“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate.
Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers.
Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.”
Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel.
“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms.
I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.
You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results.
“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’
But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments.
For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’
Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand.
“Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail.
You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you.
Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by.
The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15 Thy government shall be taken from thee.
Thy government shall be taken from thee.
Which hast lived in wealth and wantonness, and hast not yet been overcome by any enemy.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Isa 47:1 Come down, and sit in the dust,…
Isa 47:1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: [there is] no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.
Ver. 1. Come down.] From thy lofty top and towering state, as the head city of the world. {a}
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Sit in the dust.] {b} As a mourner. {Job 2:8; Job 42:6} So Judea, being subdued by Vespasian, was pictured upon money coined by him as a handmaid sitting on the ground. Sic ruet alto a culmine Roma!
O virgin daughter of Babylon.] Thou that hast never yet been subdued. So Venice hath for her motto, ‘Intacta maneo’; so Cologne-upon-Rhine is called ‘the virgin city.’
Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate.] So as queens use to be - Cleopatra, for instance.
{a} Sic transit gloria mundi. , So fleeting is the glory of the world.
{b} Cyrillus wrote εν τω οκοτει.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Come down from thy throne, as it follows, and…
Come down from thy throne, as it follows, and sit in the dust; either necessarily, because thou shalt have no higher seat; or voluntarily, as mourners do, bewailing thine approaching calamities. O virgin daughter of Babylon; so called, either,
1. Because she had not yet been humbled and conquered; or rather,
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2. Because she was tender and delicate, as the next clause informeth us. There is no throne, to wit, for thee. The empire is taken away from thee, and translated to the Persians.
Thou shalt no more be called; either be reputed so, or rather be so; for to be called is frequently put for to be, as hath been divers times noted. Thou shalt be reduced to great hardships and miseries.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7 In these verses God by the prophet sends a…
In these verses God by the prophet sends a messenger even to Babylon, like that of Jonah to Nineveh: "The time is at hand when Babylon shall be destroyed." Fair warning is thus given her, that she may by repentance prevent the ruin and there may be a lengthening of her tranquility. We may observe here,
I. God's controversy with Babylon. We will begin with that, for there all the calamity begins; she has made God her enemy, and then who can befriend her: Let her know that the righteous Judge, to whom vengeance belongs, has said (Isa 47:3), I will take vengeance. She has provoked God, and shall be reckoned with for it when the measure of her iniquities is full. Woe to those on whom God comes to take vengeance; for who knows the power of his anger and what a fearful thing it is to fall into his hands? Were it a man like ourselves who would be revenged on us, we might hope to be a match for him, either to make our escape from him or to make our part good with him. But he says, "I will not meet thee as a man, not with the compassions of a man, but I will be to the as a lion, and a young lion" (Hos 5:14); or, rather, not with the strength of a man, which is easily resisted, but with the power of a God, which cannot be resisted. Not with the justice of a man, which may be bribed, or biassed, or mollified by a foolish pity, but with the justice of a God, which is strict and severe, and can never be evaded. As in pardoning the penitent, so in punishing the impenitent, he is God and not man, Hos 11:9.
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II. The particular ground of this controversy. We are sure that there is cause for it, and it is a just cause; it is the vengeance of his temple (Jer 50:28); it is for violence done to Zion, Jer 51:35. God will plead his people's cause against them. It is acknowledged (Isa 47:6) that God had, in wrath, delivered his people into the hands of the Babylonians, had made use of them for the correction of his children, and had by their means polluted his inheritance, had left his peculiar people exposed to suffer in common with the rest of the nations, had suffered the heathen, who should have been kept at a distance, to come into his sanctuary and defile his temple, Psa 79:1. Herein God was righteous; but the Babylonians carried the matter too far, and, when they had them in their hands (triumphing to see a people that had been so much in reputation for wisdom, holiness, and honour, brought thus low), with a base and servile spirit they trampled upon them, and showed them no mercy, no, not the common instances of humanity which the miserable are entitled to purely by their misery. They used them barbarously, and with an air of contempt, nay, and of complacency in their calamities. They were brought under the yoke; but, as if that were not enough, they laid the yoke on very heavily, adding affliction to the afflicted. Nay, they laid it on the ancient - the elders in years, who were past their labour, and must sink under a yoke which those in their youthful strength would easily bear - the elders in office, those that had been judges and magistrates, and persons of the first rank. They took a pride in putting these to the meanest hardest drudgery. Jeremiah laments this, that the faces of elders were not honoured, Lam 5:12. Nothing brings a surer or a sorer ruin upon any people than cruelty, especially to God's Israel.
III. The terror of this controversy. She has reason to tremble when she is told who it is that has this quarrel with her (Isa 47:4): "As for our Redeemer, our Goel, that undertakes to plead our cause as the avenger of our blood, he has two names which speak not only comfort to us, but terror to our adversaries." 1. "He is the Lord of hosts, that has all the creatures at his command, and therefore has all power both in heaven and in earth." Woe to those against whom the Lord fights, for the whole creation is at war with them. 2. "He is the Holy One of Israel, a God in covenant with us, who has his residence among us, and will faithfully perform all the promises he has made to us." God's power and holiness are engaged against Babylon and for Zion. This may fitly be applied to Christ, our great Redeemer. He is both Lord of hosts and the Holy One of Israel.
IV. The consequences of it to Babylon. She is called a virgin, because so she thought herself, though she was the mother of harlots. She was beautiful as a virgin, and courted by all about her; she had been called tender and delicate (Isa 47:1), and the lady of kingdoms (Isa 47:5); but now the case is altered. 1. Her honour is gone, and she must bid farewell to all her dignity. She that had sat at the upper end of the world, sat in state and sat at ease, must now come down and sit in the dust, as very mean and a deep mourner, must sit on the ground, for she shall be so emptied and impoverished that she shall not have a seat left her to sit upon. 2. Her power is gone, and she must bid farewell to all her dominion. She shall rule no more as she has done, nor give law as she has done to her neighbours: There is no throne, none for thee, O daughter of the Chaldeans! Note, Those that abuse their honour or power provoke God to deprive them of it, and to make them come down and sit in the dust. 3. Her ease and pleasure are gone: "She shall no more be called tender and delicate as she has been, for she shall not only be deprived of all those things with which she pampered herself, but shall be put to hard service and made to feel both want and pain, which will be more than doubly grievous to her who formerly would not venture to setcreation is at war with them. 2. "He is the Holy One of Israel, a God in covenant with us, who has his residence among us, and will faithfully perform all the promises he has made to us." God's power and holiness are engaged against Babylon and for Zion. This may fitly be applied to Christ, our great Redeemer. He is both Lord of hosts and the Holy One of Israel.
IV. The consequences of it to Babylon. She is called a virgin, because so she thought herself, though she was the mother of harlots. She was beautiful as a virgin, and courted by all about her; she had been called tender and delicate (Isa 47:1), and the lady of kingdoms (Isa 47:5); but now the case is altered. 1. Her honour is gone, and she must bid farewell to all her dignity. She that had sat at the upper end of the world, sat in state and sat at ease, must now come down and sit in the dust, as very mean and a deep mourner, must sit on the ground, for she shall be so emptied and impoverished that she shall not have a seat left her to sit upon. 2. Her power is gone, and she must bid farewell to all her dominion. She shall rule no more as she has done, nor give law as she has done to her neighbours: There is no throne, none for thee, O daughter of the Chaldeans! Note, Those that abuse their honour or power provoke God to deprive them of it, and to make them come down and sit in the dust. 3. Her ease and pleasure are gone: "She shall no more be called tender and delicate as she has been, for she shall not only be deprived of all those things with which she pampered herself, but shall be put to hard service and made to feel both want and pain, which will be more than doubly grievous to her who formerly would not venture to set so much as the sole of her foot to the ground for tenderness and for delicacy," Deu 28:56. It is our wisdom not to use ourselves to be tender and delicate, because we know not how hardly others may use us before we die not what straits we may be reduced to. 4. Her liberty is gone, and she is brought into a state of servitude and as sore a bondage as she in her prosperity had brought others to. Even the great men of Babylon must now receive the same law from the conquerors that they used to give to the conquered: "Take the mill-stones and grind meal (Isa 47:2), set to work, to hard labour" (like beating hemp in Bridewell), "which will make thee sweat so that thou must throw off all thy head-dresses, and uncover thy locks." When they were driven from one place to another, at the capricious humours of their masters, they must be forced to wade up to the middle through the waters, to make bare the leg and uncover the thigh, that they might pass over the rivers, which would be a great mortification to those that used to ride in state. But let them not complain, for just thus they had formerly used their captives; and with what measure they then meted it is now measured to them again. Let those that have power use it with temper and moderation, considering that the spoke which is uppermost will be under. 5. All her glory, and all her glorying, are gone. Instead of glory, she has ignominy (Isa 47:3): Thy nakedness shall be uncovered and thy shame shall be seen, according to the base and barbarous usage they commonly gave their captives, to whom, for covetousness of their clothes, they did not leave rags sufficient to cover their nakedness, so void were they of the modesty as well as of the pity due to the human nature. Instead of glorying she sits silently, and gets into darkness (Isa 47:5), ashamed to show her face, for she has quite lost her credit and shall no more be called the lady of kingdoms. Note, God can make those sit silently that used to make the greatest noise in the world, and send those into darkness that used to make the greatest figure. Let him that glories, therefore, glory in a God that changes not, and not in any worldly wealth, pleasure, or honour, which are subject to change.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin…
Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon,.... The kingdom of Babylon is meant, as the Targum paraphrases it; or the Babylonish monarchy, called a virgin, because it had never been subdued and conquered from the first setting of it up, until it was by Cyrus; so Herodotus (c) says, this was the first time that Babylon was taken; and also because of the beauty and glory of it: but now it is called to come down from its height and excellency, and its dominion over other kingdoms, and sit in a mournful posture, and as in subjection to other princes and states, Jerom observes, that some interpret this of the city of Rome, which is mystical Babylon, and whose ruin may be hinted at under the type of literal Babylon. And though the church of Rome boasts of her purity and chastity, of her being espoused to Christ as a chaste virgin, she is no other than the great whore, the mother of harlots; and though she has reigned over the kings of the earth, the time is coming when she must come down from her throne and dignity, and sit and be rolled in the dust:
there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: that is, for her; there was a throne, but it was for Cyrus and Darius, kings of Persia, who should now possess it, when the king of Babylon should be obliged to come down from it. So the seat and throne which the dragon gave to the beast shall be taken from it, and be no more, Rev 13:2,
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for thou shall no more be called tender and delicate; or be treated in a tender and delicate manner; or live deliciously, and upon dainties, as royal personages do, Rev 18:7.
(c) Clio, sive l. 1. c. 191.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 God's judgments upon Babylon and Chaldea, for their cruelty…
God's judgments upon Babylon and Chaldea, for their cruelty towards God's people, ver. 1-6. Their pride and other sins, ver. 7-10. Their enchantments shall not deliver them, ver. 11-15.
Down - From thy throne. Virgin - So, called, because she was tender and delicate. No throne - For thee. The empire is taken from thee, and translated to the Persians. Called - Be so.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15 The destruction of Babylon is denounced by a beautiful
CHAPTER XLVII
The destruction of Babylon is denounced by a beautiful
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selection of circumstances, in which her prosperous is
contrasted with her adverse condition. She is represented as a
tender and delicate female reduced to the work and abject
condition of a slave, and bereaved of every consolation, 1-4.
And that on account of her cruelty, particularly to God's
people, her pride, voluptuousness, sorceries, and incantations,
5-11.
The folly of these last practices elegantly exposed by the
prophet, 12-15.
It is worthy of observation that almost all the imagery of this
chapter is applied in the book of the Revelation, (in nearly
the same words,) to the antitype of the illustrious capital of
the Chaldean empire, viz., Babylon the GREAT.
NOTES ON CHAP. XLVII
Verse 1. Come down, and set in the dust - "Descend, and sit on the dust"] See Clarke on Isa 3:26, and on "Isa 52:2".
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10, 12 Isa 47:1-2. Come down — From thy throne; and…
Isa 47:1-2. Come down — From thy throne; and sit in the dust — As a mourner for thy approaching calamities; O virgin daughter of Babylon — Thou that art tender and delicate like a virgin. Sit on the ground — In a condition the most abject and degraded. There is no throne — Namely, for thee. Imperial power is taken from thee, and translated to the Persians. Thou shalt no more be called tender — Thou shalt be reduced to the greatest hardships and miseries. Take the millstones — Thou shalt be subjected to the basest kind of slavery, which grinding at the mill was esteemed; for that work was most generally performed by slaves. The reader will observe, “they used hand-mills: water-mills were not invented till a little before the time of Augustus Cesar: wind-mills long after. It was not only the work of slaves to grind corn, but the hardest work; and often inflicted upon them as a severe punishment. And in the East it was the work of female slaves, Exo 11:5; Exo 12:29; (in the version of the LXX.;) Mat 24:41. And it is the same to this day. ‘Women alone,’ says Shaw, p. 297, ‘are employed to grind their corn.’ ‘They are the female slaves,’ says Sir. J. Chardin, ‘that are generally employed in the East at those hand-mills: it is extremely laborious, and esteemed the lowest employment in the house.’” — Bishop Lowth. Uncover thy locks — Take off the ornaments wherewith such women as were of good quality used to cover and dress their heads. These are predictions of what they should be forced to do or suffer. Make bare the leg, &c. — Gird up thy garments close and short about thee, that thou mayest be fit for travelling on foot, and for passing over those rivers through which thou wilt be constrained to wade in the way to the land of thy captivity.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Come down - Descend from the throne; or from…
Come down - Descend from the throne; or from the seat of magnificence and power. The design of this verse has already been stated in the analysis. It is to foretell that Babylon would be humbled, and that she would be reduced from her magnificence and pride to a condition of abject wretchedness. She is therefore represented as a proud female accustomed to luxury and ease, suddenly brought to the lowest condition, and compelled to perform the most menial services.
And sit in the dust - To sit on the ground, and to cast dust on the head, is a condition often referred to in the Scriptures as expressive of humiliation and of mourning Jos 8:6; Job 2:12; Job 10:9; Psa 22:15; Lam 3:29. In this manner also, on the medals which were struck by Titus and Vespasian to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem, Jerusalem is represented under the image of a female sitting on the ground under a palm-tree, with the inscription Judaea capta (see the notes at Isa 3:26). The design here is, to represent Babylon as reduced to the lowest condition, and as having great occasion of grief.
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O virgin daughter of Babylon - It is common in the Scriptures to speak of cities under the image of a virgin, a daughter, or a beautiful woman (see the notes at Isa 1:8; Isa 37:22; compare Lam 1:15; Jer 31:21; Jer 46:11). Kimchi supposes that the term ‘virgin’ is here given to Babylon, because it had remained to that time uncaptured by any foreign power; but the main purpose is doubtless to refer to Babylon as a beautiful and splendid city, and as being distinguished for delicacy, and the prevalence of what was regarded as ornamental. Gesenius supposes that the words ‘virgin daughter of Babylon,’ denote not Babylon itself, but Chaldea, and that the whole land or nation is personified. But the common interpretation, and one evidently more in accordance with the Scripture usage, is to refer it to the city itself.
There is no throne - Thou shalt be reduced from the throne; or the throne shall be taken away. That is, Babylon shall be no longer the seat of empire, or the capital of kingdoms. How truly this was fulfilled, needs not to be told to those who are familiar with the history of Babylon. Its power was broken when Cyrus conquered it; its walls were reduced by Darius; Seleucia rose in its stead, and took away its trade and a large portion of its inhabitants, until it was completely destroyed, so that it became for a long time a question where it had formerly stood (see the notes at Isa. 13; Isa 16:1-14)
Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate - A place to which luxuries flow, amid where they abound. The allusion is to a female that bad been delicately and tenderly brought up, and that would be reduced to the lowest condition of servitude, and even of disgrace. It is possible that there may be an allusion here to the effeminacy and the consequent corruption of morals which prevailed in Babylon, and which made it a place sought with greediness by those who wished to spend their time in licentious pleasures. The corruption of Babylon, consequent on its wealth and magnificence, was almost proverbial, and was unsurpassed by any city of ancient times. The following extract from Curtius (v. 1), which it would not be proper to translate, will give some idea of the prevailing state of morals:
‘Nihil urbis ejus corruptius moribus, nihil ad irritandas illiciendasque immodicas voluptates instructius. Liberos conjugesque cum hospitibus stupro coire, modo pretium flagitii detur, parentes maritique patituntur. Babylonii maxime in vinum, et quae ebrietatem sequuntur effusi sunt. Foeminarum conviva ineuntium, in principio modestus est habitus, dein summa quaeque amicula exuunt paulatimque pudorem profanant; ad ultimum (horror auribusest) ima corporum velamenta projiciunt. Nee meretricum hoc dedecus est, sed matronarum virginumque apud quas comitas habetur vulgati corporis vilitas.’
See also the description of a loathsome, disgusting, and abominable custom which prevailed nowhere else, even in the corrupt nations of antiquity, except Babylon, in Herod. i. 199. I cannot transcribe this passage. The description is too loathsome, and would do little good. Its substance is expressed in a single sentence, πασᾶν γυναῖκα ἐπιχωρίην...μιχθὴναι ἀνδρὶ ξείνῳ pasan gunaika epichōriēn...michthēnai andri cheinō. It adds to the abomination of this custom that it was connected with the rites of religion, and was a part of the worship of the gods! Strabo, speaking of this custom (iii. 348), says, Ἔθος κατά τι λόγιον ξένῳ μίγνυσθαι Ethos kata ti logion chenō mignusthai. See also Baruch 6:43, where the same custom is alluded to. For an extended description of the wealth and commerce of Babylon, see an article in the Amer. Bib. Rep. vol. vii. pp. 364-390.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 Virgin; delicate. (Menochius) --- Cyrus overthrew this empire, (Calmet)…
Virgin; delicate. (Menochius) --- Cyrus overthrew this empire, (Calmet) which now felt its share of misery. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 The Fall of Babylon, the Causes of it, and…
VIII.—THE EIGHTH DISCOURSE
The Fall of Babylon, the Causes of it, and the uselessness of the means to prevent it
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Isaiah 47
1. THE FALL OF BABYLON AND THE CAUSES OF IT
Isa_47:1-7
1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon,
Sit on the ground:
1There is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans:
For thou shalt no more be called tender and 2delicate.
2 Take the millstones, and grind meal:
Uncover thy 3locks, 4make bare the leg,
Uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers;
3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered,
Yea, thy shame shall be seen:
I will take vengeance,
5And I will not meet thee as a man.
4 6As for our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name,
The Holy One of Israel.
5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans:
For thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms.
6 I was wroth with my people,
I 7have polluted mine inheritance,
And ggiven them into thine hand:
Thou didst shew them no mercy;
Upon the 8ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.
7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady forever:
So that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart,
Neither didst remember the latter end of it.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Babylon, hitherto shining in splendor and luxury, is threatened with extreme degradation and exposure (Isa_47:1-3). Israel confesses with joy that it recognizes its Redeemer in Him that does this (Isa_47:4). The cause of this deep downfall is two-fold: 1) the severity against Israel that has exceeded the purpose of the Lord; 2) Babylon’s secure defiance and haughtiness (Isa_47:5-7).
2. Come down——Holy One of Israel.
Isa_47:1-4. The curt, monosyllabic imperatives רדי ושׁבי are the expression of a decided, relentless purpose. Babylon must come down, hard as it will be for it. In the dust, on the bare ground, without a throne it must sit, that hitherto was used to be high enthroned. For from an empress it has become a slave. But the slave, as the wretched and lowly generally, sits in the dust (comp. Isa_3:26, and the contrary description Isa_52:2). Hence the expressions “to lay, cast in the dust” (Isa_26:5 sq.; Job_16:15; Job_30:19; Psa_7:6), “to lie in the dust” (Psa_22:30; Psa_119:25), “to raise from the dust” (Ps. 43:7; 1Sa_2:8; 1Ki_16:2); “to lick the dust before one” (Isa_49:23; Psa_72:9). In the same way it is said that the mourner does not sit on an elevated seat, but on the earth (Job_2:13; Lam_2:10). The expressions tender and delicate (“abounding in voluptuousness”) are taken from Deu_28:56; Deu_28:54. Babylon is described as a city very greatly given up to luxury and voluptuousness, not only in the Bible (Jer_51:39; Dan_5:1 sqq.; comp. Isa_21:5) but more still by profane writers. For instance Curtius, (V. I) says: “Nihil urbis ejus corruptius moribus, nihil ad irritandas illiciendasque immodicas voluptates instructius.” Comp. Herod. I. 195, 199. Grinding grain with a hand mill was chiefly the labor of female slaves, and it was even regarded as the hardest labor (Exo_11:5; Mat_24:41; Luk_17:35). Comp. Herz. R.-Encycl. X. p. 82 sq. צַמָּה (from unused root צָמַם, Chald. צְמַם, “operuit, velavit”) is the veil (comp. Son_4:1; Son_4:3; Son_6:7). As is well-known, the women in parts of the Orient consider it a greater disgrace to let their face be seen than other parts of their bodies. שֹׁבֶל (from שָׁבַל unused=fluxit, defluxit, comp. שִׁבֹּלֶת27:12; Jdg_12:6) is the flowing garment, “border, train.” When the female slave comes to a stream in the way that can be forded, she is not carried over, as are ladies. She must wade through; no regard is paid to her womanly modesty. עֶרְוָה and חֶרְפָה correspond in the parallelism; hence the latter must be taken in essentially the same sense as the former. That the ערוה is seen is a חרפה. Comp. Isa_3:17; Jer_13:22; Jer_13:26; Eze_16:37; Nah_3:5. Thus the Lord threatens the Babylonians. What He intends by these judgments He says Isa_47:3 b: I will take vengeance. The negative clause ולא אפגע א׳ is understood in a great variety of ways. פגע means “irruere, incidere, obviam ire, pertinere,” then also, in a friendly sense “precibus insistere, to apply to one.” It does not suit here to take the word in a hostile sense: “I will run on none” (Stier), which only makes sense by arbitrarily supplying: “out of whose way I must get.” [“The true sense is that expressed by Rosenmueller, I shall encounter no man, i.e., no man will be able to resist me. This simple explanation is at the same time one of the most ancient, as we find it distinctly expressed by Symmachus (οὐκ ἀντιτήσεταί μοι ἅνθρωπος) and in the Vulgate (non resistet mihi homo.—J. A. Alex.]. I do not think it right to take the word in the sense of “to protect, pardon” for the reason that there ever lies in בּנע the meaning obvenire, thus the notion of “going against, getting in the way of.” I cannot see why the well-approved meaning “to apply to one with petition or intercession” (Job_21:15; Rth_2:22; Jer_7:16; Jer_27:18) may not suit our context. Jehovah, as the only true God, neither desires nor uses human help. The taking of Babylon must appear as God’s doing, not as a fact accomplished by human power. And if it be asked, what God has showed Himself stronger than the gods of Babylon, thus who is the accomplisher of the said divine doing, Israel alone has the correct reply when it cries out: Our Redeemer, Jehovah of hosts is His name (comp. Isa_48:2; Isa_54:5), the Holy One of Israel (see List). These words do not fit to what follows, and as little are they suited to be an antiphonal-like conclusion of the preceding strophe. They give the impression of a joyful welcome greeting, which meets one approaching, and who is recognized as a friend.
3. Sit thou silent——end of it.
Vers.5–7. The Prophet, Isa_47:5, declares once again in general the downfall of Babylon, as in Isa_47:1, but makes prominent another contrast. There the contrast was between the loftiest height and the lowest humiliation; here it is between shining and darkness. Babylon shall now sit down in a still, dark place, she that before was the brilliant, far shining empress of kingdoms (Isa_13:19). This repeated announcement of punishment finds its reason in Isa_47:6-7. The Prophet assigns a double reason. First, Babylon abused the right of discipline deputed to it. The Lord was wroth with His people, and polluted His inheritance, by permitting profane heathen nations to trample land, city and Temple, and to carry away the holy people into captivity (comp. Lam_2:2; Psa_74:7, etc.). But He would only discipline His people, not destroy them; whereas Babylon sought to do the latter by every means (comp. Jer_5:11; Jer_5:24; Jer_5:28-29; Jer_5:31 sq.; Jer_51:6; Jer_51:11; Jer_51:24; Jer_51:34 sqq. Jer_51:56; Zec_1:15). For it shewed them no mercy (the expression שׂוּםרַֽחֲמִים only here). Even old age was not spared (comp. Lam_4:16; Lam_5:12). I am, with Delitzsch, of the opinion that by זָקֵן we are not to understand the nation as one grown old. The Prophet that wrote Isa_40:28 sqq., could hardly represent Israel, even in the Exile, as a worn-out old man. The second reason for the humiliation that threatens Babylon is its haughtiness. This mirrors to it the illusion of its dominion lasting forever. And by reason of this illusion (עַד=“so that,” comp. 1Sa_20:41; Job_8:21; Job_14:6) Babylon does not lay to heart the guilt with which it is loaded because of its treatment of Israel, therefore it does not in the least think (comp. Isa_46:8) on the consequences of that treatment, viz: the vengeance (comp. l.c, and Jeremiah 50, 51), it must provoke.—ישׂים על לב Isa_42:25; Isa_57:1; Isa_57:11. הֵשִׁיב על לב Isa_44:19; Isa_46:8. יָשִׂים לִבּוֹ Isa_41:22. עָלָה עד לב Isa_65:17.
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2. THE FRUITLESSNESS OF THE MEANS EMPLOYED TO SAVE BABYLON
Isa_47:8-15
8 9Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures,
That dwellest carelessly,
That 10sayest in thine heart,
I am, and none else beside me;
I shall not sit as a widow,
Neither shall I know the loss of children:
9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day,
The loss of children, and widowhood:
They shall come upon thee in their perfection
11For the multitude of thy sorceries,
And cfor the great abundance of thine enchantments.
10 12For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness:
Thou hast said, None seeth me.
Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath 13perverted thee;
And thou hast said in thine, heart, I am, and none else beside me.
11 14Therefore shall evil come upon thee;
15Thou shalt not know 16from whence it riseth:
And mischief shall fall upon thee;
Thou shalt not be able to 17put it off:
And desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.
12 Stand now with thine enchantments,
and with the multitude of thy sorceries,
Wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth;
18If so be thou shalt be able to profit,
gIf so be thou mayest 19prevail.
13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels.
Let now the 20astrologers, the stargazers,
21 22The monthly prognosticators,
Stand up, and save thee
From these things that shall come upon thee.
14 Behold, they shall be as stubble;
The fire 23shall burn them;
They shall not deliver 24themselves from the power of the flame:
lThere shall not be a coal to warm at.
Nor fire to sit before it.
15 Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured,
Even thy merchants, from thy youth:
They shall wander every one to his quarter;
None shall save thee.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
See List for the recurrence of the words: Isa_47:8. אֶפֶמ–עֲדִינָה–וְעַתָּה, which occurs forty-three times in the Old Testament. Especially the turn of expression ואפם עור or אפם בלעדי is encountered relatively so often in these chapters (Isa_45:6; Isa_45:14; Isa_46:9; Isa_47:8; Isa_47:10), that it may be regarded as a peculiarity of them. Only 2Sa_9:3 does the expression again occur. Hence we are justified in regarding it as an Isaianic expression, and thus a proof of our passage being genuine Isaianic. Isa_47:9. חֲבָרִים –כֶּשֶׁף–רֶגַע. Isa_47:11. הוָֹה. Isa_47:12. הָבַר. Isa_47:15. לעברו.
Isa_47:9. עֲדִינָה from עָדַן, only Neh_9:25, an adjective corresponding to the substantive ישׁב לבטח–.עֵדֶן occurs only here in Isaiah; but comp. Isa_14:30. The expression is in the Pentateuch: Lev_25:18-19; Lev_26:5; comp. Jdg_18:7. It is more common in the later prophets: Jer_32:37; Jer_49:31; Eze_28:26; Eze_34:25, etc. Especially Zep_2:15 is to be noted, where the expression עירעליזה is borrowed from Isa_22:2; Isa_32:13, and the remainder of the verse from our passage. Even זֹאת הָעִיר in Zeph. shows that what follows is a citation, עליזה is undoubtedly taken from the undisputed Isaianic passages Isa_22:2; Isa_32:13; for beside Zep_2:15; Zep_3:11, the expression occurs only in Isaiah.—The ־ִי in אפסי is very difficult to explain. Most expositors take it as י compaginis (thus=אֶפֶם עוֹד). But this י is superfluous, and at the same time incorrect where there is no genitive relation. Hahn takes it as a feminine י, as in ־ֵכִי ,קִטְלִי ,אַתְּי; but the Hebrew knows no distinction of gender in the first person. De Dieu and Coccejus take the clause as a question; Vitringa and Nolde regard אַפְסִי as representing a doubled אפם (el non est praeter me alia). But the question is not self-evident and must be indicated, and the absence of אֶפֶם or אֵין is unexampled. It is best, with Delitzsch, to take אפסי in the sense of אֵינִי: (אֵינֶנִּיego utique non sum amplius; therefore; I am not, as it were, found again in another sample. The sense would then be the same as אפם כמוני Isa_46:9.
Isa_47:9. כֶּשֶׁף, from כָּשַׁף, of uncertain meaning, Piel, “to bewitch, conjure,” (Exo_7:11; Exo_22:17; Deu_18:10, etc.), occurs only in the plural, and in Isaiah only here and Isa_47:12 (comp. Mic_5:11; Nah_3:4; 2Ki_9:22). Also חֲבָרִים from חָבַר “ligare, fascinare, to bind,” especially to bind by enchantment, thus “to exorcise ”(Deu_18:11; Psa_58:6) occurs only here and Isa_47:12.—עָצְמַת מְאֹד is explained 1) from the verbal construction, and 2) from the qualitative meaning of עָצְמָה (Isa_40:29).
Isa_47:10. רֹאָנִי stands in pause for רֹאַנִי and this for רֹאֵנִי (1Ch_12:17).
Isa_47:12. בְּ, with which עָמַד is here conjoined, is that of accompaniment: in the midst of her witchcrafts, etc., therefore, according to our idiom with her witchcraft, etc., shall Babylon stand up (comp. Isa_7:24; Isa_24:9; Isa_30:29, etc.).—בַּֽאֲשֶׁר stands here oddly instead of the normal אֲשֵׁר יָגַעְתָּ בָם. This is one of the rare instances in which the adverbial אֲשֶׁר appears in transition to an actual pronoun (Gen_31:32; Gesen., § 123, 2; Comm. in loc.).—יָגַע with בְּ as in Isa_43:22-24; Isa_62:8.
Isa_47:13. עֲצָתַיִךְ is an abnormal formation, the plural suffix being attached to the nom. singular. Analogous examples occur Psa_9:15; Eze_35:11; Ezr_9:15. If it is not an error of writing, the abnormal suffix form is to be explained by the plural meaning of the collective in connection with the ת of the connecting form, as also other feminine endings in ת that are not plurals (as וֹת in בְּנוֹת ,אָחוֹת infin., –ִית ,וּת in שְׁבית ,זְנוּת etc.), occur with plural suffixes.—הְֹבְרֵי שָׁמַים, so K’ri; K’thibh reads הָבַר–.אֲשֶׁר הָֽבְרוּ=הָֽבְרוּ. ἅπ. λεγ.., means, according to the dialects, “to divide, distribute.” Still this meaning is not quite assured. Hence Knobel would take the word, according to the Arab. chabara, in the sense of “gnari, those acquainted with the heavens;” but Hahn, following Hitz. on Dan_2:26, would read הֵבֵרוּ (בָּרַר “to investigate,” Ecc_3:18; Ecc_9:1).
Isa_47:14. To take לַחְמָם for לַֽחֲמָם (“for warming”) seems to me forced. Moreover, what follows would then be tautology. I side with those who explain גַּחֶלֶת לַחְמָם according to Isa_44:19 : the coals of their bread, i.e., the glow of the coals, on which they bake their bread.—אֲשֶׁר accusative of nearer definition.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Therefore hear——beside Me.
Isa_47:8-10. The whole section Isa_47:8-15 is mainly intended to show how ill-founded is that confidence of Babylon expressed in Isa_47:7, “I shall be a lady forever.” First, the Prophet makes Babylon repeat the assertion in an amplified form (Isa_47:8). With the contrastive “now however (comp. Isa_43:1; Isa_44:1) hear this” he introduces an address to Babylon, whom he here designates as a delicious one, as in Isa_47:1 he calls it “delicate and voluptuous.” Then he calls it “the one dwelling in security” because it knows no superior power, and thus no possibility of molestation (see Text. and Gram.). I, and none else; by this Babylon affirms that it is solitary of its kind, its like will no more be found. This is justly regarded as blasphemous pride. For the expression employed here recalls Isa_45:5-6; Isa_45:18; Isa_45:22; Isa_46:9, where God, who alone has the right to do it, affirms His incomparableness. Babylon affirms that it shall be neither a widow nor childless. Most expositors understand by widowhood the ἀβασίλεια. But Knobel and Delitzsch justly object, that in ancient times kings were by no means regarded as the husbands of their cities or nations. Hence the widowhood is rather the being forsaken of the nations with which it had hitherto had active commerce (according to the Biblical view πορνεία23:16 sq.; Rev_18:9), thus sad loneliness, exclusion from intercourse with the world (Lam_1:1). Hahn understands the widowhood to mean, forsaken of God, or the gods (comp. Isa_54:4 sqq.). But one must guard against transferring theocratic representations to heathen relations. It is agreed by all that being childless means depopulation (comp. Isa_54:1 sqq.). Yet these strokes, so undreaded, will still come; and that not slowly, by degrees, but suddenly and in one day (Isa_9:13; Isa_10:17; Isa_66:8), i.e., not in intervening periods one after another, but all at once. כְּתֻּמָּם, “according to the measure of its completion,” i.e., completely and totally (comp. לְחֻמָּהּ1Ki_22:34) they are come upon thee (perf. prophet.) spite of thine arts of sorcery and the great abundance of thine enchantments. Almost all expositors agree that בְּ signifies, with a certain irony, the useless presence, the unsuccessful connection and application, and thus corresponds to our “spite of, for all your.” Comp. Isa_5:25; Isa_9:11; Isa_9:16; Isa_9:20; Isa_10:4; Num_14:11; Deu_1:32; Psa_78:32. There lies in this the characteristic ingredient of this strophe: spite of all the means resorted to Babylon must fall.
Babylon is celebrated as the home of astronomy, astrology and magic (comp. Ideler, Sternkunde der Chald. in den Abhandl. d. Berl. Akad. d. Wissensch., 1814, 1815, Berlin, 1818; Gesen. im Komm. zu Jes. Beilage II.). Just these secret sciences and arts were relied upon as important means of protection against misfortunes of all kinds. Isa_47:10 may not be translated: “and thou reliest on thy wickedness,” as is done by most exegetes. For if by wickedness be understood tyranny and craft, that will not comport with: none seeth me. In fact this latter expresses just the ground of confidence. The same objection holds against our understanding by “wickedness” the false wisdom. But if רָעָה be understood to mean godlessness itself, i.e., the belief that there is no God, all-wise, all-holy, and all-mighty, then again it could not be said: thou reliest on thy godlessness; just as little as it may be said: the pious man relies on his faith. As one must say: the pious man is confident in or by his faith, so, too, the Prophet’s meaning here must be: and thou wast secure in thy godlessness, thou saidst, There is none that sees me. Of course, there is here the underlying assumption, that the idols are no proper gods, all-wise, just and almighty avengers of the wicked. For the Prophet seems not to think at all of Babylon’s idols being present. According to his view, they do not disturb the wicked. But Babylon was secure in all its wickedness and godlessness because it believed it dared say: no one is present that sees me. By this can only be meant a seeing higher than that of idols. I construe בָּטַח absolutely: securum esse, which is undoubtedly its meaning (Jdg_18:7; Jdg_18:10; Jdg_18:27; Jer_12:5; Job_40:23; Pro_11:15). Therefore, we learn from these words that Babylon trusted, not only in outward things, as intimated in Isa_47:8, but that its proud confidence had also the inward ground, that it believed it might hold the conviction of there being no all-seeing God. So partly Hahn. The words: “there is none that seeth me,” express the result of a reflection on things religious. There were also in Babylon theologians and philosophers whose wisdom and knowledge amounted to that אין ראנו, whence the Prophet says to Babylon: thy wisdom and thy knowledge it hath perverted thee. Hence, when here a second time the words “I and none else ”are ascribed to Babylon, it is to intimate that it so speaks, not only with reference to men, but even with reference to divinity. Babylon deifies itself, by exalting itself, not only above all men, but also above the gods.
2. Therefore shall evil——come upon thee.
Isa_47:11-13. Babylon’s overthrow is described as something that could neither be foreseen nor prevented. שַׁחְרָה rhymes with כַּפְרָהּ, and hence is likely the same grammatical form, viz., inf. Piel. The meaning “dawn,” though at first sight the most likely, does not commend itself, because the dawn of a misfortune cannot be the first moment of its appearance, for that would be a contradiction; nor can it be the first moment of its disappearance, for the end of a thing cannot be its dawn. Hahn’s proposed rendering: “unblacken,” is far-fetched. The rendering proposed, first by J. D. Michaelis, and accepted by most, best suits the context. This identifies שָׁחַר with the Arabic Sachara, incantavit, and gives the translation: and evil will come upon thee which thou wilt not know how to exorcise. Thus Isa_47:11 says in three clauses that Babylon will have no means of warding off the misfortune. The first declares the inadequacy of magic, the second of idol-sacrifices, the third exposes the disgrace of astrology, which will not even be able to know of the evil in advance.
The Isa_47:12-13 explain what is said in Isa_47:11. For the words: “thou shalt not know how to exorcise it” are evidently elucidated by Isa_47:12 : try now the שַׁחֵר (exorcism) by חברים (enchantments) and כשפים (charms); may-be something will come of it! At the same time it seems to me that the כַּבֵּר is elucidated in Isa_47:12. For conjuring demons, as in general all sorts of sorcery were often joined with the offer of sacrifices, sometimes of pleasure, sometimes atrocious. “The relation of all idolatry with sorcery lies in this that in the names of the gods the name of God is abused for egoistic, sinful ends, with the application of self-elected, senseless and mercenary forms of religion,” says Lange in the article on witchcraft in Herz. R. Enc. XVIII. p. 395. The second half of Isa_47:11 is elucidated by Isa_47:13. We will need to take עמדי נא ווג׳ Isa_47:12 in the same sense as יעמדו־נא Isa_47:13. The latter can hardly be taken in the sense of “to remain standing.” Hence we must also take עמד Isa_47:12 in the sense of “to stand forth, come on, stand up” (comp. Gesen. Thes. p. 1038), in which sense it is undeniably often used: 1Sa_17:51; 1Ki_20:38; Hab_3:11; Eze_22:30. From thy youth, thus from its first beginning Babylon had been busied with astrology, divination and magic. (Comp. Duncker, Gesch. d. Alterth. I. p. 124, 127 sq.). The Prophet ironically concludes his challenge to try what help they can find in their secret arts with a double “perhaps, if so be:” perhaps thou mayest be able to profit (positive), perhaps thou wilt terrify, viz. the enemy (negative). Isa_47:13 relates to knowing future evil in advance, with reference to which the Prophet says Isa_47:11 b it shall not be. This is, of course, strange. For Babylon, from the earliest antiquity, practised divination, and especially astrological divination. The challenge of Isa_47:12 was attended with ill-success. Babylon worried itself in vain with its sorceries and enchantments. Thou art wearied by the multitude of thy counsels (see Text. and Gram.) i.e., by thy methodically arranged attempts (viz. in the sphere of enchantment); so the Prophet calls mockingly to the totality of the Babylonians. Therefore let some one help thee (ויושׁיעך Isa_47:13), he continues. Let the astrologers appear now. This exposition results necessarily from the antithesis of נלאית and הֹבְרֵי שָׁמַיִם .ויושׁיעך are those that divide the heavens, i.e., who mark off the heavens into fields (the so-called “houses”) for the purpose of their observations (see Text. and Gram.). In any case astrologers, “masters of the course of heaven” are meant. They are also called חזים בכוכבים. I doubt very much whether חזה with בְּ has here the meaning “to contemplate, look with pleasure.” חָזָה is used of prophetic seeing generally (Isa_1:1; Isa_2:1; Amo_1:1; Mic_1:1), and חֹזֶה is “a seer.” Therefore חֹזִים בכ׳ may very well mean: those that look (viz. at the future) in the stars, or by means of the stars. In the words מודיעים וגו׳ the Prophet seems to intimate an arrangement whereby the astrologers monthly (לחדשִׁים comp. Isa_27:3; Isa_33:2) made communication to the people out of that which they had read in the stars (hence מאשׁר יבאו). We have here perhaps the first trace of the calendar of later times (παραπήγματα, ἀλμενιχιακά).
3. Behold they shall be——shall save thee, Isa_47:14-15. In these verses is announced the final destiny of all those in whom Babylon trusted, and also its own destiny. The, wise masters of Babylon are compared to stubble. Fire consumes them. Not precisely actual fire is meant. He only compares generally the power that overthrows Babylon to a fire that devours stubble. They will not be able to save even themselves, much less others. For the fire will be no moderate glow like that used for baking bread, or for a genial hearth-fire, before which one sits to get warm (see Text. and Gram.). Such are they become (continues Isa_47:15), respecting whom thou hast taken pains. This is said in reference to Isa_47:12. The home resources of power and deliverance so carefully cultivated in Babylon are meant. But the allies from abroad also, its business friends, the numerous admirers and worshippers, that of old (מנעריך to be referred to סחריך) came to Babylon to carry on trade and delight themselves, wander (involuntary departure from the way, being dispersed) off each to his vis-a-vis (לעברו only here; עֵבֶר is what lies directly before one), i.e. straight out. The word, therefore, does not mean: each to his home; but, as dispersed, they wander each his way in front of him (comp. 1Sa_14:1; 1Sa_14:4; 1Sa_14:40; Eze_1:9; Eze_1:12; Eze_10:22, etc.). That one may help Babylon is not to be thought of.—Therefore in the section Isa_47:8-15 it is proved in every direction that all props for Babylon give way, that all means of deliverance in which it hoped are refused.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. On Isa_47:1 sqq. “Fortune is round and unstable in the world, and all transitory things must have an end, and they that go about them pass away with them (Sir_14:19). For if the great Assyro-Babylonian empire could not last, but from a virgin and lady was made a serving maid, what must happen to other worldly things that can by no means be compared with it?” Cramer.—[“Let those that have power use it with temper and moderation, considering that the spoke which is uppermost will be under.” M. Henry.]
2. On Isa_47:6 sq. The minister of righteousness may himself become a transgressor if he does not execute the punishment according to the will of righteousness, but abuses his power of punishment for the gratification of his own love of violence. Thus there arises a chain-like connection of right and wrong that passes through all human history, till God, the only just One, solves all the discords of worldly judgments in the harmony of the world’s judgment.
3. On Isa_47:9 sqq. Sorcery is devil-service. For he that uses any sort of enchantment seeks to attain some object by means of supernatural powers that are not the powers of God. For we, too, by God’s power may do miracles and signs, as the holy men of God of the Old and New Testament show. But the power of God puts itself at the disposal of the office borne in God’s name and by His commission, or of believing prayer (Mat_17:20). But whoever would do miracles by hocus pocus of any kind, lets it be understood that he would make powers of the invisible world subservient to him, that are not the powers of God. But in the invisible world there are beside God’s powers only the powers of the devil. That is the great peril of witchcraft. For the devil never works for nothing. He exacts the soul for it.
4. On Isa_47:10. The omnipresence and omniscience of God are quite extraordinarily onerous to the natural man. He can never enjoy his life for it. If he lives along, as he pleases, genioindulgens, there still comes to him ever and anon the secret voice that whispers: God sees it. Hence, to-day, as the Babylonians did, he employs all his knowledge and wisdom to make himself white, so that he may say: אֵין רֹאֵנִי, no one sees me. He would rather let the laws of nature grind him to pieces, than acknowledge a personal God that sees and judges all things. This endeavor to get the personal God out of the world, that has its source equally in fear and hatred, has not, however, its roots in human nature as such. For then it must be found in all men. It is rather the hatred and fear of the devil that reflect themselves in those men who, according to Joh_8:41-48, have the devil for their father.
[“Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness, as Doeg, Psa_3:7. Many have so debauched their own consciences, and have got to such a pitch of daring wickedness, that they stick at nothing; and this they trust to carry them through those difficulties which embarrass men who make conscience of what they say and do. They doubt not but they shall be too hard for all their enemies, because they dare lie, and kill, and foreswear themselves, and do anything for their interest. Thus they trust in their wickedness to secure them, which is the only thing that will ruin them.” M. Henry.]
5. [On Isa_47:13. “I confess I see not how the judicial astrology which some now pretend to, by rules of which they undertake to prophesy concerning things to come, can be distinguished from that of the Chaldeans, nor therefore how it can escape the censure and contempt which this text lays that under. Yet I fear that there are some who study their almanacs, and regard them and their prognostications more than their Bibles and the prophecies there.” M. Henry.]
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_47:1-7. The mighty in this world should guard well against two H’s: 1) against Hardness toward the weak (Isa_47:6), for He avenges them (Isa_47:3); 2) against Haughtiness, for He humbles it (Isa_47:1-5; Isa_47:7).
2. On Isa_47:12 sqq. Warning against superstition.—1) The essence of superstition: it is brother to unbelief (the unbeliever and superstitious) because it has lost what is truly transcendent, and hence, by reason of the ineffaceable drawing of men to what is super-terrestrial, falls into the hands of that which is false; the believer, on the other hand, is never superstitious, because as a child of God he knows that he is under the protection of the true, highest, super-terrestrial power. 2. The effects of superstition: a. it fosters coarse and refined idolatry; b. it robs men of the right comfort and the right help.
Footnotes:
[1]without a throne.
[2]voluptuous.
[3]veil.
[4]lift up thy train.
[5]And appeal to no man about it.
[6]omit As for.
[7]polluted—gave.
[8]aged.
[9]And now hear this, thou delicious.
[10]says in her heart.
[11]Spite of.
[12]And thou wast secure in.
[13]Or, caused thee to turn away.
[14]but evil comes.
[15]Which they shall not know how to exorcise.
[16]Heb. the morning thereof.
[17]Heb. expiate.
[18]Perhaps.
[19]terrify.
[20]Heb. viewers of the heavens.
[21]Heb. that give knowledge concerning the months.
[22]Who every month give report from them what shall come on thee.
[23]has burned.
[24]Heb. their souls.
HOMILETICAL HINTS
1. On Isa_48:1-2. “We, for our part, are also quite fallen into Jewish security. For we take great comfort from this, that we know, that we have God’s word simple and pure, and the same is indeed highly to be praised and valued. But it is not enough for one to have the word. One ought and must live according to it, then will God make account of us. But where one lives without the fear of God and in sin, and hears the word without amendment, there God will punish all the harder, as Christ shows in the parable of the servant that knew his Lord’s will and did it not. Therefore one should let go such fleshly confidence, and labor to live in the fear of God, and hold faithfully to His word. Then if we fall into distress and pray for deliverance, it will surely be granted to us. But those who brag about God as do the Jews, and yet fear Him not, nor will live according to His word, will boast in vain. God will single them out and punish them as He did the Jews. For these two things must go together: trusting God, and fearing God. Neither can be right without the other. If thou fearest not God, thou becomest proud and presumptuous as the Jews. But if thou believest not, and only fearest, thou wilt become anxious and fall into despair. Therefore the Psalm says: “The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him, in those that hope in His mercy,” Psa_147:10. Veit Dietrich.
2. [On Isa_48:3-8. The doctrine of providence supported by prophecy. 1) The method stated Isa_48:3; Isa_48:6; Isa_7:2) The reasons for God’s taking this method with them. a. He knew how obstinate they would be (Isa_48:4). b. How deceitful they would be. c. That they would be giving His glory to idols (Isa_48:5). After M. Henry.].
3. On Isa_47:9-11. The divine discipline of children. 1) Its course of procedure: a. God is patient (Isa_47:9); b. God punishes severely (Isa_47:10). 2) Its aims: a. God is patient a. for the sake of His honor (in order to reveal Himself as the “good”); β. for our sakes (Isa_47:9 b that we may not be exterminated); b. God is severe a. for the sake of His honor (that He may not be blasphemed, Isa_47:11); β. for our sakes (that we may be purified and confirmed in the furnace of affliction).
4. On Isa_48:17-19. “That is our most blessed knowledge that we know God through His self-witness, and who, as one veiled, speaks from the prophets as the One Eternal Prophet; as the reflected splendor of the invisible Divinity that became flesh and blood in Jesus, and is now as our Brother constantly with us. Yea, blessed and forever safe is he that pays heed to God’s testimony of the very gracious condescension of God to us! God makes such heedful ones forever at peace in Himself, whose peace becomes overflowing and overwhelming as a river, because God in it imparts to us pardon and justification. Our righteousness in God is as waves of the sea, that continually swell up in great abundance, for God’s grace that works in us and accomplishes our righteousness is, in fact, infinite. Dost thou lack peace and righteousness, then believe assuredly that the only reason is that thou hast despised the word of thy God. Yea, whoever stablishes himself in God by believing acceptance of His word, he is forever established, and also has eternal bloom. He belongs to the innumerable family of God, that moves on through all times. How can he ever want for posterity?” J. Diedrich.
5. On Isa_48:20. “So God is wont to do: when the enemies of the churches pull hardest on the rope, it must break. We should mark this well, and comfort ourselves by it. For else we will become faint-hearted and despond, when matters go so ill.” Veit Dietrich.
6. On Isa_48:20-22. Israel’s Egyptian and Babylonian captivity is a type of the church in the world, and of individual believing souls in the body of this death. But we are to a certain degree ourselves to blame for the pressure of this captivity. There is even very much that holds us back to the flesh-pots of Egypt. We are often wanting in proper love for the one thing needful, in proper faith, in courage, in fidelity, in diligence in good works. Yet the Lord has deprived the devil of his power. The enemy is even really conquered already; “ein Woertlein kann ihn faellen.” Hence the Christian must be exhorted to depart from Babylon courageously and intrepidly. This the Prophet does in our text. We see in it a warning call to depart out of Babylon. 1) The possibility of going out is a. objectively presented by redemption “that is by Jesus Christ; but b. depends subjectively on our love to God and our faith. 2) The return home is difficult, indeed, as it was with Israel. It is through deserts of distress and danger. But God will not forsake His own. The spiritual rock (1Co_10:4) follows along with them. 3) At home, with the Lord, in communion with Him, they find peace, whereas the wicked nowhere and never shall find peace, not even in all the power, splendor and glory of this world.
7. [On Isa_48:22. “The wicked, as a matter of sober truth and verity, have no permanent and substantial peace and joy. (1) In the act of wickedness; (2) in the business or the pleasures of life; (3) no peace of conscience; (4) on a death-bed; (5) there is often not only no peace, but the actual reverse, apprehension; despair: (6) beyond the grave, a sinner Can have no peace at the judgment bar of God; he Can have no peace in hell.” Abbreviated from Barnes.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–15 millstones--like the querns or hand-mills, found in this country,…
millstones--like the querns or hand-mills, found in this country, before the invention of water mills and windmills: a convex stone, made by the hand to turn in a concave stone, fitted to receive it, the corn being ground between them: the office of a female slave in the East; most degrading (Job 31:10; Mat 24:41).
uncover thy locks--rather, "take off thy veil" [HORSLEY]: perhaps the removal of the plaited hair worn round the women's temples is included; it, too, is a covering (Co1 11:15); to remove it and the veil is the badge of the lowest female degradation; in the East the head is the seat of female modesty; the face of a woman is seldom, the whole head almost never, seen bare (see on Isa 22:8).
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make bare the leg--rather "lift up (literally, 'uncover'; as in lifting up the train the leg is uncovered) thy flowing train." In Mesopotamia, women of low rank, as occasion requires, wade across the rivers with stript legs, or else entirely put off their garments and swim across. "Exchange thy rich, loose, queenly robe, for the most abject condition, that of one going to and fro through rivers as a slave, to draw water," &c.
uncover . . . thigh--gather up the robe, so as to wade across.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15 1. Virgin daughter — The proud city figured as…
1. Virgin daughter — The proud city figured as a royal damsel (denoting city and inhabitants) stripped of her rich clothing, degraded from her lofty rank, and made a gazing stock of shame. For same figures see chap. xxiii, 12; Isa_37:22.
Chaldeans — This is the name of the peoples composing the strong nation which once occupied the city and territory of Babylon; a people from among whom Abraham was originally called.
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Tender and delicate — Her queenly dignity is to be abolished forever. Under the Persians the seat of empire was removed to Susa. For description of the capture of Babylon, see HERODOTUS, 1:191.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 1. virgin daughter of Babylon] i.e. “virgin daughter, Babylon”;…
1. virgin daughter of Babylon] i.e. “virgin daughter, Babylon”; see on Isa_1:8, cf. Isa_37:22. The parallel phrase daughter of the Chaldœans is somewhat different. It describes Babylon as the city of (possessed by) the Chaldæans, the reigning dynasty. It might no doubt be a personification of the land of Chaldæa, like “daughter of Egypt” in Jer_46:11; but this is less probable.
sit on the ground] A sign not of mourning, as in Isa_3:26, but of abject humiliation.
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there is no throne] Render: without a throne, as R.V.
thou shalt no more be called] Lit. “thou shalt no more (be one whom) they call”; the peculiar construction being partly due to the Hebrew aversion to the use of the passive.
tender and delicate] See Deu_28:56, “the tender and delicate woman which would not adventure to set the sole of her foot upon the ground.”
1–4. The first strophe consists of a tristich (Isa_47:1) followed (on Duhm’s reconstruction) by two distichs. The leading thought is the degradation of Babylon from her position of ease and luxury.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 (1) Come down . . .—The virgin daughter of…
XLVII.
(1) Come down . . .—The virgin daughter of Babylon, i.e., Babylon itself, personified as till now unconquered, is called to leave her throne and sit in the dust as a menial slave. The epithets “tender” (better, perhaps, wanton) and “delicate” point to the luxury which had been identified with Babylon, and which was now to cease.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–15 Vers. 1-15. A SONG OF TRIUMPH OVER THE FALL…
Vers. 1-15. A SONG OF TRIUMPH OVER THE FALL OF BABYLON. The song divides itself into four strophes, or stanzas the first one of four verses (vers. 1-4); the second of three (vers. 5-7); the third of four (Vers. 8-11); and the fourth also of four (vers. 12-15). The speaker is either Jehovah (see ver. 3, ad fin. ) or "a chorus of celestial beings" (Cheyne), bent on expressing their sympathy with Israel
Come down, and sit in the dust; i.e. "descend to the lowest depth of humiliation". (comp. Isa_3:26 and Job_2:8) O virgin daughter of Babylon. The "virgin daughter of Babylon" is the Babylonian people as distinct from the city. (comp. Isa_23:12) "Virgin" does notmean "unconquered;" for Babylon had been taken by the Assyrians some half-dozen times ("Ancient Monarchies," vol. 2, pp. 58, 130, 149, 157, 164, 175, etc.). Sit on the ground: there is no throne; rather, sit on the ground throneless, or without a throne. Hitherto the "virgin daughter" had sat, as it were, on a throne, ruling the nations. Now she must sit on the ground there was no throne left for her. It is the fact that Babylon was never, after her capture by Cyrus, the capital. of a kingdom. Under the Achsemenian kings she was the residence of the court for a part of the year; but Susa was the capital. Under Alexander she was designated for his capital; but he died before his designs could be carried out. Under the Seleucidae she rapidly dwindled in consequence, until she became a ruin. Thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate; or, delicate and luxurious (Cheyne). Babylon had hitherto been one of the chief seats of Oriental luxury. She was "the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees" excellency", (Isa_13:19) "the golden city". (Isa_14:4) She was given to revelry and feasting, to mirth and drunkenness, to a shameless licensed debauchery. (Herod., 1. 199; RAPC Bar 6:43) All this would now be changed. Her population would have to perform the hard duties laid upon them by foreign masters.
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Vers. 1-15. The fall of ancient states a warning to modern ones.
History has been defined as "philosophy teaching by examples." It is only on the supposition that there are lessons to be learnt from them that historical inquiries or historical records can be regarded as of any value or importance. In a certain sense it is no doubt true to say that "history never repeats itself." The exact circumstances, even of those historical events which most nearly resemble each other, are always in many respects dissimilar. But the value and use of history lies in the fact that, speaking broadly, history does repeat itself. Its events, as Thucydides observes, recur same, or nearly the same and will do so "while human nature remains what it is" (Thucyd., i. 22). Hence history teaches lessons, and among its most important lessons are those that it teaches to existing states or communities, by the example which it sets before them of the careers and ultimate fates of former states and communities, which existed under more or less similar circumstances. In most cases we have to speculate on the causes which produced the decline and fall of empires, kingdoms, countries; and thus our conclusions can seldom be more than probable conjectures on the subject. Still, they are often of a high value. But a very much higher value attaches to the instances when an inspired writer delivers to us the Divine view of the causes which brought about the fall of a nation; for here we stand on firm ground we have a solid and assured basis upon which to rest; and we may draw out the lesson which the writer"s words convey with a certainty that we shall not mislead or cause an unfounded alarm. Now, according to Isaiah, the downfall of Babylon was produced by four principal causes; and the lesson to be learnt from her fall is avoidance of four vices. The fall of Babylon warns states
I AGAINST LUXURY. Babylon was "given to pleasure" (ver. 8), was "tender and delicate" (ver. 1), or "delicate and luxurious." It is generally allowed that luxury saps the vigour of states, destroying the severer virtues of courage, manliness, and endurance, and at the same time producing a degeneracy of the physical nature, a loss of muscle, of tone, of fibre. It is, no doubt, difficult to draw the line, and to say what exactly constitutes luxury; but certain practices, common in most modern as well as in many ancient states, may be distinctly regarded as "luxurious." The worst and most fatal of these is unchastity. If the manhood of a nation indulges generally, or widely, in licentiousness, if purity in man is a rare thing, we may be sure that the national character and the national strength are being undermined. The vice of unchastity gnaws at the roots of a nation"s vigour, and brings a premature decay. States should take such measures against it as they take against a pestilence. They should strive to keep it out. Having once admitted it, they should seek to stamp it out. If they cannot do this, if the vice is too deeply ingrained to be got rid of, then they must look out for speedy disaster, culminating in ruin. Another dangerous vice, likewise to be carefully guarded against, is intemperance. This, too, affects both body and soul, inflames and so exhausts the one, degrades and enfeebles the other. Of less account, but still coming under the head of luxury, and therefore to be avoided, are gluttony, sloth, effeminacy, over-refinement. Of such it may be said, "Hoc nigrum est; hoc tu, Romane, caveto.
II AGAINST CRUELTY. Babylon "showed no mercy" (ver. 6); "upon the aged, very heavily she laid her yoke" (ver. 6). Cruelty has less direct tendency to weaken a nation than luxury; but still it weakens in certain ways. It alienates the subject races towards whom it is shown. It exasperates foreign enemies, and causes a people to be hated even by those who have not themselves suffered at their bands. But its deleterious effect is probably, in the main, due to God"s hatred of it. God abominales oppressors, (Isa_1:21-24 Isa_3:12 Isa_5:23, etc.) and takes care to punish them. "Woe to the oppressing city!" says God by Zephaniah; (Zep_3:1) and again, by Nahum, (Nah_3:1) "Woe to the bloody city!" "Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth". (Jer_51:25) God pours outhis anger against the cruel and truculent, making them experience in their turn the sufferings they have caused to others, (Jer_51:24, Jer_51:35, Jer_51:36, etc. ) and thus bringing them to destruction.
III AGAINST PRIDE. Babylon thought that she was "a lady for ever" (ver. 7). She "said in her heart, I am, and none else beside me" (vers. 8, 10). She had such an overweening opinion of herself that she dwelt carelessly" (ver. 8), despised her enemies, made slight preparation against them. Her pride, therefore, like her luxury, by its natural working, seriously diminished her strength for resistance, making her negligent and improvident. But it was also among the causes which especially called down God"s judgment. "Pride," as we are told, "goeth before destruction", (Pro_16:18) and nothing seems so to provoke the Divine vengeance. "By that sin fell the angels." God "brings down the high looks of the proud." "The lofty looks of man shall be humbled, and the haughtiness of man shall be bowed down, and the Lord alone shall be exalted in that day". (Isa_2:11) When God brought low Assyria, the object was to "punish the fruit of the stout heart of the King of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks". (Isa_10:12) When Babylon was chastised, it was "because she had been proud against the Lord therefore were her young men slain in the streets, and all her men of war cut off". (Jer 1) Pride, therefore, is a vice especially to be eschewed by states, if they desire continuance, and would fain be "ladies for ever.
IV AGAINST FOOLISH SUPERSTITION. There is a deisidaimonia which is praiseworthy, rather than blamable, as was that of the Athenians. (Act_18:22, Revised Version) Babylon is not rebuked because she really venerated her gods, poor shadows of Divinity as they were. She is blamed because she superseded, or overlaid the worship of her gods with various meaner superstitions. Bereavement and widowhood came upon her "for the multitude of her sorceries, and for the great abundance of her enchantments" (ver. 9). It is addiction to magic which is especially "her wickedness" (vet. 10), in which she has "trusted;" and it is this wickedness, together with the other three vices already spoken of, that has caused the sentence of destruction to go forth against her. Modern states may well take the warning to heart. When religion is discredited, superstitions speedily usurp her place. Such monstrosities as Mormonism and spirit-rapping, which disgrace the nineteenth century, are superstitions as degrading as any to which the Babylonians gave way, and may well bring down a Divine judgment on the nations which encourage them or think lightly of them. Such superstitions certainly cannot "save" those who trust in them (ver. 13); but it is not so certain that they may not destroy.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-15. The fall of Babylon.
This is a scoffing song at the overthrow of Babylon. It is divided into four nearly equal stanzas. Luxury, ambition, and the practice of magic the one sin worse than the others were prevalent at Babylon. Each of these is lashed in the first three stanzas. There is a climax, the scorn of the prophet reaching its highest point in the last stanza (Ewald). Spiritually considered, the picture may represent the course of "this present world" in its godless pride.
I BABYLON AS TYPICAL OF LUXURY. The city in ancient fancy is ever thought of as a woman in all her beauty and glory, or in all her shame. The great city here appears as the haughty and luxurious courtesan. The just judgment has fallen upon her impurity. She is violently torn away from her life of softness and refinement, and reduced to the status of a common slave has to ply the hard labour of grinding meal. (Exo_11:5 Job_31:10) Or, like a captive stripped of all her finery, she has to wade barefoot through streams. Every hidden shame will be exposed to the light of day. Only in Israel as Isaiah 42-46, have repeatedly proclaimed is salvation to be found. These calamities of the proud city are in retribution for her sins the just vengeance of an offended God.
II BABYLON AS TYPICAL OF PRIDE AND AMBITION. This "daughter of the Chaldeans" is no longer to be termed "lady, or mistress, of kingdoms." When Jehovah was wroth with his people, and desecrated his heritage, giving them into her hands, she showed no pity, but laid a heavy yoke upon the aged, thinking in her heart, "1 shall be mistress for ever." She did not consider the end, which has now come upon her. While Israel enjoys freedom, she must pass into the darkness of the prison-house. (Isa_42:7, Isa_42:22)
III AS TYPICAL OF SUPERSTITION. In her carelessness and pride she has exalted herself above Jehovah. (Zep_2:15) She thinks she will never lose her protector, the Chaldean king; and her children, the stout burghers of the city. But sudden conquest will deprive her of both, and she will be as a widow, forlorn. Her third and inexcusable sin is superstition. Her wisdom and science have led her astray to a point of blinding self-conceit. But now an evil has come upon her which no incantations and spells can charm away a mischief for which none of her rites can atone. Her false confidence has blinded her to the true faith in the eternal God. (with vers. 10, 11, cf. Isa_45:18 Isa_19:11, etc.) And tile result must be sudden and crushing ruin.
IV BABYLON"S FALL AS TYPICAL OF THE WISDOM THAT IS BROUGHT TO NOUGHT. What can all her learned astrologers and magicians do for her now they whose guidance has so long been followed? (cf. Isa_46:6, 7 44:12 43:23) Let them stand by her in her need, those star-gazers and moon-gazers. But all are dumb, and, so far from helping, flee for their own safety from the fire no gently warming hearth-fire, (Isa_44:16) but one most horrible and devouring, from which there is no escape. (Isa_1:11 Isa_33:11-14 Isa_5:24)
V LESSONS. All the great sins are connected together as links in a chain. They are drawn as with a cart-rope. Sensuality and luxury bring pride and contempt in their train; and these, again, blindness and bewilderment of mind. And where no affliction nor humiliation have been known, there will be no sympathy nor pity towards others. Yet religion is ever a necessity to man; and, if the true religion be rejected, some counterfeit must take its place. The most foolish and the darkest superstitions flourish in such times. So it was again when Christianity was making its way in the decaying Roman world. True religion, rooted in humanity and the fear of God, and in light-loving intelligence, alone can deliver the nation and the individual. J.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Vers. 1, 2. Humiliation the Divine judgment on pride.
The point here, according to some, is that Babylon loudly boasted about her never having been captured; so she called herself, and was called, a "virgin" city. The figure suggests all the delicacy, all the luxuriousness, all the pride, of the Eastern princess. "Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall." The humiliation of Babylon is presented in precise accordance with the circumstances and sentiments of a grand and proud princess. The hands that were never soiled shall do menial work; the lady who sat in state, in her lovely boudoir, shall sit on the ground and work the household handmill; she who walked alone, attended by her maids, shall be tied to a group of captives, and dragged to foreign slavery; and the delicate dame who had been royally clothed and modestly veiled shall be exposed to the jests and sneers and rude gaze of rough and brutal men. It is a picture of crushing judgments, such as must surely, sooner or later, overtake proud persons, proud cities, and proud nations. God works by humblings, as well as by actual sufferings. The force of the picture presented here lies in the command to the exquisite princess to "take the millstones, and grind meal." This was the most servile form of female labour, and those engaged in it are often squalid and half-clad. Poor blind people go from house to house to grind, and thus earn a pittance. The indignity expressed in the command to "uncover thy locks" can only be understood as it is known that Jewish women are not permitted to show their hair after marriage, and their head-dress is so contrived as completely to conceal the hair. The expression, "pass over the rivers," alludes to the demand to wade the streams as the humiliated princess journeys to the place of her captivity. Illustrate
I THE HUMILIATION OF PROUD NATIONS. Such striking cases may be dealt with as the ruin of commercial Tyre; the dismantling of strong and gorgeous Babylon; the overthrow of imperial Rome; the discomfiture of Xerxes and his immense army; the prostration of Napoleonic France. Bushnell has a fine argument for the dignity of human nature as shown by its ruins, and he illustrates by references to the utter desolation and ruin of what were once the great cities of great nations.
II THE HUMILIATION OF PROUD CLASSES. The calamities of war, famine, pestilence, trade depression, most quickly and grievously affect them, because of the thousandfold fictitious wants which their pride creates. There are no miserable creatures so miserable as those who are born to riches, and, having none or losing all, are left in their helplessness.
III THE HUMILIATION OF PROUD INDIVIDUALS. Show the various shapes it takes in this life, and illustrate from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, the certainty and hopelessness of it in the next life. Of this we may be quite sure God has woe in store, in this life and in the next, for all the proud. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 7, 10, 11, 14 Come down, and sit in the dust
Isa_47:1-3
Come down, and sit in the dust
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Dirge on the downfall of Babylon:
Babylon is pictured as a royal lady, dethroned, led in captivity over the streams to a distant land, and there made the meanest slave behind the millstones.
(A. B. Davidson, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Isaiah 47
CHAPTER XII
BABYLON
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Isaiah 47
THROUGHOUT the extent of Bible history, from Genesis to Revelation, One City remains, which in fact and symbol is execrated as the enemy of God and the stronghold of evil. In Genesis we are called to see its foundation, as of the first city that wandering men established, and the quick ruin, which fell upon its impious builders. By the prophets we hear it cursed as the oppressor of Gods people, the temptress of the nations, full of cruelty and wantonness. And in the Book of Revelation its character and curse are transferred to Rome, and the New Babylon stands over against the New Jerusalem.
The tradition and infection, which have made the name of Babylon as abhorred in the Scripture as Satans own, are represented as the tradition and infection of pride, -the pride, which, in the audacity of youth, proposes to attempt to be equal with God: "Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may touch heaven, and let us make us a name"; the pride, which, amid the success and wealth of later years, forgets that there is a God at all: "Thou sayest in thine heart, I am, and there is none beside me." Babylon is the Atheist of the Old Testament, as she is the Antichrist of the New.
That a city should have been originally conceived by Israel as the archenemy of God is due to historical causes, as intelligible as those which led, in later days, to the reverse conception of a city as Gods stronghold, and the refuge of the weak and the wandering. Gods earliest people were shepherds, plain men dwelling in tents, -desert nomads, who were never tempted to rear permanent structures of their own except as altars and shrines, but marched and rested, waked and slept, between Gods bare earth and Gods high heaven; whose spirits were chastened and refined by the hunger and clear air of the desert, and who walked their wide world without jostling or stunting one another. With the dear habits of those early times, the truths of the Bible are therefore, even after Israel has settled in towns, spelt to the end in the images of shepherd life. The Lord is the Shepherd, and men are the sheep of His pasture. He is a Rock and a Strong Tower, such as rise here and there in the deserts wildness for guidance or defence. He is rivers of water in a dry place, and the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. And mans peace is to lie beside still waters, and his glory is, not to have built cities, but to have all these things put under his feet-sheep and oxen and the beasts of the field, the fowls of the air and the fish of the sea.
Over against that lowly shepherd life, the first cities rose, as we can imagine, high, terrible, and impious. They were the production of an alien race, a people with no true religion, as it must have appeared to the Semites, arrogant and coarse. But Babylon had a special curse. Babylon was not the earliest city, -Akkad and Erekh were famous long before, -but it is Babylon that the Book of Genesis represents as overthrown and scattered by the judgment of God. What a contrast this picture in Genesis, - and let it be remembered that the only other cities to which that book leads us are Sodom and Gomorrah, -what a contrast it forms to the passages in which classic poets celebrate the beginnings of their great cities. There, the favourable omens, the patronage of the gods, the prophecies of the glories of civil life; the tracing of the temple and the forum; visions of the city as the school of industry, the treasury of wealth, the home of freedom. Here, but a few rapid notes of scorn and doom: mans miserable manufacture, without Divine impulse or omen; his attempt to rise to heaven upon that alone, his motive only to make a name for himself; and the result-not, as in Greek legend, the foundation of a polity, the rise of commerce, the growth of a great language, by which through the lips of one man the whole city may be swayed together to high purposes, but only scattering and confusion of speech. To history, a great city is a multitude of men within reach of one mans voice. Athens is Demosthenes; Rome is Cicero persuading the Senate; Florence is Savonarola putting by his word one conscience within a thousand hearts. But Babylon, from the beginning, gave its name to Babel, confusion of speech, incapacity for union and for progress. And all this came, because the builders of the city, the men who set the temper of its civilisation, did not begin with God, but in their pride deemed everything possible to unaided and unblessed human ambition, and had only the desire to make a name upon earth.
The sin and the curse never left the generations, who in turn succeeded those impious builders. Pride and godlessness infested the city, and prepared it for doom, as soon as it again gathered strength to rise to heaven. The early nomads had watched Babylons fall from afar; but when their descendants were carried as captives within her in the time of her second glory, they found that the besetting sin, which had once reared its head so fatally high, infected the city to her very heart. We need not again go over the extent and glory of Nebuchadrezzars architecture, or the greatness of the traffic, from the Levant to India, which his policy had concentrated upon his own wharves and markets. It was stupendous. But neither walls nor wealth make a city, and no observant man, with the Hebrews faith and conscience, could have lived those fifty years in the centre of Babylon, and especially after Nebuchadrezzar had passed away, without perceiving that her life was destitute of every principle which ensured union or promised progress. Babylon was but a medley of peoples, without common traditions or a public conscience, and incapable of acting together. Many of her inhabitants had been brought to her, like the Jews, against their own will, and were ever turning from those glorious battlements they were forced to build in their disgust, to scan the horizon for the advent of a deliverer. And many others, who moved in freedom through her busy streets, and shared her riches and her joys, were also foreigners, and bound to her only so long as she ministered to their pleasure or their profit. Her king was a usurper, who had insulted her native gods; her priesthood was against him. And although his army, sheltered by the fortifications of Nebuchadrezzar, had repulsed Cyrus upon the Persians first invasion from the north, conspiracies were now so rife among his oppressed and insulted subjects, that, on Cyrus second invasion, Babylon opened her impregnable gates and suffered herself to be taken without a blow. Nor, even if the citys religion had been better served by the king, could it in the long run have availed for her salvation. For, in spite of the science with which it was connected, -and this "wisdom of the Chaldeans" was contemptible in neither its methods nor its results, -the Babylonian religion was not one to inspire either the common people with those moral principles, which form the true stability of states, or their rulers with a reasonable and consistent policy. Babylons religion was broken up into a multitude of wearisome and distracting details, whose absurd solemnities, especially when administered by a priesthood hostile to the executive, must have hampered every adventure of war, and rendered futile many opportunities of victory. In fact, Babylon, for all her glory, could not but be short-lived. There was no moral reason why she should endure: The masses, who contributed to her building, were slaves who hated her; the crowds who fed her business, would stay with her only so long as she was profitable to themselves; her rulers and her priests had quarrelled; her religion was a burden, not an inspiration. Yet she sat proud, and felt herself secure.
It is just these features, which our prophet describes in chapter 47, in verses more notable for their moral insight and indignation, than for their beauty as a work of literature. He is certain of Babylons immediate fall from power and luxury into slavery and dishonour (Isa_47:1-3). He speaks of her cruelty to her captives (Isa_47:6), of her haughtiness and her secure pride (Isa_47:7-8). He touches twice upon her atheistic self-sufficiency, her "autotheism,"-"I am, and there is none beside me," words which only God can truly use, but words which mans ignorant, proud self is ever ready to repeat (Isa_47:8-10). He speaks of the wearisomeness and futility of her religious magic (Isa_47:10-14). And he closes with a vivid touch, that dissolves the reality of that merely commercial grandeur on which she prides herself. Like every association that arises only from the pecuniary profit of its members, Babylon shall surely break up, and none of those, who sought her for their selfish ends, shall wait to help her one moment after she has ceased to be profitable to them.
Here now are his own words, rendered literally except in the case of one or two conjunctions and articles, -rendered, too, in the original order of the words, and, as far as it can be determined, in the rhythm of the original. The rhythm is largely uncertain, but some verses-Isa_47:1, Isa_47:5, Isa_47:14, Isa_47:15 -are complete in that measure which we found in the Taunt-song against the king of Babylon in chapter 13, and nearly every line or clause has the same metrical swing upon it.
Down! and sit in the dust, O virgin, Daughter of Babel!
Sit on the ground, with no throne, Daughter of Khasim!
For not again shall they call thee
Tender and Dainty.
Take to thee millstones, and grind out the meal,
Put back thy veil, strip off the garment,
Make bare the leg, wade through the rivers;
Bare be thy nakedness, yea, be beholden thy shame
I Vengeance I take, and strike treaty with none.
Our Redeemer!
Jehovah of Hosts is His Name,
Holy of Israel!
Sit thou dumb, and get into darkness,
Daughter of Khasdim!
For not again shall they call thee Mistress of Kingdoms.
I was wroth with My people, profaned Mine inheritance,
Gave them to thy hand:
Thou didst show them no mercy, on old men thou madest Thy yoke very sore.
And thou saidst, Forever I shall be mistress,
Till thou hast set not these things to thy heart,
Nor thought of their issue.
Therefore now hear this,
Voluptuous, Sitting self-confident:
Thou, who saith in her heart,
"I am: there is none else.
I shall not sit a widow, nor know want of children."
Surely shall come to thee both of these, sudden, the same day,
Childlessness, widowhood!
To their full come upon thee, spite of the mass of thy spells,
Spite of the wealth of thy charms-to the full!
And thou wast bold in thine evil; thou saidst,
"None doth see me."
Thy wisdom and knowledge-they have led thee astray,
Till thou hast said in thine heart,
"I am: there is none else."
Yet there shall come on thee Evil,
Thou knowst not to charm it.
And there shall fall on thee Havoc,
Thou canst not avert it.
And there shall come on thee suddenly,
Unawares, Ruin.
Stand forth, I pray, with thy charms, with the wealth of thy spells-
With which thou hast wearied thyself from thy youth up-
If so thou be able to profit,
If so to strike terror.
Thou art sick with the mass of thy counsels:
Let them stand up and save thee-
Mappers of heaven,
Planet-observers,
Tellers at new moons-
From what must befall thee!
Behold, they are grown like the straw!
Fire hath consumed them;
Nay, they save not their life
From the hand of the flame! -
Tis no fuel for warmth,
Fire to sit down at!-
Thus are they grown to thee, they who did weary thee
Traders of thine from thy youth up;
Each as he could pass have they fled
None is thy saviour!
We, who remember Isaiahs elegies on Egypt and Tyre, shall be most struck here by the absence of all appreciation of greatness or of beauty about Babylon. Even while prophesying for Tyre as certain a judgment as our prophet here predicts for Babylon, Isaiah spoke as if the ruin of so much enterprise and wealth were a desecration, and he promised that the native strength of Tyre, humbled and purified, would rise again to become the handmaid of religion. But our prophet sees no saving virtue whatever in Babylon, and gives her not the slightest promise of a future. There is pity through his scorn: the way in which he speaks of the futility of the mass of Babylonian science; the way in which he speaks of her ignorance, though served by hosts of counsellors; the way in which, after recalling her countless partners in traffic, he describes their headlong flight, and closes with the words, "None is thy saviour,"-all this is most pathetic. But upon none of his lines is there one touch of awe or admiration or regret for the fall of what is great. To him Babylon is wholly false, vain, destitute-as Tyre was not destitute-of native vigour and saving virtue. Babylon is sheer pretence and futility. Therefore his scorn and condemnation are thorough; and mocking laughter breaks from him, now with an almost savage coarseness, as he pictures the dishonour of the virgin who was no virgin-"Bare thy nakedness, yea, be beholden thy shame"; and now in roguish glee, as he interjects about the fire which shall destroy the mass of Babylons magicians, astrologers, and haruspices: "No coal this to warm oneself at, fire to sit down before." But withal we are not allowed to forget, that it is one of the Tyrants poor captives, who thus judges and scorns her. How vividly from the midst of his satire does the prisoners sigh break forth to God:-
Our Redeemer! Jehovah of Hosts is His Name, Holy of Israel!
Not the least interesting feature of this taunt-song is the expression which it gives to the characteristic Hebrew sense of the wearisomeness and immorality of the system of divination, which formed the mass of the Babylonian and many other Gentile religions. The worship of Jehovah had very much in common with the rest of the Semitic cults. Its ritual, its temple-furniture, the division of its sacred year, its terminology, and even many of its titles for the Deity and His relations to men, may be matched in the worship of Phoenician, Syrian, and Babylonian gods, or in the ruder Arabian cults. But in one thing the "law of Jehovah" stands by itself, and that is in its intolerance of all augury and divination. It owed this distinction to the unique moral and practical sense which inspired it. Augury and divination, such as the Chaldeans were most proficient in, exerted two most evil influences. They hampered, sometimes paralysed, the industry and politics of a nation, and they more or less confounded the moral sense of the people. They were, therefore, utterly out of harmony with the practical sanity and Divine morality of the Jewish law, which strenuously forbade them; while the prophets, who were practical men as well as preachers of righteousness, constantly exposed the fatigue they laid upon public life, and the way they distracted attention from the simple moral issues of conduct. Augury and divination wearied a peoples intellect, stunted their enterprise, distorted their conscience. "Thy spells, the mass of thy charms, with which thou hast wearied thyself from thy youth. Thou art sick with the mass of thy counsels. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge! they have led thee astray." When "the Chaldean astrology" found its way to the new Babylon, Juvenals strong conscience expressed the same sense of its wearisomeness and waste of time.
Ashes and ruins, a servile and squalid life, a desolate site abandoned by commerce, -what the prophet predicted, that did imperial Babylon become. Not, indeed, at the hand of Cyrus, or of any other single invader; but gradually by the rivalry of healthier peoples, by the inevitable working of the poison at her heart, Babylon, though situated in the most fertile and central part of Gods earth, fell into irredeemable decay. Do not let us, however, choke our interest in this prophecy, as so many students of prophecy do, in the ruins and dust, which were its primary fulfilment. The shell of Babylon, the gorgeous city which rose by Euphrates, has indeed sunk into heaps; but Babylon herself is not dead. Babylon never dies. To the conscience of Christs seer, this "mother of harlots," though dead and desert in the East, came to life again in the West. To the city of Rome, in his day, John transferred word by word the phrases of our prophet and of the prophet who wrote the fifty-first chapter of the Book of Jeremiah. Rome was Babylon, in so far as Romans were filled with cruelty, with arrogance, with trust in riches, with credulity in divination, with that waste of mental and moral power which Juvenal exposed in her. "I sit a queen," John heard Rome say in her heart, "and am no widow, and shall in no wise see mourning. Therefore in one day shall her plagues come, death and mourning and famine, and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God which judged her." {Revelation 17, 18} But we are not to leave the matter even here: we are to use that freedom with John, which John uses with our prophet. We are to pass by the particular fulfilment of his words, in which he and his day were interested, because it can only have a historical and secondary interest to us in face of other Babylons in our own day, with which our consciences, if they are quick, ought to be busy. Why do some honest people continue to confine the references of those chapters in the Book of Revelation to the city and church of Rome? It is quite true, that John meant the Rome of his day; it is quite true, that many features of his Babylon may be traced upon the successor of the Roman Empire, the Roman Church. But what is that to us, with incarnations of the Babylonian spirit so much nearer ourselves for infection and danger, than the Church of Rome can ever be. Johns description, based upon our prophets, suits better a commercial, than an ecclesiastical state, -though self-worship has been as rife in ecclesiasticism, Roman or Reformed, as among the votaries of Mammon. For every phrase of Johns, that may be true of the Church of Rome in certain ages, there are six apt descriptions of the centres of our own British civilisation, and of the selfish, atheistic tempers that prevail in them. Let us ask what are the Babylonian tempers and let us touch our own consciences with them.
Forgetfulness of God, cruelty, vanity of knowledge (which so easily breeds credulity), and vanity of wealth, -but the parent of them all is idolatry of self. Isaiah told us about this in the Assyrian with his war; we see it here in Babylon with her commerce and her science; it was exposed even in the orthodox Jews, (Chapter 14) for they put their own prejudices before their Gods revelation; and. it is perhaps as evident in the Christian Church as anywhere else. For selfishness follows a man like his shadow; and religion, like the sun, the stronger it shines, only makes the shadow more apparent. But to worship your shadow is to turn your back on the sun; selfishness is atheism, says our prophet. Mans self takes Gods word about Himself and says, "I am, and there is none beside me." And he who forgets God is sure also to forget his brother; thus self-worship leads to cruelty. A heavy part of the charge against Babylon is her treatment of the Lords own people. These were Gods convicts, and she, for the time, Gods minister of justice. But she unnecessarily and cruelly oppressed them. "On the aged thou hast very heavily laid thy yoke." Gods people were given to her to be reformed, but she sought to crush the life out of them. Gods purpose was upon them, but she used them for her aggrandisement. She did not feel that she was responsible to God for her treatment even of the most guilty and contemptible of her subjects.
In all this Babylon acted in accordance with what was the prevailing spirit of antiquity; and here we may safely affirm that our Christian civilisation has at least a superior conscience. The modern world does recognise in some measure, its responsibility to God for the care even of its vilest and most forfeit lives. No Christian state at the present day would, for instance, allow its felons to be tortured or outraged against their will in the interests either of science or of public amusement. We do not vivisect our murderers nor kill them off by gladiatorial combats. Our statutes do not get rid of worthless or forfeit lives by condemning them to be used up in dangerous labours of public necessity. On the contrary, in prisons we treat our criminals with decency and even with comfort, and outside prisons we protect and cherish even the most tainted and guilty lives. In all our discharge of Gods justice, we take care that the inevitable errors of our human fallibility may fall on mercys side. Now it is true that in the practice of all this we often fail, and are inconsistent. The point at present is that we have at least a conscience about the matter. We do not say, like Babylon, "I am, and there is none beside me. There is no law higher than my own will and desire. I can; therefore, use whatever through its crime or its uselessness falls into my power for the increase of my wealth or the satisfaction of my passions." We remember God, and that even the criminal and the useless are His. In wielding the power which His Law and Providence put into our hands towards many of his creatures, we remember that we are administering His justice, and not satisfying our own revenge, or feeding our own desire for sensation, or experimenting for the sake of our science. They are His convicts, not our spoil. In our treatment of them we are subject to His laws, -one of which, that fences even His justice, is the law against cruelty; and another, for which His justice leaves room, is that to every man there be granted, with his due penalty, the opportunity of penitence and reform. There are among us Positivists, who deny that these opinions and practices of modern civilisation are correct. Carrying out the essential atheism of their school-I am man, and there is none else: that in the discharge of justice and the discharge of charity men are responsible only to themselves-they dare to recommend that the victims of justice should be made the experiments, however painful, of science, and that charity should be refused to the corrupt and the useless. But all this is simply reversion to the Babylonian type, and the Babylonian type is doomed to decay. For history has writ no surer law upon itself than this-that cruelty is the infallible precursor of ruin.
But while speaking of the state, we should remember individual responsibilities as well. Success, even where it is the righteous success of character, is a most subtle breeder of cruelty. The best of us need most strongly to guard ourselves against censoriousness. If God does put the characters of sinful men and women into our keeping, let us remember that our right of judging them, our right of punishing them, our right even of talking about them, is strictly limited. Religious people too easily forget this, and their cruel censoriousness or selfish gossip warns us that to be a member of the Church of Christ does not always mean that a mans citizenship is in heaven; he may well be a Babylonian and carry the freedom of that city upon his face. To "be hard on those who are down" is Babylonian; to make material out of our neighbours faults, for our pride, or for love of gossip, or for prurience, is Babylonian. There is one very good practical rule to keep us safe. We may allow ourselves to speak about our erring brothers to men, just as much as we pray for them to God. But if we pray much for a man, he will surely become too sacred to be made the amusement of society or the food of our curiosity or of our pride.
The last curse on Babylon reminds us of the fatal looseness of a society that is built only upon the interests of trade; of the loneliness and uselessness that await, in the end, all lives, which keep themselves alive simply by trafficking with men. If we feed life only by the news of the markets, by the interest of traffic, by the excitement of competition, by the fever of speculation, by the passions of cupidity and pride, we may feel healthy and powerful for a time. But such a life, which is merely a being kept brisk by the sense of gaining something or overreaching some one, is the mere semblance of living; and when the inevitable end comes, when they that have trafficked with us from our youth depart, then each particle of strength with which they feed us shall be withdrawn, and we shall fall into decay. There never was a truer picture of the quick ruin of a merely commercial community, or of the ultimate loneliness of a mercenary and selfish life, than the headlong rush of traders, "each as he could find passage," from the city that never had other attractions even for her own citizens than those of gain or of pleasure.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv3, 7, 10, 11, 12 Isa_47:3. I will take vengeance, and I will not…
A DREADFUL MEETING
Isa_47:3. I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.
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Little did Babylon think with whom she now had to contend. This was no empty threat. It was carried into full and fearful execution. Thus it has fared with other nations, and will, at last, with every impenitent sinner. There is a time of vengeance, as well as of mercy. Then God will meet His enemies, but not as a man.
1. When men are about to meet their enemies, it is generally their policy to keep up the show of peace and friendship as long as they can; and to make their preparations secretly, so that when they strike, the blow may fall without warning—without affording any time for escape. But it is not in this manner that God meets His enemies. He gives them warning upon warning.
2. God does not meet His enemies in vengeance, till He has tried every means to recover and reclaim them. The crime of rebellion is commonly visited, by earthly rulers, with immediate condign punishment.
3. God never meets His enemies in vengeance, without a just and sufficient cause. Men often do.
4. God’s anger is infinitely removed from that which burns in the breasts of His fallen creatures. He has no private resentment to gratify, no bye-ends to answer. He acts as a moral governor, as guardian of the interests of the universe.
5. When God will meet impenitent sinners, there is no hope of resisting Him.
6. When He does meet His enemies, it is with a fixed determination to crush them. He will not spare.
7. Men sometimes, when they undertake to crush an enemy, leave the work unfinished. But it is not thus that God will deal with His enemies. Wherever His vengeance strikes, the blow will be fatal.
8. After an earthly prince has subdued his rebellious subjects, and laid them under his high displeasure, he may be moved by their entreaties and sufferings to release them from prison, and restore them to favour. But God will never show favour in another world to those who refuse submission to Him in this, and die with arms in their hands. “Behold, now is the accepted time.” When God shall have cast the impenitent into hell, the last ray of light will be extinguished for ever.—Heman Humphrey, D.D.: American National Preacher, vol. iv. pp. 269–274.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Isa 47:11-15
Isa 47:11-15
I. Look at this picture of utter and most painful bewilderment. It is the necessary and inevitable result of sin.
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II. Hear the Divine challenge addressed to the false powers in which we have trusted.
III. See the doom of false securities. (1) We cannot escape the trial of our securities. (2) If we set ourselves against God, we challenge all the forces of His creation.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 114; see also Pulpit Notes, p. 214.
References: Isa 47:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 444. Isa 48:8.—Ibid., vol. xiii., No. 779; Ibid., Evening by Evening, p. 353. Isa 48:9-11.—Ibid., Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1041. Isa 48:10.—Ibid., vol. i., No. 35, vol. xxiv., No. 1430; Ibid., Morning by Morning, p. 63; Preacher’s Lantern, vol. i., p. 501. Isa 48:10.—G. Calthrop, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 33; J. Keble, Sermons for Saints’ Days, p. 199.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 An Ode on the Humiliation of Babylon
An Ode on the Humiliation of Babylon
1-15. The coming calamity. The reason of Babylon's fall. Her helplessness to avert it.
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2. Grind] i.e. as a slave (Exo_11:5).
Uncover, etc.] RV 'remove thy veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg.' The overthrow of the city is set forth under the figure of a maiden carried away into slavery. Pass over] on the way to exile.
3. Will not meet, etc.] RV 'will accept no man,' i.e. none shall be spared.
6. Babylon is to be thus punished because, when the Jewish exiles were in her power, she had treated them cruelly (Zec_1:15), and in her false security she acted as though irresponsible (Isa_47:7-8). Polluted] i.e. treated as common, RV 'profaned.'
9. Perfection for] 'full measure in spite of.' Sorceries] Babylon was renowned in the ancient world for astrology, and for the practice of all kinds of magic.
11. From whence it riseth] RM 'how to charm it away.'
12. Stand.. with] i.e. persist in.
13. See on Isa_47:9.
14. There shall not be] 'it shall not be,' i.e. it will not be like a fire on the hearth, but a devouring conflagration.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv4, 10 Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
redeemed
Heb. "goel," Redemp. (Kinsman type). (See Scofield "Isa 59:20").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 A Description of the Fall of Babylon
CHAPTER 47
A Description of the Fall of Babylon
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1. Babylon’s degradation announced (Isa 47:1-3) 2. Israel acknowledges the redeemer (Isa 47:4) 3. Retribution for Babylon (Isa 47:5-7) 4. The destruction swift and sure (Isa 47:8-15) In chapter 14 a similar description of Babylon and the fall of the king of Babylon is recorded. All has its meaning for the future.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 8 The Humiliation of the Daughter of Babylon
The Humiliation of the Daughter of Babylon
v. 1. Come down and sit in the dust, degraded to the lowest depth, O virgin daughter of Babylon, the city and country being regarded as a virgin queen; sit on the ground, there is no throne, the seat of empire being lost to the former proud ruler, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate, the reference being to the luxury and debauchery and prostitution practiced in connection with the religious rites of the Babylonians and at other times.
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v. 2. Take the millstones, those of the hand-mill, as turned by female slaves, and grind meal, the grain being fed in through the center opening above and ground to flour by the revolving of the upper stone; uncover thy locks, taking off the veil, probably together with the plaite(l hair, as worn by Oriental women, its removal being considered a mark of the deepest degradation, make bare the leg, removing the long outer garment worn especially by women of rank, uncover the thigh, gathering up even the inner garment, pass over the rivers, like a slave girl being taken into captivity.
v. 3. Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen, a figurative expression for exposing the hidden wickedness of Babylonia. I will take vengeance, for all the evil shown to His people Israel, and I will not meet thee as a man, not pardon or spare any man, but overthrow all the enemies. At this point the prophet causes the congregation of believers to insert a glad hallelujah.
v. 4. As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, whose power is unlimited in carrying out His purposes, the Holy One of Israel, zealous for the welfare of his people. The prophet, in beginning the second strophe of the chapter, once more addresses Babylon directly.
v. 5. Sit thou silent, namely, in captivity, and get thee into darkness, into the darkness of the dungeon, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called The Lady of Kingdoms, the queen and mistress of the world, a position which Babylon enjoyed for less than a century.
v. 6. I was wroth with My people, so the Lord explains the Babylonian captivity, which is hereby also prophesied, I have polluted Mine inheritance, taking away the consecration which Israel possessed as His people, and given them into thine hand, it was an act of the Lord’s punishment, not a matter of Babylonia’s strength. Thou didst show them no mercy, treating the exiled Jews with the utmost cruelty; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke, not sparing even the aged, but submitting them to indignities with the rest.
v. 7. And thou saidst, flattering herself in her own mind, I shall be a lady forever, haughtily considering her position beyond attack from every side, in an insolence which was an insult to God, so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, she did not consider the extent of her own cruelty, neither didst remember the latter end of it, namely, the consequences of such actions. The pride of the average sinner causes him to disregard or to discount the punishment which follows; it is a species of blindness which leads to destruction.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14 General Information:
General Information:
In this chapter, Yahweh speaks to Babylon about her downfall as if she were a queen who is humiliated. (See: Metaphor and Personification)
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sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground ... daughter of the Chaldeans.
These two phrases mean basically the same thing. Sitting in the dust was a sign of humiliation. (See: Parallelism and Symbolic Action)
virgin daughter of Babylon ... daughter of the Chaldeans
Both of these phrases refer to the city, Babylon, which is spoken of as if it were a daughter. That the city is a "daughter" indicates how people think fondly of her. (See: Metaphor)
without a throne
Here "throne" refers to the power to rule. AT: "without the power to rule" (See: Metonymy)
You will no longer be called dainty and delicate
This can be stated in active form. AT: "People will no longer call you dainty and delicate" (See: Active or Passive)
dainty and delicate
These two words share similar meanings. They describe one who is beautiful and lives in luxury. AT: "very beautiful" or "very luxurious" (See: Doublet)
millstone
a large stone used to grind grain
translationWords
virgin
Babylon
throne
Chaldea
veil
robe
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13 47:1–48:22 Two conclusions can be drawn from the preceding…
47:1–48:22 Two conclusions can be drawn from the preceding evidence that the Lord alone is God: (1) Babylon’s great pride is foolishness (47:1-15); (2) Israel needs to pay attention to the word of the Lord (48:1-22).
47:1-4 In this taunt against Babylon, the queen of nations is humiliated, forced to work as a servant girl.
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47:1 To sit in the dust was a way of expressing humiliation.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.