Oracle Against Babylon
Yahweh Raises His Forces For The Destruction of Babylon
The first burden borne by Isaiah was the burden of Babylon, a heavy burden indeed. And it begins with the calling together of a world army to destroy Babylon once and for all. This great symbol of all that is evil must be destroyed. It is not describing a particular point in history (although Isaiah may have thought so) but a kind of apocalyptic judgment levelled at Babylon which in earthly terms will come about over the period of time necessary for Babylon to be finally destroyed. While it would take time for it to happen, from this point on Babylon is doomed.
Analysis of Isaiah 13:1-5.
· The burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see. Set yourselves up an ensign on the bare mountains, lift up the voice to them, wave the hand, that they may go into the gate of the princes (Isaiah 13:1-2).
· I have commanded my consecrated ones (‘holy ones'), yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, my proudly exulting ones (Isaiah 13:3).
· The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people, the noise of a tumult of the kingdoms, of the nations gathered together (Isaiah 13:4 a).
· Yahweh of hosts musters the host for battle. They come from a far country, from the uttermost part of heaven, even Yahweh and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land (earth) (Isaiah 13:4-5).
In ‘a' Yahweh calls on His chosen leader to set up his banner on the bare mountains calling together his forces together under their princes, while in the parallel it is Yahweh of hosts Who is mustering them for battle, calling them together from the farthest parts of the earth as the weapons of His indignation. In ‘b' those called to fulfil Yahweh's anger are both consecrated and highly exultant, and in the parallel they gather in the mountains in a great noise of tumult of nations gathered together.
‘The burden of Babylon which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.'
The fact that Babylon comes first in the list emphasises Isaiah's growing awareness that the Babel of old (Genesis 10:8-10; Genesis 11:1-9), God's old enemy, was raising its head again as the leader of the attempted conspiracy. The ogre had again taken charge. He was aware from Scripture of the place of Babel in the scheme of things as the great enemy of freedom and truth, and proponent of world disintegration as revealed in Genesis 10-11; Genesis 14. And the burden had come on him that Babylon must be destroyed.
This awareness of the old traditions of Babylon's one time greatness, and its present proud boasting made him aware that this nation, which was at this point already again demonstrating its rising power, would continue to be the great enemy of God's people and the instrument of His great judgment on them (Isaiah 39:6-7). It had to be. For was not Babel traditionally the symbol of all that was proud and evil (Genesis 11:1-9), the great challenger of God (Isaiah 13:19; Isaiah 14:13-14), and even in Isaiah's day, the great boaster about its future, and its past?
But he was now being made aware that, as in Genesis, Babel/Babylon was doomed, even before it began its present meteoric rise. For God's judgment had been pronounced on it from the beginning. This was all part of the burden that lay on Isaiah's heart as he prophesied against Babylon, aware of what it had been, knowing what it was, recognising what it was becoming, surmising what it would do to God's people, and declaring the end that must finally result, its ultimate destruction, because God was against it. (As with the destruction of the Amalekites promised in Exodus 17:14; Exodus 17:16, which took generations to unfold, it would happen in God's time).
Babylon is truly spoken of here in apocalyptic terms. Much of the language used here will reappear in speaking of the end times. And similar language is used of the other arch-enemy of God's people, the Edomites (chapter 34). Yet although it may be the great enemy of God, Isaiah roots Babylon firmly in history. For while it might be portentous, there was nothing mythical about it. The rising again of Babylon was to be curtailed as a result of ‘world' forces gathered against them (Isaiah 13:4-5), and these included the dreadful Medes (Isaiah 13:17), who would continually be set on them like a man sets his dog on an intruder. And its final destruction would inevitably follow, although how much later Isaiah did not know.
As with all the prophets he saw the future as one whole. The purpose of prophecy was to declare what God was going to do, not when. He foresaw the assaults by the nations that must take place on Babylon; and in its continuing devastations, following its risings again (which he would witness at least twice under Sargon and Sennacherib), he saw the prospect of its final desolation. How they would all fit together he did not know. It was not his concern. That was in God's hands.
‘Set yourselves up an ensign on the bare mountains,
Lift up the voice to them,
Wave the hand,
That they may go into the gate of the princes.'
The nations are called together against Babylon to a perpetual, unceasing battle. A banner is to be set up where all can see it, on the bare mountains (compare Isaiah 18:3). The banner may well be seen as over an overlord's tent, from which the orders go out to the nations, both by voice and a directing motion of the arm. The mountains are bare to stress the starkness of the picture. The whole picture is deliberately anonymous. It is the whole world that is being summoned to destroy the monster Babylon.
‘That they may go into the gate of the princes, (or ‘of those who are willing').' This was in order that they might enrol under their chosen leaders, or in order to align themselves with the willing volunteers. The gate was always the place of assembly, for the public square, such as it was, would be there. Thus they go there in order to enrol under their leaders, or as willing volunteers. (‘Nadib' can mean either those who are willing, or the nobility, those willing to take responsibility. Either is possible here). All nations will willingly volunteer to go against Babylon.
‘I have commanded my consecrated ones (‘holy ones'), yes, I have called my mighty men for my anger, my proudly exulting ones.'
These are a people consecrated to Yahweh' purposes (although they probably do not know it). They are His mighty men, there to reveal His anger against Babylon. They are men of great pride and of warlike demeanour. They are joined together with one purpose, the destruction of Babylon, the enemy of the ages. They have been set apart by God for this sacred task.
We are not to see them as particularly morally righteous. Their status lies in the fact that God is using them to fulfil His purpose, (just as ungodly Assyria had previously been described as the rod of God's anger (Isaiah 10:5)), and not because of what they are. But they are not just one nation. They are all nations from the ends of the world. (All would participate in it at different times, or will do one day in its reproduction in Revelation, for Babylon was not only a city it was an idea)
‘The noise of a multitude in the mountains,
Like as of a great people,
The noise of a tumult of the kingdoms,
Of the nations gathered together.
Yahweh of hosts musters the host for battle.
They come from a far country,
From the uttermost part of heaven,
Even Yahweh and the weapons of his indignation,
To destroy the whole land (earth).'
Anyone who reads and listens can hear the sound in the mountains of an army, a great international army, gathered together and inevitably noisy as the different nations expressed themselves, for it is Yahweh ‘of hosts' who has mustered ‘the host' to battle. And He has mustered them from a distant country, from the farthest parts, and they have come as the weapons of His anger to destroy the land of Babylon. Such a host would be necessary against the Babylon of Isaiah's visions.
This could equally describe either an Assyrian confederacy, with its widespread alliances, or the later Medo-Persian army which would include forces from far afield, for prior to attacking Babylon they had expanded to the east, and even the later Persian army under Xerxes. Indeed in the end it was describing all of them. Isaiah does not name the leader of the adversaries. He is not told who it is. It is the one appointed by God to do His bidding. But he knows that such world forces will rise and humiliate Babylon, and will not cease until the task is fulfilled. The fulfilment of this would in fact occur over the centuries until at last the task was complete and Babylon was no more thus it is describing events that occurred more than once. (And Revelation indicates that the idea of Babylon would continue, and would also have to be destroyed). Chapter 13 thus covers a continuous process until the fate of Babylon is accomplished (compare again how God in the same way decreed the end of the Amalekites (Exodus 17:14; Exodus 17:16; Numbers 24:20; Deuteronomy 25:19), even though it was to take many centuries, and how in chapter 34, He decrees the end of Edom in similar language to here. Babylon, the Amalekites and Edom were all symbols of what was totally rejected by God). This burden cannot be strictly compared with the burdens that follow, for they will be ‘temporary' in the particular historical situation, but this one is unswerving and final.
There are no particular grounds for seeing anything here as referring specifically to behaviour towards Judah, although they would be seen as being caught up in the general overall picture (see Isaiah 14:1-3). They were a part of the whole, even if an exclusive part. Furthermore as the account goes on all the nations surrounding Judah will be mentioned, north, south, east and west. So in one sense Judah is in the middle of it. But Babylon's doom goes beyond all that. It has been necessary almost from the beginning of history. And many nations will be involved in it.