing here is who is in charge. Empires imagine they rise and fall by their own strength, but the Bible shows one God moving the nations like pieces on a board. He calls the invading army "my sanctified ones" and "my mighty ones," even though they did not know Him, for He can bend even pagan armies to serve His justice. This is the God who "removeth kings, and setteth up kings" (Daniel 2:21), who calls Cyrus by name, more than a century and a half before Babylon's fall, to be the very instrument of that fall (Isaiah 45:1). The same LORD of hosts who mustered armies against Babylon still reigns over the rise and collapse of every power. Nothing in history is outside His hand, and no empire, however glorious, is beyond His reach. That truth should humble the proud and steady the faithful: the God we serve is the LORD of hosts, and the last word over the nations is His.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Now the language grows too large for one city. Isaiah cries, "Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty." Hearts melt, hands hang faint, faces flush like flame. Then the heavens themselves go dark: "the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine." God says, "I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease." He will "shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place."

This is more than the fall of Babylon to the Medes. The prophets often speak this way: a near judgment on one nation is described in words that reach beyond it to the great and final Day of the LORD, when God will judge the whole world. The fall of Babylon becomes a window onto that last day, a warning to every proud heart that a reckoning is coming that no power can escape.

Gospel Focus

These darkened heavens are not only ancient poetry; Jesus took them up as a picture of His own coming. "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven... and then shall appear the sign of the Son of man in heaven" (Matthew 24:29-30). Peter preached the same on the day of Pentecost, quoting Joel: "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come" (Acts 2:20). The day of the LORD that Isaiah saw falling on Babylon is the same day, in its fullness, that will fall on the whole proud world when Christ returns in glory. And who is the LORD of that day? The New Testament answers plainly: it is Jesus. "The day of the Lord" is "the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Thessalonians 2:1-2), when He shall be "revealed from heaven with his mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance" (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). The Almighty of Isaiah 13 is the very One who came as our Saviour and will come again as our Judge. This is a solemn word: God will "cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease." The safest place on that day is not behind the walls of any Babylon but hidden in Christ, who bore our judgment already so that we need not fear the day when He comes to judge.

Hebrew Study

Explanation

Isaiah names the instrument of judgment: "Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it." Babylon's fabled wealth would not buy her deliverance; the Medes came for conquest, not gold. Then the verdict falls on the proudest city on earth: "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." And the desolation would be permanent: "It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation... but wild beasts of the desert shall lie there." Where the great city stood, only ruins and wild creatures would remain.

History confirmed the word. Babylon fell to the Medes and Persians under Cyrus in 539 BC, and over the centuries that followed the great city declined, was abandoned, and became the heap of desolate mounds that travelers have long described, exactly the ruin Isaiah foretold.

Gospel Focus

Babylon became far more than a single city in the Bible; it became the very symbol of human pride organized against God. It began at Babel, where men said, "let us build us a city and a tower... and let us make us a name" (Genesis 11:4), and it runs all the way to the last book of Scripture, where "Babylon the great" is the whole glittering world-system of sin, wealth, and idolatry that opposes the Lamb. And Revelation announces its fall in the very language of Isaiah: "Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen... Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins" (Revelation 18:2, 4). The fall of ancient Babylon is a preview and a promise: every proud power that exalts itself against God will come down, and come down forever, "as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah." For the believer this is both warning and comfort. It warns us not to build our lives on the glory of this present Babylon, which is passing away, but to "come out of her." And it comforts us that no empire of evil, however dazzling, is eternal; only the kingdom of our Lord endures. Set your hope not on the glory of kingdoms that fall, but on the King whose kingdom shall never be moved.