Isaiah 13:1

The Lord Will Judge Babylon

13:1 ¹ This is a message about Babylon that God revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz: ² 

Isaiah 13:8-22

13:8 They panic –

cramps and pain seize hold of them

like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.

They look at one another in astonishment;

their faces are flushed red. ³ 

13:9 Look, the Lord’s day of judgment ⁴  is coming;

it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger, ⁵ 

destroying ⁶  the earth ⁷ 

and annihilating its sinners.

13:10 Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations

no longer give out their light; ⁸ 

the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,

and the moon does not shine. ⁹ 

13:11 ¹⁰ I will punish the world for its evil, ¹¹ 

and wicked people for their sin.

I will put an end to the pride of the insolent,

I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants. ¹² 

13:12 I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold,

and people more scarce ¹³  than gold from Ophir.

13:13 So I will shake the heavens, ¹⁴ 

and the earth will shake loose from its foundation, ¹⁵ 

because of the fury of the Lord who commands armies,

in the day he vents his raging anger. ¹⁶ 

13:14 Like a frightened gazelle ¹⁷ 

or a sheep with no shepherd,

each will turn toward home, ¹⁸ 

each will run to his homeland.

13:15 Everyone who is caught will be stabbed;

everyone who is seized ¹⁹  will die ²⁰  by the sword.

13:16 Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;

their houses will be looted

and their wives raped.

13:17 Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them; ²¹ 

they are not concerned about silver,

nor are they interested in gold. ²² 

13:18 Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; ²³ 

they have no compassion on a person’s offspring, ²⁴ 

they will not ²⁵  look with pity on children.

13:19 Babylon, the most admired ²⁶  of kingdoms,

the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, ²⁷ 

will be destroyed by God

just as Sodom and Gomorrah were. ²⁸ 

13:20 No one will live there again;

no one will ever reside there again. ²⁹ 

No bedouin ³⁰  will camp ³¹  there,

no shepherds will rest their flocks ³²  there.

13:21 Wild animals will rest there,

the ruined ³³  houses will be full of hyenas. ³⁴ 

Ostriches will live there,

wild goats will skip among the ruins. ³⁵ 

13:22 Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses,

jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. ³⁶ 

Her time is almost up, ³⁷ 

her days will not be prolonged. ³⁸ 

[13:1]  ¹ sn Isa 13-23 contains a series of judgment oracles against various nations. It is likely that Israel, not the nations mentioned, actually heard these oracles. The oracles probably had a twofold purpose. For those leaders who insisted on getting embroiled in international politics, these oracles were a reminder that Judah need not fear foreign nations or seek international alliances for security reasons. For the righteous remnant within the nation, these oracles were a reminder that Israel’s God was indeed the sovereign ruler of the earth, worthy of his people’s trust.

[13:1]  ² tn Heb “The message [traditionally, “burden”] [about] Babylon which Isaiah son of Amoz saw.”

[13:8]  ³ tn Heb “their faces are faces of flames.” Their faces are flushed with fear and embarrassment.

[13:9]  ⁴ tn Heb “the day of the Lord.”

[13:9]  ⁵ tn Heb “[with] cruelty, and fury, and rage of anger.” Three synonyms for “anger” are piled up at the end of the line to emphasize the extraordinary degree of divine anger that will be exhibited in this judgment.

[13:9]  ⁶ tn Heb “making desolate.”

[13:9]  ⁷ tn Or “land” (KJV, NAB, NASB, NIV, NLT).

[13:10]  ⁸ tn Heb “do not flash forth their light.”

[13:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “does not shed forth its light.”

[13:11]  ¹⁰ sn The Lord is definitely speaking (again?) at this point. See the note at v. 4.

[13:11]  ¹¹ tn Or “I will bring disaster on the world.” Hebrew רָעָה (ra’ah) could refer to the judgment (i.e., disaster, calamity) or to the evil that prompts it. The structure of the parallel line favors the latter interpretation.

[13:11]  ¹² tn Or perhaps, “the violent”; cf. NASB, NIV “the ruthless.”

[13:12]  ¹³ tn The verb is supplied in the translation from the first line. The verb in the first line (“I will make scarce”) does double duty in the parallel structure of the verse.

[13:13]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the sky.” The Hebrew term שָׁמַיִם (shamayim) may be translated “heavens” or “sky” depending on the context.

[13:13]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “from its place” (so NAB, NASB, NIV, NCV).

[13:13]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and in the day of the raging of his anger.”

[13:14]  ¹⁷ tn Or “like a gazelle being chased.” The verb that introduces this verse serves as a discourse particle and is untranslated; see note on “in the future” in 2:2.

[13:14]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his people” (cf. KJV, NASB, NIV, NRSV) or “his nation” (cf. TEV “their own countries”).

[13:15]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “carried off,” i.e., grabbed from the fleeing crowd. See HALOT 764 s.v. ספה.

[13:15]  ²⁰ tn Heb “will fall” (so KJV, NIV, NRSV); NLT “will be run through with a sword.”

[13:17]  ²¹ tn Heb “against them”; NLT “against Babylon.”

[13:17]  ²² sn They cannot be bought off, for they have a lust for bloodshed.

[13:18]  ²³ tn Heb “and bows cut to bits young men.” “Bows” stands by metonymy for arrows.

[13:18]  ²⁴ tn Heb “the fruit of the womb.”

[13:18]  ²⁵ tn Heb “their eye does not.” Here “eye” is a metonymy for the whole person.

[13:19]  ²⁶ tn Or “most beautiful” (NCV, TEV).

[13:19]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans.”

[13:19]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and Babylon…will be like the overthrow by God of Sodom and Gomorrah.” On מַהְפֵּכַת (mahpekhat, “overthrow”) see the note on the word “destruction” in 1:7.

[13:20]  ²⁹ tn Heb “she will not be inhabited forever, and she will not be dwelt in to generation and generation (i.e., forever).” The Lord declares that Babylon, personified as a woman, will not be inhabited. In other words, her people will be destroyed and the Chaldean empire will come to a permanent end.

[13:20]  ³⁰ tn Or “Arab” (NAB, NASB, NIV); cf. CEV, NLT “nomads.”

[13:20]  ³¹ tn יַהֵל (yahel) is probably a corrupted form of יֶאֱהַל (ye’ehal). See GKC 186 §68.k.

[13:20]  ³² tn The words “their flocks” are supplied in the translation for clarification. The Hebrew text does not supply the object here, but see Jer 33:12.

[13:21]  ³³ tn The word “ruined” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[13:21]  ³⁴ tn The precise referent of this word in uncertain. See HALOT 29 s.v. *אֹחַ. Various English versions translate as “owls” (e.g., NAB, NASB), “wild dogs” (NCV); “jackals” (NIV); “howling creatures” (NRSV, NLT).

[13:21]  ³⁵ tn Heb “will skip there.”

[13:22]  ³⁶ tc The Hebrew text reads literally, “wild dogs will yip among his widows, and jackals in the palaces of pleasure.” The verb “yip” is supplied in the second line; it does double duty in the parallel structure. “His widows” makes little sense in this context; many emend the form (אַלְמנוֹתָיו, ’almnotayv) to the graphically similar אַרְמְנוֹתֶיהָ (’armÿnoteha, “her fortresses”), a reading that is assumed in the present translation. The use of “widows” may represent an intentional wordplay on “fortresses,” indicating that the fortresses are like dejected widows (J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah [NICOT], 1:308, n. 1).

[13:22]  ³⁷ tn Heb “near to come is her time.”

[13:22]  ³⁸ sn When was the prophecy of Babylon’s fall fulfilled? Some argue that the prophecy was fulfilled in 689 b.c. when the Assyrians under Sennacherib sacked and desecrated the city (this event is alluded to in 23:13). This may have been an initial phase in the fulfillment of the prophecy, but the reference to the involvement of the Medes (v. 17) and the suggestion that Babylon’s demise will bring about the restoration of Israel (14:1-2) indicate that the fall of Babylon to the Medes and Persians in 538 b.c. is the primary focus of the prophecy. (After all, the Lord did reveal to Isaiah that the Chaldeans [not the Assyrians] would someday conquer Jerusalem and take the people into exile [see 39:5-7].) However, the vivid picture of destruction in vv. 15-22 raises a problem. The Medes and Persians did not destroy the city; in fact Cyrus’ takeover of Babylon, though preceded by a military campaign, was relatively peaceful and even welcomed by some Babylonian religious officials. How then does one explain the prophecy’s description of the city’s violent fall? As noted above, the events of 689 b.c. and 538 b.c. may have been merged in the prophecy. However, it is more likely that the language is stylized and exaggerated for rhetorical effect. See Isa 34:11-15; Jer 50:39-40 (describing Babylon’s fall in 538 b.c.); 51:36-37 (describing Babylon’s fall in 538 b.c.); Zeph 2:13-15; the extra-biblical Sefire treaty curses; and Ashurbanipal’s description of the destruction of Elam in his royal annals. In other words, the events of 538 b.c. essentially, though not necessarily literally, fulfill the prophecy.