"Upon a lofty mountain erect the standard; Exalt the voice; beckon with the hand; That they may enter the gates of princes. I have given a charge to my enrolled warriors; I have even called my strong ones to execute my wrath; Those that exult in my greatness. A sound of a multitude in the mountains, As of a great people; A sound of the tumult of kings, Of nations gathered together! Jehovah, God of hosts, musters the host for the battle. They come from a distant land, From the end of the heavens; Jehovah, and the instruments of His wrath, To destroy the whole land. Howl, for the day of Jehovah is at hand; As a destruction from the Almighty shall it come. Therefore shall all hands be slackened; And every heart of mortal shall melt; And they shall be terrified; Torments and pangs shall seize them; As a woman in travail, they shall be pained; They shall look upon one another with astonishment; Their countenances shall be like flames of fire. Behold, the day of Jehovah comes, inexorable; Even indignation, and burning wrath; To make the land a desolation. And her sinners He shall destroy from out of her. Yes, the stars of heaven, and the constellations thereof, Shall not send forth their light; The sun is darkened at his going forth, And the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will visit the world for its evil; And the wicked for their iniquity; And I will put an end to the arrogance of the proud; And I will bring down the haughtiness of the terrible. I will make a mortal more precious than fine gold; Yes, a man than the rich ore of Ophir. Wherefore I will make the heavens tremble; And the earth shall be shaken out of her place; In the day of His burning anger. And the remnant shall be as a roe chased; And as sheep when there is none to gather them together; They shall look everyone towards his own people; And they shall flee everyone to his own land. Everyone that is overtaken shall be thrust through; And all that are collected in a body shall fall by the sword. And their infants shall be dashed before their eyes; Their houses shall be plundered, and their wives ravished. Behold, I raise up against them the Medes, Who shall hold silver of no account; And as for gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows shall dash the young men; And on the fruit of the womb they shall have no mercy; Their eye shall have no pity even on the children. And Babylon shall become, She that was the beauty of kingdoms, They glory of the pride of the Chaldeans, As the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by the hand of God. It shall not be inhabited for ever; Nor shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; Neither shall the Arabian pitch his ten there, Neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But there shall the wild beasts of the desert lodge; And howling monsters shall fill their houses; And there shall the daughters of the ostrich dwell; And there shall the satyrs hold their revels. And wolves shall howl to one another in their palaces;And dragons in their voluptuous pavilions; And her time is near to come; And her day shall not be prolonged." (Isaiah 13:2-22,Lowth)
This is "the oracle concerning Babylon which was revealed to Isaiah the son of Amos." Isaiah 13:1. The lesson may seem to be very long, but the principal point that needs consideration is, "What is Babylon?"
When this point is understood, the chapter as a whole is very simple, for it consists simply in plain statements concerning the fate of Babylon; and therefore we could not well consider it except as a whole.
The Spirit of Babylon
The origin of Babylon is given in the 11th chapter of Genesis. After the flood the people came to a plain in the land of Shinar, and said to one another, "Let us build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven, and let us make us a name lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth." (Genesis 11:4)
The Lord saw what they "imagined to do," (Genesis 11:6) and confounded their language so that they could not continue to build. Thus that which they thought to avoid came upon them: They were scattered abroad. The name of the city which they began to build was called "Babel," which means "confusion," because their language as well as their lofty ideas was confounded. (Genesis 11:9)
Since Babel, or Babylon, means confusion, it is evident that the term is not limited to a particular spot or city, but that wherever there is confusion there is Babylon. "Where envy and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work." (James 3:16) "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise that they are vain." (1 Corinthians 3:20)
He therefore provided the spiritual weapons that are "mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)
God's way is perfect, because His thoughts are perfect and they alone endure to all generations. Only the mind of God can think right thoughts, even as God alone can do righteous acts.
"There is no power but of God." (Romans 13:1)
Man has no more power in himself to think than he has in himself to live and to move. Just as every attempt of man to act for himself results in erratic movements, so every attempt of man to think in opposition to God must come to nothing; that is, will be utterly confounded. We see, therefore, that Babylon exists as extensively and as long as there is opposition to God.
As long as the ancient city of Babylon stood, it was the embodiment of boastful exaltation against God. The 4th chapter of Daniel sets forth this spirit. In Isaiah 47 we read of Babylon, that she said, "I am, and none else beside me." (Isaiah 47:8)
This spirit has characterized every nation since the day when Belshazzar's blasphemous boastings were cut short by the destruction of his kingdom by the Medes.
Babylon was a universal kingdom. "You, O king, are a king of kings: for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, and strength, and glory. And wheresoever the children of men dwell, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the heaven has He given into your hand, and has made you ruler over them all. You are this head of gold." (Daniel 2:37-38)
Modern Babylon
The kingdom as a name, ceased with the death of Belshazzar and the capture of the city by the Medes; but in reality it has existed to the present day. That this is so is evident from the chapter before us, for it tells of judgments upon Babylon, yet these are evidently none other than the final judgments upon the whole earth. Thus we read that the Lord "musters the hosts of the battle ... from the end of heaven ... and the weapons of His indignation, to destroy the whole land. ... Behold, the day of the Lord comes, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and He shall destroy the sinners out of it." (Isaiah 13:4-5,9)
The Lord says that at the time of this judgment of Babylon, "He will punish the world for their evil and the wicked for their iniquity, and will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible. ... He will shake the heavens, and the earth shall be removed out of her place, in the wrath of the Lord of hosts and in the day of His fierce anger." (Isaiah 13:11,13)
Compare this with the 2nd chapter of Isaiah, where we have the account of the judgments of God "upon every high tower, and every fenced wall, ... [When] the loftiness of men shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low: and the Lord alone shall be exalted." (Isaiah 2:15,17)
By comparing Isaiah 47:8-9, with Revelation 18:7-8, we see that the prophet John, a century after Christ, used exactly the same language concerning Babylon that is used by the prophet Isaiah seven hundred years before Christ. This shows that the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah was yet in the future in the days of John, yet the city that was built in the plan of Shinar, had been leveled to the ground long before.
We do not need to resort to the idea that one was literal Babylon and the other spiritual or figurative Babylon, for the language of John refers to just as literal a city as does that of Isaiah; but we do see that Babylon was not by any means confined to the city of brick and stone that was embellished by Nebuchadnezzar, nor to the people known as Babylonians. It still exists and its destruction will be the final judgment upon the earth when sin and sinners shall be destroyed out of it, and rebellion against God be made to cease for evermore.
The question may arise, "If this threatened judgment upon Babylon, Isaiah 13, refers to the final judgment upon the wicked, how is it that the Medes are referred to as taking part in this retribution?"
The answer is very simple. It is because judgment upon Babylon began twenty-five hundred years ago, when the Medes captured the city and destroyed Belshazzar in the height of his insolent pride. The desolation of that proud and wicked city is a proof that everything that exalts itself against God shall be destroyed.
With these facts in mind, this chapter is very simple. With a knowledge of what Babylon is, not only this, but a great portion of the prophecies of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel is made plain.
God calls His people to come out of Babylon where they have been to a large extent ever since. They were carried captive because of their haughty rebellion against God. Everyone whose soul is lifted up is in Babylon. A man can come out and be free at any time by allowing the mind of the Spirit of God to take the place of his carnal mind, which is enmity against God. Now is the time to hasten from Babylon; for: "Her time is near to come, and her day shall not be prolonged." (Isaiah 13:22)--Present Truth, March 16, 1899--Isaiah 13:1-22.