Isaiah 13

Isaiah’s words, “with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.” So much for the occasion of the prophecy, now for its meaning and fulfilment. Nearly eight hundred years have passed. Again the festival has come round. For seven days the glad ceremonial had been performed. For the last time the priestly procession has gone down the rocky road; for the last time the vases have been filled at the cool fountain below; for the last time the bright water has been poured out sparkling in the sunlight; for the last time the shout of joy has risen and fallen, and as the words of the ancient chant were dying on the ear, a sudden stir began among the crowd, and from the midst of them, as they parted for His passage, came a young man, rustic in appearance, and there, before all the silence-stricken multitude, and priests with their empty urns, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink.” Surely such words in such a connection, at such a time, from such lips, are meant to point the path to the true understanding of the text. A. M.

With joy. Joy is the tuning the soul. The command to rejoice precedes the command to pray: “Rejoice evermore; pray without ceasing.” Delight makes the melody; prayer else will be but a harsh sound. God accepts the heart only when it is a gift given, not forced. With joy we are to draw water out of the wells of salvation. Faith is the bucket, but joy and love are the hands that move it. God does not value that man’s service who accounts not His service a privilege and a pleasure. Charnock.

True joy is a solid, grave thing, and dwells more in the heart than the countenance, whereas, on the contrary, base and false joys are but superficial. The deepest streams are the stillest. Leighton.—The elements of that joy which makes your whole life successful are consecration, self-revelation of character in all that is pure and noble, having nothing in yourself which wishes to veil itself from the eyes of others; self-sacrifice and renunciation, benevolence in work and success in that beneficent work. These are the elements of true joy and prosperity on which you will look back with gladness from the end of life; on which you will look back with joy unspeakable and full of glory from the heights on high. Anon.

The Christian’s joy is in every sense a joy of harvest; a joy of life in life’s bountiful provision; a joy of the heart in the presence of the great Giver of all good; a joy of the honest laborer in the rewards of his own industry and the end of his patient waiting. Interior.

4. Starting afresh with the prolific theme of praise, the events of “that day”—blessings so great and rich—ye shall all say, Praise the Lord. Let all the nations know what He has done. Remind them (the sense of the last verb); remind them that His name is exalted, that He has glorified it by fulfilling so signally all His good words of promise to His people. H. C.

As to the authorship of the twelfth chapter, it is less necessary to insist on the external evidence, because the internal happens to be so strong; and it is less necessary to fall back on the possibility that Isaiah is quoting anonymous psalms, because the probability comes out so clearly that he composed the whole himself. The first eleven chapters are conceded to Isaiah by most modern critics. The testimony of the diction may be summed up by saying that Isa. 12 contains fifty words, of which forty are found in other passages of Isaiah generally acknowledged to be genuine. Of the remaining ten, eight are in the pre-exilic prophets. Of this same remaining ten, six are in psalms commonly considered pre-exilic; and of this same remaining ten, all are in the literature commonly considered pre-exilic. W. H. Cobb.

13:1 THE burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.

2. Set ye up an ensign upon the bare mountain, lift up the voice unto them, wave the 3 hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my consecrated ones, yea, I have called my mighty men for mine anger, even my proudly exulting ones. 4 The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people! the noise of a tumult of the kingdoms of the nations gathered together! the LORD of hosts mustereth the host for 5 the battle. They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even the 6 LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. Howl ye; for the 7 day of the LORD is at hand; as destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Therefore 8 shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt: and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail: they 9 shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be faces of flame. Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to 10 destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For 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 11 not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will lay low the 12 haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a man more rare than fine gold, even a man than 13 the pure gold of Ophir. Therefore I will make the heavens to tremble, and the earth shall be shaken out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce 14 anger. And it shall come to pass, that as the chased roe, and as sheep that no man gather- eth, they shall turn every man to his own people, and shall flee every man to his own land. 15 Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is taken shall fall by 16 the sword. Their infants also shall be dashed in pieces before their eyes; their houses shall 17 be spoiled, and their wives ravished. Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which 18 shall not regard silver, and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. And their bows shall dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their 19 eye shall not spare children. And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chal- 20 deans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the 21 Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; 22 and ostriches shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in the pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall 14: 1 not be prolonged. For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the stranger shall join himself with them, and 2 they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and for handmaids: and they shall take them captive, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. 3 And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, 4 and from thy trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast made to serve, that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor 5 ceased! the golden city ceased! The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre 6 of the rulers; that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations 7 in anger, with a persecution that none restrained. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: 8 they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, 9 saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. 10 All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become 11 like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to hell, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is 12 spread under thee, and worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O day star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst lay low the nations! 13 And thou saidst in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the 14 north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. 15, 16 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the uttermost parts of the pit. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, they shall consider thee, saying, Is this the man that 17 made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; that made the world as a wilderness, 18 and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home? All the 19 kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house. But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under foot. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever. Prepare ye slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they rise not up, and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities. And I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son, saith the LORD. I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts.

24. The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?

THE first series of Isaiah’s prophecies (chaps. 1-12) is followed by a second, composed of Burdens on the Gentile Nations (chaps. 13-23), and summed up in a common sequel of judgment and blessing (chaps. 24-27). The two subjects of the first series are the impending Assyrian woe and the coming and reign of Immanuel, the branch of the Lord. The former is unfolded anew in these burdens themselves, and their sequel points again to the times of Messiah. The date of this second series lies between the third year of Ahaz and the third of Hezekiah, or between the fulfilment of the warning (chap. 8: 1-4) and the opening of the siege of Samaria, predicted (chap. 28: 2). During these sixteen years there seem to have been no direct inroads of Assyria on Ephraim or Judah, but it was extending and confirming its dominion over the surrounding heathen powers. The form of the prophecy corresponds. Burdens on the Gentile nations are successively revealed; and the message returns to Israel and to Judah, when the northern kingdom was ready to suffer once more under the Assyrian scourge. The arrangement has thus a clear basis in the history. The burden on Babylon takes precedence of the rest, since this was the Gentile power ordained to complete the predicted judgment of God on the chosen people. Next are the burdens of Philistia, Moab, and Damascus, the neighbors of Israel on the west, the east, and the north, with a brief sequel of their own. Next is the burden on Egypt and Ethiopia, the southern rival of Assyria. Then follow, as before, three secondary burdens on the border lands of the southern side. The message then returns to Palestine, in the burden of the Valley of Vision; and the series ends with Tyre, the great maritime power of the ancient world. Birks.

The complete destruction of Babylon, and her desolation through long ages, is prophesied in Scripture repeatedly, and with a distinctness and minuteness that are very remarkable. The most striking of the prophecies are those contained in these two chapters and in Jer. 50: 10-15, 38-40; 51: 36-43. G. R.

The genuineness of the title, and the Isaian authorship of this first burden, have been denied by several modern critics (Justi, Gesenius, Rosenmüller, Hitzig, Knobel, Ewald, Davidson, etc.) on such grounds as these: 1. “The stand point of the writer is in the time of the Captivity, when the Chaldean Empire was flourishing.” On the contrary, it begins with the mustering of Median armies, and reaches on to a completed desolation, which has lasted to the present day. Or if the actual date be meant, that is fixed by the close (14: 25) before the fall of Sennacherib. 2. “Isaiah could not transfer his position into the distinct future, disregarding the horizon of his own day.” This merely affirms that the Holy Spirit may predict events twenty or thirty, but not two hundred years beforehand. Besides, the political horizon of the time is kept in view, for a solemn oath of the Assyrian’s fall closes the prophecy. 3. “The tone and spirit are bitter, revengeful, taunting, sarcastic. It is intelligible from one who had suffered under the Chaldeans, not from Isaiah.” This is like one of the predicted “hard speeches” against the Lord of Hosts, whose message it is. The burden is not “bitter,” but most solemn and sublime. It breathes not the feeble malice of Jewish exiles, but the holy anger of the Most High, against the oppressors of His people and blasphemers of His great name. It is sarcastic, because it is the voice of Him who “seorneth the scorners, but giveth grace to the lowly.” The vengeance is the same as in Rev. 18, given through the apostle of love. 4. “There are imitations of Ezekiel and Joel, and traces of acquaintance with Zephaniah.” Between Jer. 50, 51 and Isa. 13 there is considerable likeness. There is here a strong proof of the genuineness, and no argument against it. It is easy to conceive that these later prophets might borrow phrases or images from one earlier and greater; but incredible that a vision so earnest and sublime, full of seraphic fire, should be a cento from three or four sources, turned into a forgery by prefixing a false name. 5. “The style and diction are unlike Isaiah’s.” On the contrary, there is no passage more characteristic of his style in the whole book. 6. “The prophecy was not fulfilled, as announced. The desolation did not take place by the Medes, as the prophecy asserts.” The statement, and not the prediction, is untrue. To the Medes is assigned a fierce slaughter of the men of Babylon, when the city is captured; but how soon, or how slowly, or by what steps the total desolation would follow, of this the text says not a single word. The mention of shepherds and their flocks, and of tents of the Arabians, points to a time beyond the age of the Medo Persian Empire. The reasons thus alleged from internal evidence, to disprove the genuineness, are all worthless. All the external evidence, and decisive reasons from the structure of the book, combine still further to prove that the vision is Isaiah’s, and stands here in its proper place. Birks. (See Bib. Sacra, July, 1892, Article on Isa. 13.)

Hitzig says expressly that a prophecy against Babylon before the time of Jeremiah is impossible. This of course is tantamount to saying that prophetic inspiration is impossible. And this is, after all, the only question of importance. If there cannot be prophetic foresight, then of course a reference to subsequent events fixes the date of the writing which contains it. If, on the other hand, there is such a thing as inspiration and prophetic foresight, there is nothing to weaken the presumption created by a uniform tradition, the immemorial position of this prophecy, and the express terms of a title not less ancient than the text, of which, according to Oriental usage, it is really a part. The point at issue therefore between Christian and infidel interpreters has reference not to words and phrases merely but to the possibility and reality of inspiration. Assuming this, we can have no hesitation in regarding the prophecy before us as a genuine production of Isaiah. . . . On the one hand, we have only to believe that Isaiah was inspired of God. On the other, we must hold that a writer of the very highest genius either personated the prophet or was confounded with him by the ancient Jews, and that this anonymous writer, whose very name is lost, without any inspiration, uttered a prediction which then seemed falsified by the event, but which has since been accidentally fulfilled! It is universally admitted that the thirteenth chapter, and the greater part, if not the whole, of the fourteenth, constitute a single prophecy. The division of the chapters is, however, not a wrong one. Both parts relate to the destruction of Babylon, setting out from God’s decree and winding up with the threatening of total desolation. Chap. 14 is, therefore, not a mere continuation of chap. 13, but a repetition of the same matter in another form. The difference of form is chiefly this: that while chap. 13 is more historical in its arrangement, chap. 14 is dramatic, or at least poetical. Another point of difference is that in chap. 13 the downfall of Babylon is represented rather as an act of Divine vengeance, in chap. 14 as a means of deliverance to Israel, the denunciations of Divine wrath being there clothed in the form of a triumphant song to be sung by Israel when Babylon is fallen. A.

With chap. 13 commences a new series of prophecies, filling chaps. 13-23, described by the prophet himself as “burdens” and “woes”—i.e., predictions of calamity to come upon wicked nations for their great sins. This series opens with Babylon, the fall of which is the theme of chap. 13 and of chap. 14: 1-23. This prophecy of the fall of Babylon is very extraordinary in several respects.

1. In the point of its moral relations and bearings upon the Jews of Isaiah’s time it stands remarkably disconnected. In chap. 13 there is not the least hint of any special relation to the Jews. But chap. 14 opens with a clear intimation of Divine mercy to Israel in restoring them to their own land after their captivity in Babylon, and also in reversing the recent relation of captor and captive between these two people, bringing Babylon under as Israel had been before. This assumes an ideal present far down into the period of the Captivity, the close of which was one hundred and ninety-two years after the death of Ahaz. The precise date of this prophecy against Babylon is not given, but it stands in the collection among others of the time of Ahaz, and therefore probably belongs there legitimately. (See chap. 14:28.) Hence we have ground for making the interval between the prophet’s actual and his ideal present, as above, nearly two hundred years. The facts revealed concerning the fall of Babylon have therefore no particular relation to the actual present of Isaiah’s time.

2. Again, these predictions of the fall of Babylon make a strong case of a prophecy which to human view is built upon nothing. For Babylon was then entirely overshadowed by the great empire of Assyria. Who could see that Assyria was to go down, and this small city—then a province of Assyria and a third or fourth-rate power—to come up, to be queen of the nations? Besides, the prophet names the Medes as the conquering power, destined to subvert and supplant proud Babylon. But the Medes at this date were an unborn power. A rude people living on the southern and western shores of the Caspian Sea, who had made no mark yet in Asiatic history and had thrown out no foreshadowings of their future prowess; what mortal eye could see in them the future conquerors of great Babylon? And yet to heighten the complication of future events and put them still further beyond the possible reach of human sagacity, this Median power rose up somewhat suddenly about one hundred years after the writing of this prophecy, and with the aid of Babylon laid siege to Nineveh, captured and destroyed it, and thus subverted the great Assyrian empire, B.C. 625. These are the people named in this prophecy as the future conquerors of Babylon! Whose eye could foresee this, save the eye of God?

3. In point of style, this prophecy respecting Babylon stands unrivalled. The tone of chap. 13 is sublimely bold and graphic, yet even this is in some points surpassed by the exquisite poetic drapery of chap. 14. Throughout this chapter the Lord Himself may be considered the speaker. He gives command to unfurl the banner and to muster His hosts for the war against Babylon. The sound of their tramping squadrons is heard from far; they are seen coming; His instruments of vengeance—and His presence among them—for destruction to all that Chaldean land. He calls for wailing over a ruin so fearful; depicts the ensuing faintness of heart and pangs of agony. You see the stars fading out; the sun darkened in his going forth; men become few; the vast populations of great Babylon flee or die; the Medes appear by name as the Lord’s executioners; and Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, goes down to rise no more. Her very site is doomed to sterility and solitude, save as wild beasts gather there who are wont to make their homes in places most desolate. H. C.

2. The attack of the Medes and Persians upon Babylon is now foretold, not in the proper form of a prediction, nor even in that of a description, which is often substituted for it, but in that of an order from Jehovah to His ministers to summon the invaders, first by an elevated signal, and then as they draw nearer by gestures and the voice. Upon a bare hill (with a clear summit) set up a signal, raise the voice (shout or cry aloud) to them (the Medes and Persians), and let them enter the gates of the (Babylonian) nobles.

4. The prophet, in his own person, now describes the enemies of Babylon who had just been summoned, as actually on their way. He hears a confused noise, which he soon finds to be that of confederate nations forming the army of Jehovah against Babylon. The voice of a multitude in the mountains! the likeness of much people! the sound of a tumult of kingdoms of nations gathered! Jehovah of Hosts mustering a host of battle! The absence of verbs adds greatly to the vividness of the description. The sentence really consists of a series of exclamations, describing the impressions made successively upon the senses of an eye and ear-witness. It is commonly agreed that there is here a direct reference to the mixture of nations in the army of Cyrus. Besides the Persians and the Medes, Xenophon speaks of the Armenians, and Jeremiah adds the names of other nations (Jer. 50:9; 51:27). A.

6. “The day of the Lord” is His time for any signal achievement. It is here said to be at hand, not in point of absolute time, which was not far from two centuries to the first fatal blow, and much longer still before Babylon became utterly desolate; but it was near, either as seen by the prophet and with reference to the impressions made on his mind; or with relation to the events immediately preceding and sketched just above. It would be but a short time after the mustering of those Median hosts before the proud city would fall. It will come as a mighty ruin from the Almighty one; where the Hebrew signifies that none other than a resistless overthrow should be expected from an omnipotent arm. The words rendered “destruction” and “Almighty” are from the same root. H. C.

9. All this must happen and at a set time—for behold the day of Jehovah cometh—terrible— and wrath and heat of anger—to place the land a waste—and its sinners He will destroy out of it. The moral causes of the ruin threatened are significantly intimated by calling the people of the earth or land its sinners.

11. The prophet, according to his custom (chaps. 1 : 22 ; 5 : 7 ; 11 : 9), now resolves his figures into literal expressions, showing that the natural convulsions just predicted are to be understood as metaphorical descriptions of the Divine judgments. And I will visit upon the world its wickedness—and upon the wicked their iniquity—and I will cause to cease the arrogance of presumptuous sinners—and the pride of tyrants I will humble. A.—“Punish the world for their iniquity” conceives of the great Chaldean empire as embracing most of the world then known to the Jews. Thus ancient authors called the Roman Empire “the whole world.”

12. “More precious,” in the sense of more scarce and rare. The waste of human life occasioned by war with its triple scourge—the sword, pestilence, and famine—will leave but few men where but lately were so many. H. C.

13. The figurative form of speech is here resumed, and what was before expressed by the obscuration of the heavenly bodies is now denoted by a general commotion of the frame of nature. Therefore I will make the heavens tremble, and the earth shall shake out of its place in the wrath of Jehovah of Hosts and in the day of the heat of His anger. A.

17. The Medes only are named (without the Persians)—as in Jer. 51 : 11, 28—for the reason that they rose to prominence first in time, and really led in the conquest of Babylon. As bearing on the Divine inspiration of this prophecy, it should be distinctly noted that when Isaiah wrote it, the Medes were yet a dependent province of the great Assyrian empire, and had never been known as a powerful, independent kingdom. Who could foresee that they ever would be? “They revolted” (says Dr. Alexander) “at the time of the Assyrian invasion of Judah and Israel. Their first king, Dejocese was elected about B.C. 700 (i.e., within one year of the death of Hezekiah). His son, Phraortes, conquered Persia. Then the united Medes and Persians, with the aid of the Babylonians, subdued Assyria under the conduct of Cyaxares I. (B.C. 625). The conquest of Babylon was effected in the reign of Cyaxares II., by the Median army, with an auxiliary force of thirty thousand Persians under the command of Cyrus, the king’s nephew, B.C. 538.” Unlike the more southern nations of Asia, the Arab plundering tribes, and indeed unlike most nations that have ever waged war, the Medes, and especially the Persians, thought less of gold than of conquest and glory. Xenophon puts in the mouth of Cyrus, addressing the Medes, sentiments of the same character. “Ye men of Media, and all ye now present ; I know you well, and that ye have not come forth with me in this war as men who want money and goods.” How should the eye of a merely human sagacity have foreseen this special feature of a conquering power as yet unborn and of course with no national character yet developed ? H. C.

19. From the very height of splendor and renown Babylon shall be reduced not only to subjection, but to annihilation. And Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the ornament, the pride of the Chaldees, shall be like God’s overthrowing Sodom and Gomorrah—i.e., shall be totally destroyed in execution of a special Divine judgment.

20. The conversion of a populous and fertile district into a vast pasture ground, however rich and well frequented, implies extensive ruin, but not such ruin as is here denounced. Babylon was not even to be visited by shepherds, nor to serve as the encamping ground of wandering Arabs. The completeness of the threatened desolation will be seen by comparing these expressions with chaps. 5 : 5, 17 ; 7 : 21 ; 17 : 2, where it is predicted that the place in question should be for flocks to lie down with none to make them afraid. So fully has this prophecy been verified that the Bedouins, according to the latest travellers, are even superstitiously afraid of passing a single night upon the site of Babylon. A.

21. “Wild beasts of the desert shall lie there ;” “the wild beasts of the desert, with the wild beasts of the islands, shall dwell there” (Jer. 50 : 39). So it was prophesied, and so it is. Speaking of the Babil mound, Mr. Rich observes, “There are many dens of wild beasts in various parts, in one of which I found the bones of sheep and other animals, and perceived a strong smell, like that of a lion.” “There are several deep excavations into the sides of the mound,” remarks Ker Porter. “These souterrains are now the refuge of jackals and other savage animals. The mouths of their entrances are strewn with the bones of sheep and goats ; and the loathsome smell that issues from most of them is sufficient warning not to proceed into the den.” On a visit to the Birs Nimroud, the same traveller observed through his glass several lions on the summit of the great mound,

and afterward found their footprints in the soft soil of the desert at its base. This feature of the prophecies also is therefore literally fulfilled. The solitude, deserted by men, is sought the more on that account by the wild beasts of the country; and the lion, the jackal, and probably the leopard, have their lairs in the substructions of the temple of Belus, and the palace of Nebuchadnezzar. G. R.