Isaiah · chapter 13 of 66
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Isaiah 13 opens the oracles against the nations with a message about Babylon. The Lord summons an army, the day of the Lord comes with wrath and shakes the heavens, humbles the pride of the arrogant and stirs up the Medes against the city. Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, will be overthrown like Sodom and Gomorrah and never be inhabited again.
Chapters 13 to 23 gather oracles against the nations: Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Damascus, Cush, Egypt, Edom, Arabia, Jerusalem and Tyre. With them Isaiah shows that the Lord is God of the whole earth and judge of all nations. The first is against Babylon, which in Isaiah's time (the eighth century BC) was not yet the dominant empire but would later be the destroyer of Jerusalem.
The message is a vision that Isaiah son of Amoz saw concerning Babylon. The Lord orders a banner to be raised on a bare hill and calls the warriors, his mighty ones who exult in his glory. A tumult is heard on the mountains, the noise of kingdoms and nations gathering: the Lord of hosts is mustering an army for battle, coming from a distant land as the instrument of his wrath.
The day of the Lord is near and will come as destruction from the Almighty. All hands will go limp and every heart will melt. There will be anguish and pain like that of a woman in labor. The day comes cruel, with wrath and fierce anger, to make the earth a desolation and destroy its sinners. The stars will not give their light, the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shine. The Lord will punish the world for its evil, put an end to the pride of the arrogant and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless. Mankind will be scarcer than fine gold, and the heavens and the earth will shake.
The Lord stirs up the Medes against Babylon, who have no regard for silver and do not delight in gold, and who will have no pity on children. Babylon, the glory of kingdoms and the splendor of the Chaldeans' pride, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or lived in from generation to generation; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherds will make their flocks lie down. Wild animals of the desert will lie there, owls will fill its houses and jackals will howl in its palaces. Its time is close at hand.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
The prophet announces that the day of the Lord is near and will come as destruction from the Almighty. With this announcement begins the theme that runs through all the oracles: God steps into history to judge.
The Lord will punish the world for its evil, put an end to the pride of the arrogant and lay low the haughtiness of the ruthless. Babylon is the example of a power that thinks itself self-sufficient and will be brought down.
The Lord stirs up the Medes against Babylon. The prophecy announces that the instrument of its fall will be a people who cannot be bought with riches. Babylon fell to the Medo-Persian empire in 539 BC.
Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. The image marks the contrast between its present glory and its future desolation.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Babylon. — Isaiah 13:1
Answer: That it is near and will come as destruction from the Almighty, with wrath and anguish. — Isaiah 13:6-9
Answer: The stars will not give their light, the sun will be dark at its rising and the moon will not shine. — Isaiah 13:10
Answer: The evil of sinners, the pride of the arrogant and the haughtiness of the ruthless. — Isaiah 13:11
Answer: The Medes. — Isaiah 13:17
Answer: Sodom and Gomorrah. — Isaiah 13:19
Isaiah 13 reminds us that no empire, however glorious it seems, lasts forever. Babylon was admired as the glory of kingdoms and ended in ruins. For believers, this puts power and fame in perspective: only God's kingdom is eternal. In a small group, people can talk about where we place our security today.
It also offers comfort to a people suffering under oppressive powers. The message to Judah was that Babylon, which would later take them into exile, was already under God's judgment. God's justice, though it may be slow, does not fall short.
Isaiah 13 announces the fall of Babylon as an example of God's judgment on human pride. Chapter 14 continues with a taunt against the king of Babylon and the promise that the Lord will have compassion on Jacob.
Babylon fell to Cyrus, king of the Medes and Persians, in 539 BC, and in time fell into ruins and was never rebuilt as a great city. Some interpreters see the cosmic images of verse 10 as poetic language for judgment, and others see a fulfillment still to come. Matthew 24:29 uses similar language about the last times.
It is a prophetic theme: the moment when God steps in decisively to judge evil and save his people. Sometimes it refers to a near historical judgment, like Babylon's, and sometimes to the final judgment at the end of time.
They show that the Lord is not only the God of Israel but the sovereign of all peoples. They also comfort Judah by showing that its enemies will not escape God's judgment and that it should not trust in alliances with them.