Isaiah 13:1

The burden of Babylon,.... That is, a prophecy concerning Babylon, as the word is rendered, Proverbs 31:1.

The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see. The predictions as to foreign nations are for the sake of the covenant people, to preserve them from despair, or reliance on human

ISAIAH CHAPTER 13 God’ s armies, . The destruction of Babylon by the Persians and Medes: their great distress and anguish; and their utter desolation, . The burden: this title is commonly given to sad prophecies, which indeed are grievous burdens to them upon whom they are laid. See ,36. Of Babylon; of the city and empire of Babylon by Cyrus, for their manifold and great sins, and in order to the deliverance of his people.

Isaiah 13:1 The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.Ver. 1. The burden.] That is, the burdenous prophecy. It should not have seemed a burden, but it is a grievous burden to graceless persons to be told of their sins, and foretold of their punishments. Of Babylon.] Not that Babylon in Egypt (of which 1 Peter 5:13, as some hold), now called Grand Cairo, the sultan’ s seat royal, but the metropolis of Chaldea, built by Semiramis about a hundred years after the flood, whither the Jews were to be carried captive, and concerning which calamity they are here aforehand comforted. See Micah 7:8; Micah 7:16.

XIII. (1) The burden of Babylon . . .—The title “burden,” which is repeated in Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 17:1; Isaiah 19:1; Isaiah 21:1; Isaiah 22:1; Isaiah 23:1, indicates that we have in this division a collection of prophetic utterances, bearing upon the future of the surrounding nations, among which Babylon was naturally pre-eminent. The authenticity of the first of these oracles has been questioned, partly on the ground of differences of style, partly because it seems to anticipate the future destruction of Babylon with a distinctness which implies a prophecy after the event. The first of these objections rests, as will be seen from the numerous coincidences between these and other portions of Isaiah, on no sufficient evidence. The second implies a view of prophecy which excludes the element of a divinely given foreknowledge; and that view the present writer does not accept. Accepting the two chapters as Isaiah’s, we have to ask how Babylon came at the time within the prophet’s historical horizon, and what were at the time its political relations with Assyria. (1) It is obvious that the negotiations which Ahaz had opened with Tiglath-pileser, the passage to and fro of armies and ambassadors, the journeys of prophets like Jonah and Nahum, the commerce of which we have traces even in the days of Joshua (Joshua 7:21), must have made Babylon, as well as Nineveh, familiar to the leading men of Judah. As a matter of fact, it was probably more familiar. Babylon was the older, more famous, more splendid city Nineveh (if we accept the conclusions of one school of historians) had been overpowered and destroyed by the Medes under Arbaces, and the Babylonians under Belesis (B.C. 739), the Pul of Bible history, under whom Assyria was a dependency of Babylon (Lenormant, Anc. Hist., p. 38). In Tiglath-pileser the Assyrians found a ruler who restored their supremacy. The Chaldæans, however, revolted under Merôdach-baladan, and Sargon records with triumph how he had conquered him and spoiled his palace. As the result of that victory, he took the title of king of Babylon. Merôdach-baladan, however, renewed his resistance early in the reign of Sennacherib, and though again defeated, we find him courting the alliance of Hezekiah either before or after the destruction of that king’s army (Isaiah 39). We can scarcely doubt that the thought of a Babylonian, as of an Egyptian, alliance had presented itself to the minds of the statesmen of Judah as a means of staying the progress of Assyrian conquests. The chapters now before us, however, do not seem written with reference to such an alliance, and in Isaiah 14:25 Babylon seems contemplated chiefly as the representative of the power of Assyria. It seems probable, accordingly, that the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:4 is to be identified with Sargon, the Assyrian king, who took the title of “Vicar of the Gods in Babylon” (Records of the Past, vol. xi. 17). The word “burden,” prefixed to this and the following prophecies, is a literal translation of the Hebrew.

CHAPTER XIII God mustereth the armies of his wrath against the inhabitants of Babylon, 1-6. The dreadful consequences of this visitation, and the terror and dismay of those who are the objects of it, 7-16. The horrid cruelties that shall be indicted upon the Babylonians by the Medes, 17, 18. Total and irrecoverable desolation of Babylon, 19-22. This and the following chapter, - striking off the five last verses of the latter, which belong to a quite different subject, - contain one entire prophecy, foretelling the destruction of Babylon by the Medes and Persians; delivered probably in the reign of Ahaz, (see Vitringa, i. 380,) about two hundred years before its accomplishment. The captivity itself of the Jews at Babylon, which the prophet does not expressly foretell, but supposes, in the spirit of prophecy, as what was actually to be effected, did not fully take place till about one hundred and thirty years after the delivery of this prophecy: and the Medes, who are expressly mentioned Isaiah 13:17, as the principal agents in the overthrow of the Babylonian monarchy, by which the Jews were released from that captivity, were at this time an inconsiderable people; having been in a state of anarchy ever since the fall of the great Assyrian empire, of which they had made a part, under Sardanapalus; and did not become a kingdom under Deioces till about the seventeenth of Hezekiah. The former part of this prophecy is one of the most beautiful examples that can be given of elegance of composition, variety of imagery, and sublimity of sentiment and diction, in the prophetic style; and the latter part consists of an ode of supreme and singular excellence. The prophecy opens with the command of God to gather together the forces which he had destined to this service, Isaiah 13:2-3. Upon which the prophet immediately hears the tumultuous noise of the different nations crowding together to his standard; he sees them advancing, prepared to execute the Divine wrath, Isaiah 13:4-5. He proceeds to describe the dreadful consequences of this visitation, the consternation which will seize those who are the objects of it; and, transferring unawares the speech from himself to God, Isaiah 13:11, sets forth, under a variety of the most striking images, the dreadful destruction of the inhabitants of Babylon which will follow, Isaiah 13:11-16, and the everlasting desolation to which that great city is doomed, Isaiah 13:17-22. The deliverance of Judah from captivity, the immediate consequence of this great revolution, is then set forth, without being much enlarged upon, or greatly amplified, Isaiah 14:1; Isaiah 14:2. This introduces, with the greatest ease and the utmost propriety, the triumphant song on that subject, Isaiah 14:4-28. The beauties of which, the various images, scenes, persons introduced, and the elegant transitions from one to another, I shall here endeavour to point out in their order, leaving a few remarks upon particular passages of these two chapters to be given after these general observations on the whole.

1. The superscription, prefixed by an editor who attributed the prophecy to Isaiah. The burden] Rather, The utterance, or “oracle.” The word occurs ten times in the headings of this section of the book (also in ch. Isaiah 30:6). The Heb. is massâ’, and means literally a “lifting up (of the voice).” See 2 Kings 9:25. The A.V., following several ancient versions, takes it in its commoner sense of “burden” (thing lifted), a confusion which seems as old as the time of Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:33-40) and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 12:10). which Isaiah … did see] See on Isaiah 1:1, Isaiah 2:1.

The burden of Babylon - Or, the burden “respecting,” or “concerning” Babylon. This prophecy is introduced in a different manner from those which have preceded.

1. The burden of Babylon — The word massah, “burden,” is from a verb, meaning to lift, raise, and impliedly to bear; a secondary meaning is, to utter: hence the noun may mean a “burden” — mental