"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. Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, your shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will spare no man. Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, the Holy One of Israel. Sit silent, and get into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called The Lady of kingdoms. I was wroth with my people, I profaned my inheritance, and gave them into your hand: you showed them no mercy; upon the aged have you very heavily laid your yoke. And you said, I shall be a lady for ever; so you did not lay these things to your heart, neither did you remember the latter end thereof. Now therefore hear this, you that are given to pleasures, that dwell carelessly, that say in your heart, I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: But these two things shall come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come upon you, despite of the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments. For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, None sees me; your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you; and you have said in your heart, I am, and there is none else besides me. Therefore shall evil come upon you, you shall not know the dawning thereof: and mischief shall fall upon you; you shall not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you knew not. Stand you with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, wherein you have labored from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail. You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; let now the astrologers, and stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save you from the things that shall come upon you. Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before. Thus shall the things be unto you wherein you have labored: they that have trafficked with you from your youth shall wander everyone to his quarter; there shall be none to save you." (Isaiah 47:1-15,RV)
To Whom is This Spoken?
Of what interest is all this to us? How does it concern us to know that such things were prophesied of Babylon, and that they were fulfilled more than twenty-five centuries ago?
Is it to us anything more than a mere matter of curiosity such as that with which we read any other record of the past? Or if it be more than a matter of curiosity, has the record any more than a historical interest for us, proving the truthfulness of God's word?
Why were these things placed in the Bible for us to read, and why do we read them? "Whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the Scriptures might have hope." (Romans 16:4) "The prophets ... prophesied of the grace that should come unto you; ... the Spirit of Christ which was in them ... testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Not unto themselves, but unto us, did the prophets minister the things which are now reported unto us by them that have preached the Gospel by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven." (1 Peter 1:10-12)
The things written in this chapter concern us in this age, at this present time, more than they have ever concerned any other people on this earth. We live very much nearer the fulfillment of these things than did Isaiah or the Jews who were carried captive to Babylon.
Isaiah and Revelation
Compare this chapter with the 18th chapter of Revelation, and you cannot fail to see that both prophets are speaking of the very same thing. Indeed, they use exactly the same expressions, so that the higher critic would doubtless say that John copied from Isaiah. But when God has an important message, He is able to send it by more than one messenger, and to give the message to each one of them independently.
• Revelation 18:7-8, is identical with Isaiah 47:8-9.
• In the last verse of Isaiah 47, we have summed up all that is contained in Revelation 18:9-18.
• In Revelation 17:5-6 we have the parallel to Isaiah 47:6-7.
Now just as surely as the prophecy concerning Babylon, in the Revelation, has not yet been fulfilled, so surely does the prophecy in Isaiah yet await its fulfillment.
A Rival to God
Note that this Babylon is represented both in Isaiah and Revelation as being opposed to God and His people. She is opposed to them, not as an atheistic power, but as a power professing to be above God. God says, "there is none beside me. ... I am the Lord; and there is none else. ... There is no God else beside me ... there is none beside me. I am God, and there is none else." (Isaiah 45:6,18,21-22) "I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me." (Isaiah 46:9)
And Babylon says, "I am, and there is none else besides me." (Isaiah 47:10)
So we see that she sets herself up as the rival of God, claiming to be all that He is. This was the position of ancient Babylon. In the 4th chapter of Daniel we have an account of a test as to whether Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, or God, was supreme. Although Nebuchadnezzar had learned of the true God, and had been told that "the heavens do rule," (Daniel 4:26) and that "The God of heaven had given him his kingdom, and power, and strength, and glory," (Daniel 2:37) he said, as he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon, "Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?" (Daniel 4:30)
Then the judgment of God came upon him, until he learned and acknowledged that the God of heaven "lives for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and His kingdom is from generation to generation: And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing: and He does according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay His hand, or say unto Him, What are You doing? ... And those that walk in pride He is able to abase." (Daniel 4:34-35,37)
Babylon's Blasphemous Pride
But that did not settle the question with Babylon, for although Nebuchadnezzar doubtless went to his grave in the faith of this confession, Belshazzar, who knew all these things did not profit by them, but in his insolent impiety, in the midst of the heathen revel, "brought the golden vessels that were taken out of the temple of the house of God which was at Jerusalem; and the king, and his princes, his wives, and his concubines, drank in them. They drank wine, and praised the gods of gold, and of silver, brass, of iron, of wood, and of stone. ... Then Daniel answered and said before the king, Let your gifts be to yourself, and give your rewards to another; yet I will read the writing unto the king, and make known to him the interpretation. O you king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father a kingdom, and majesty, and glory, and honor: And for the majesty that He gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him: whom he would he slew; and whom he would he kept alive; and whom he would he set up; and whom he would he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, and his mind hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne, and they took his glory from him: And he was driven from the sons of men; and his heart was made like the beasts, and his dwelling was with the wild asses: they fed him with grass like oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven; till he knew that the most high God ruled in the kingdom of men, and that He appoints over it whomsoever He will." (Daniel 5:3-4,17-21)
Daniel recalled to Belshazzar the pride and humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar, and said, "And you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this; But have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of His house before you, and you, and your lords, your wives, and your concubines, have drunk wine in them; and you have praised the gods of silver, and gold, of brass, iron, wood, and stone, which see not, nor hear, nor know: and the God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, you have not glorified." (Daniel 5:22-23)
The Same Spirit Still Alive
In 2 Thessalonians 2:3-8 we have a description of a power identical with this, which is to exist and work even till the coming of the Lord to Judgment. It is called the "man of sin, ... the son of perdition, He that opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped; so that he sits in the temple of God, setting himself forth as God." (2 Thessalonians 2:3-4,RV)
Compare this with what we have just been reading about Babylon, and it will appear that the cases are identical. Babylon was the rival of God, yet its greatest king acknowledged God at the last; but the lesson was not learned, and Babylon perished in its proud boasting of supremacy over the God of all the earth.
Transmitted to the Successors
The Medo-Persian kingdom immediately took the place in the world, that had been occupied by Babylon, and although Cyrus publicly acknowledged the true God, the most of the kings of Persia received honors themselves as gods, instead of according the honor to God. They, like Belshazzar of Babylon, were weighed in the balances and found wanting.
The same spirit was prominent throughout the Grecian supremacy; and when Rome took its place as mistress of the world, the spirit of idolatrous pride reached a pitch never before dreamed of. To that power, more than to any other ever known on earth, applies the title, "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth;" (Revelation 17:5) and in her are fulfilled these words: "I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus." (Revelation 17:6)
Thus we see the very same power described in the prophecy of Isaiah exists unchanged until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is not that in ancient Babylon we have a type of that which is described in the Revelation, but that it is one and the same power in each case; and the people of God have never been fully out of Babylon since the days of Nebuchadnezzar.
Sudden Destruction
"Therefore shall evil come upon you; you shall not know from whence it rises: and mischief shall fall upon you; you shall not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon you suddenly, which you shall not know." (Isaiah 47:11)
But deliverance is sure. Babylon is to be utterly destroyed, and the call of God is, "Come out of her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues." (Revelation 18:4)
How quickly utter destruction may follow the greatest seeming prosperity, is seen in the case of Belshazzar. When the kingdom of Babylon had reached the height of its glory, and her kings were most self-complacent, destruction came. That, however, was but the beginning of the end. It was a warning. Just as surely as the ancient city of Babylon fell at the height of its pride and splendor, when she said, "I shall be a lady for ever," (Isaiah 47:7) so surely will the judgments of God come on the whole earth, when religion, no matter by what name it is called, has reached the place where it is identified with and controls the destinies of the nations. At the time when "the church" is universally acknowledged, so that men begin to say, "Peace, and safety, then will sudden destruction come upon them." (1 Thessalonians 5:3) "For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; soalso shall the coming of the Son of man be." (Matthew 24:38-39)
Pride, the Religion of Human Nature
It is a sad mistake for anyone to apply all these prophecies to some specific organization, and some special "system of religion." While they undoubtedly have their most complete fulfillment in certain ecclesiastical bodies, the principle is that of human nature, instilled into all men by "the god of this world," (2 Corinthians 4:4) "the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience," (Ephesians 2:2) who is himself called the king of Babylon. (Isaiah 14:4-27) "Your wisdom and your knowledge it has perverted you." (Isaiah 47:10)
This was what caused the fall of Lucifer. (Ezekiel 28:12-18) Wisdom and knowledge are not to be despised, but the only wisdom and knowledge that are of any real worth, are "the wisdom that comes from above," (James 3:17) and the knowledge of God, which is life eternal. The wisdom that puffs one up with pride, that is connected with strife and vainglory, is "earthly, sensual, devilish. ... But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits," (James 3:15, 17) even the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ. Complete renunciation of self, and absolute dependence upon God, deliver souls from Babylon, and from her plagues.--Present Truth, January 25, 1900--Isaiah 47:1-15.