Chapter 47
2021 - Reading straight through 47-49 today. Even at that it is a very long read. 1Th4 burned me out.
Seems to me to predict the ultimate fate of Babylon. She will be brought low, made common, and shamed. She will not remain great. This verse:
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. [Isa 47:6 ESV]
So Babylon was used by God to chastise His people. To turn their hearts to Him. Great Babylon was only a tool, raised up by God, to carry out His will.
Beginning in vs 8, we see Babylon declaring her own glory, her own exemption from trouble. But God says, not so. vs 9 says Babylon is all about sorcery and enchantment. A home for these things. They do not recognize the One True God of Israel. Babylon pretends at being a god. vs 13 says astrology is hogwash. It cannot predict. It cannot do what God does.
2024 - Isaiah says the fall of Babylon will be sudden, and two-fold:
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. [Isa 47:9 ESV]. So we can see quite easily that this might well apply to the Babylon of Jeremiah's day, when the fall of Jerusalem actually comes about. And 70 years later, Babylon itself falls, and we believe it fell virtually overnight, without a siege. But frankly, I am having trouble staying literal with the loss of children and loss of a husband. How does a city have either of these? Even metaphorically, what do these mean? Husband as "head of house", in this case maybe the "ruler" of Babylon, and the children are the heirs apparent? And all get wiped out in a day? Add this to consideration:
30 That very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed. [Dan 5:30 ESV]. This may be the explanation. The head of Babylon is killed, in a moment, in one day, and all the heirs would have been cut off also, possibly murdered by the invaders. By dawn that day there was nothing left of the Babylonian hierarchy.
Does that apply to the theory of future Babylon being the seat of a world government based on divination and sorcery? Well Revelation calls it more of a seat of immorality, but look at all these other characteristics that tie it to the Babylon in Isaiah 47:
7 As she glorified herself and lived in luxury, so give her a like measure of torment and mourning, since in her heart she says, 'I sit as a queen, I am no widow, and mourning I shall never see.' 8 For this reason her plagues will come in a single day, death and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for mighty is the Lord God who has judged her." 9 And the kings of the earth, who committed sexual immorality and lived in luxury with her, will weep and wail over her when they see the smoke of her burning. ...
17 For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste." And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off ...
21 Then a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone and threw it into the sea, saying, "So will Babylon the great city be thrown down with violence, and will be found no more; [Rev 18:7-9, 17, 21 ESV].
And one more thing, I just noticed as I looked back from Isaiah 47:9, to the verse before it:
8 "Now, then, hear this, you sensual one, Who dwells securely, Who says in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one besides me. I will not sit as a widow, Nor know loss of children.' [Isa 47:8 NASB95]. Now, it is true that NASB95 is the only translation that uses this word "sensual". The others use "given to pleasure", "lover of pleasure", or "luxuriant one". BLB says Biblical usage is "voluptuous, given to pleasure". This verse is the ONLY PLACE in the Bible the word is used. Gesenius calls it a very difficult word, and gives soft and pliant as possibilities but he prefers vibration - to be soft, plaint - which makes no sense to me at all. So...not really possible to tie old Babylon to future Babylon based on a connection of this adjective to "sexual immorality" in Revelation, which is simply the word "porneia", with an obvious connotation.
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. [Isa 47:11 ESV]
In an instant. In Daniel, doesn't Babylon fall in a single night?
2021 - There is much in here about enchantment, sorcery, prognostication of all kinds. The prophecy is that none of those things, on which Babylon depends for direction, help, and defense, will be of any use whatever when the Lord sends what he is going to send toward them. I like this verse:
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! [Isa 47:14 ESV]
God says this fire is going to be hot!
2023 - We see here again that God contrasts his power not to foretell the future, but to cause it. He tells us that these things that are coming - the fall of Babylon, the rise of Cyrus - are his doing because he planned it that way. So once again, we see that IF we say the prophecies were inserted into Isaiah's text after the fact, then the sections where God uses the prophecies as proof that HE is God and there is no other, all have to be planted also. They simply wouldn't be there - they'd have no context - if the prophecies weren't there also. Started tagging these as ""God causes the future" today. As I go through Isaiah next time, I will try and tag them all so we can see what a massive point is being made.
2024 - Look at this verse and how it characterizes Babylon - old or future we cannot really say for sure, possibly both:
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. [Isa 47:12 ESV]. I have not qualms about applying this to future Babylon, as the basis of that cities claim to world power. 13 continues the same idea:
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. [Isa 47:13 ESV]...or, a bit more specifically in the NASB95:
13 "You are wearied with your many counsels; Let now the astrologers, Those who prophesy by the stars, Those who predict by the new moons, Stand up and save you from what will come upon you. [Isa 47:13 NASB95].
2024 - As I read Isaiah 47 today, it occurs to me that possibly the Babylon spoken of in Revelation is just a modern day version of the Babylon that is here. What if future Babylon is about fortune tellers, necromancers, witchcraft, and all the other things that go with this? What if, once again, this is the direction that world powers take, instead of turning to God. Don't we see it everywhere? The claims that Taylor Swift - an iconic figure to so many young girls and even grown women that ought to know better - is a Satan worshiper. What about all the garbage conspiracy theories about all the Satan worship in Hollywood, and sacrificing babies and human trafficking for their Satanic rituals and orgies? And just how much of that is seeping into the congressional sewers of Washington DC, not to mention Europe and the rest of the world. Imagine a worldwide system of divination with its own high priest, worshiping the SoP, sacrificing to Satan...Wow. This may be the best theory yet on what the coming Babylon is really about. I religion 180 degrees out from doing what it ought to be doing, and sanctioned/supported/required by the world government. Oh my...Putting in a reference back to this note in the appropriate chapter of Revelation.