Isaiah 47:1-15--The Humiliation of Babylon

Isaiah 47
English Standard Version

The Humiliation of Babylon
47 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 shall no more be called
    tender and delicate.
2 Take the millstones and grind flour,
    put off your veil,
strip off your robe, uncover your legs,
    pass through the rivers.
3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered,
    and your disgrace shall be seen.
I will take vengeance,
    and I will spare no one.
4 Our Redeemer—the LORD of hosts is his name--
    is the Holy One of Israel.

5 Sit in silence, and go into darkness,
    O daughter of the Chaldeans;
for you shall no more be called
    the mistress of kingdoms.
6 I was angry with my people;
    I profaned my heritage;
I gave them into your hand;
    you showed them no mercy;
on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.
7 You said, “I shall be mistress forever,”
    so that you did not lay these things to heart
    or remember their end.

8 Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures,
    who sit securely,
who say in your heart,
    “I am, and there is no one besides me;
I shall not sit as a widow
    or know the loss of children”:
9 These two things shall come to you
    in a moment, in one day;
the loss of children and widowhood
    shall come upon you in full measure,
in spite of your many sorceries
    and the great power of your enchantments.

10 You felt secure in your wickedness;
    you said, “No one sees me”;
your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray,
and you said in your heart,
    “I am, and there is no one besides me.”
11 But evil shall come upon you,
    which you will not know how to charm away;
disaster shall fall upon you,
    for which you will not be able to atone;
and ruin shall come upon you suddenly,
    of which you know nothing.

12 Stand fast in your enchantments
    and your many sorceries,
    with which you have labored from your youth;
perhaps you may be able to succeed;
    perhaps you may inspire terror.
13 You are wearied with your many counsels;
    let them stand forth and save you,
those who divide the heavens,
    who gaze at the stars,
who at the new moons make known
    what shall come upon you.

​14 Behold, they are like stubble;
    the fire consumes them;
they cannot deliver themselves
    from the power of the flame.
No coal for warming oneself is this,
    no fire to sit before!
15 Such to you are those with whom you have labored,
    who have done business with you from your youth;
they wander about, each in his own direction;
    there is no one to save you.

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The Babylonians would be judged severely.  Their women would not have men left to marry and bear them children and these young women would be living out on the streets.  The women that used to not have to work and could spend their time looking attractive for young men to want to court them will now have to work hard to gather grain and mill it to turn it into flour so that they can bake a little bit of bread to feed themselves and their families.  They would need to travel to find work or possibly to move away from what was the capital city of the greatest empire of its time to places that presented better opportunities.  The nation would lose its people and its culture to other nations, but hints of the old culture would still remain.  In the end times the kingdom of Babylon will raise its ugly head again under the authority of the antichrist and this is a proclamation of judgment against that coming kingdom as well.  The worthlessness of that kingdom will be exposed as if everyone were stripped naked (which is exactly what Babylon used to do to those people that it captured and took prisoner).  Israel did not fear them because the LORD would do to them exactly what they had done to Israel and the LORD was the Redeemer of His people Israel.

God allowed Babylon to be mighty and allowed them to conquer many people.  It was a chance to treat these conquered peoples with mercy and compassion, but they instead showed them nothing but cruelty, so that is how the LORD would treat them when He conquers and defeats them.  They will sit in darkness and be lonely and afraid as everything and everyone they know, and love is stripped away from them and it will be proof that the gods they worshiped were impotent to save them because they were never real to begin with.  The LORD, He is God and He alone is mighty to save!

​They were a proud people that needed to be humiliated and the fancied themselves as being able to contend with the LORD from the beginning in the city of Babel when they defied the LORD's command to fill the earth and subdue it.  They chose to build a city to make a name for themselves and to try to build a tower that was tall enough to save themselves from any other flood that the LORD may send to judge them and possibly even thinking that they could build their own stairway to heaven (to get there by their own works).  They imagined they would forever be the premiant, dominant empire and they would always be on top, but the LORD would leave them widowed and orphaned, cutting off their name and their generations from the earth.  No spell or incantation (they were one of the centers of sorcery, witchcraft, divination, necromancy, and all things that they would call the Art, but we would call Black Magic).  The kingdom of Babylon is still very much a spiritual kingdom associated with the men and women who practice these things.  The LORD targeted places that were the places of religious study for the occult (Egypt first which housed the largest such library and then Babylon which took its place as the leader of occult literature and training for such practices).  The is no such power from the occult that can save them from the power of God and His coming wrath that will be poured out on all who rebel against Him and choose to be a part of this spiritual and political system that stands in opposition to Him and His people.

​That being said, the LORD will send them delusions that they might stand firm in their enchantments and put their trust in them so that they will not repent and believe and will be subject to the judgment that is coming their way.  There will not be many if any death-bed-confessions as the people see the end approaching for their worldly kingdom or their spiritual kingdom (look at how Babylon the physical empire was destroyed quickly in one night while all the people were having drunken orgy and were in the middle of blaspheming the LORD and questioning if He was able to save His people from them).  Their astrologers did not tell them the date or time of their destruction.  It came on them swiftly.  Their magicians could not slow it down or stop it.  They could not even read the literal writing on the wall that sent the message of judgment that essentially said, "Your time is up."  It was written in a language that only God's people could read and understand.  In the same way in the end God's people will have understanding of the times and seasons that the world will not have.  They will continue to go on partying and thumbing their nose at God just like they did in the days of Noah until the rain and Flood started and came on them suddenly, but the door of the Ark was already closed and sealed by the LORD.  No divination will help the people, because the demons do not know the answers to these questions, and they only speak lies to the people that they manipulate trying to take as many people to the Lake of Fire with them as possible.  God freely offers salvation to all who see the truth and repent and trust on Him and Him alone for salvation and serve Him as slaves obey their Master and Lord in a new kingdom--the kingdom of God (sometimes called the kingdom of heaven).

The fire of judgment will consume all Babylon had built as if it was nothing but stubble.  Do not imagine that the heat of this fire gives light or warmth though.  It is gone in a flash and then forgotten.  That is not to say that the Bible is teaching annihilation where people will simply cease to exist--they will live in conscious suffering, torment and judgment for all eternity for their rebellion against God and His kingdom, but it will be both a place that is described as a Lake of Fire burning with fervent heat and also a place of utter darkness separated from the Light that is God's presence, goodness, and glory.   We don't normally think of fire producing no light, but that is what this fire will do.  It will be like when alcohol burns and has an invisible flame.  It will create much heat, but no light.

The LORD gives a warning to all those who do business with Babylon (often called Babylon the Great in their time) because they believed it was to their advantage to be allies with the greatest superpower the world had known to that day.  The LORD warned them to choose sides carefully because those who allied themselves with Babylon made themselves His enemies and might also get caught up in His judgment of that evil kingdom (the same warning should be given today to those who ally themselves with the kingdom of this world that will one day be the kingdom of antichrist).  The true King is coming, and He will put all imposters, rebels and traitors to shame, exile them from His kingdom and they will receive the punishment they deserve while only the King's servants are rewarded with the bounty and blessings of the Kingdom.