Isaiah 13:2,3 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Lift ye up a banner— In this beginning of the discourse we have, first, a figurative declaration of the causes, principal as well as instrumental, of the judgment to be brought upon Babylon; wherein God is introduced as a supreme general, delivering his commands to his ministers to collect a strong and numerous army, which would serve as an instrument of executing that severe judgment which he had decreed against the Babylonians. We have this command in the present verses, and the ready execution of the command in Isaiah 13:4-5. For the analysis of the second part, see on the sixth verse. There seems to be no doubt but that God is the speaker in these verses. See Jeremiah 50:9. It is more doubtful who are those addressed: some think the Medes and Persians; but they cannot be the persons directly addressed, because they constitute the army which was to be collected for the execution of this decree: Others have therefore concluded, that the angels, the ministers of God's providence, are to be understood; but Vitringa observes very justly, that in passages like this, which are in a measure dramatic, there is no need to be so solicitous for the application of every minute particular. The general meaning of the passage is, that God would take care to effect that by his secret providence, which men are used to effect by their ministers and agents. Instead of sanctified ones, Bishop Lowth reads enrolled warriors, in the third verse; and instead of even them, &c.—those that exult in my greatness. Herodotus says remarkably of the Medes and Persians, that they thought themselves to be of all men the most excellent in all things, ανθρωπων μακρω τα παντα αριστους. lib. 1: p. 64. And in Ammianus Marcell. lib. 23: cap. 6 we have a character of this people, which remarkably coincides with the expression of the prophet. See Vitringa.