Isaiah 13:20-22

13:20 No one will live there again;

no one will ever reside there again. ¹ 

No bedouin ²  will camp ³  there,

no shepherds will rest their flocks ⁴  there.

13:21 Wild animals will rest there,

the ruined ⁵  houses will be full of hyenas. ⁶ 

Ostriches will live there,

wild goats will skip among the ruins. ⁷ 

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

jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces. ⁸ 

Her time is almost up, ⁹ 

her days will not be prolonged. ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 14:22-23

14:22 “I will rise up against them,”

says the Lord who commands armies.

“I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people, ¹¹ 

including the offspring she produces,” ¹² 

says the Lord.

14:23 “I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals ¹³ 

and covered with pools of stagnant water.

I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” ¹⁴ 

says the Lord who commands armies.

Jeremiah 51:29

51:29 The earth will tremble and writhe in agony. ¹⁵ 

For the Lord will carry out his plan.

He plans to make the land of Babylonia ¹⁶ 

a wasteland where no one lives. ¹⁷ 

Jeremiah 51:62-64

51:62 Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’ 51:63 When you finish reading this scroll aloud, tie a stone to it and throw it into the middle of the Euphrates River. ¹⁸  51:64 Then say, ‘In the same way Babylon will sink and never rise again because of the judgments ¹⁹  I am ready to bring upon her; they will grow faint.’”

The prophecies of Jeremiah end here. ²⁰ 

Revelation 18:21-23

18:21 Then ²¹  one powerful angel picked up a stone like a huge millstone, threw it into the sea, and said,

“With this kind of sudden violent force ²² 

Babylon the great city will be thrown down ²³ 

and it will never be found again!

18:22 And the sound of the harpists, musicians,

flute players, and trumpeters

will never be heard in you ²⁴  again.

No ²⁵  craftsman ²⁶  who practices any trade

will ever be found in you again;

the noise of a mill ²⁷  will never be heard in you again.

18:23 Even the light from a lamp

will never shine in you again!

The voices of the bridegroom and his bride

will never be heard in you again.

For your merchants were the tycoons of the world,

because all the nations ²⁸  were deceived by your magic spells! ²⁹ 

[13:20]  ¹ 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]  ² tn Or “Arab” (NAB, NASB, NIV); cf. CEV, NLT “nomads.”

[13:20]  ³ tn יַהֵל (yahel) is probably a corrupted form of יֶאֱהַל (ye’ehal). See GKC 186 §68.k.

[13:20]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ tn The word “ruined” is supplied in the translation for clarification.

[13:21]  ⁶ 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]  ⁷ tn Heb “will skip there.”

[13:22]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ tn Heb “near to come is her time.”

[13:22]  ¹⁰ 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.

[14:22]  ¹¹ tn Heb “I will cut off from Babylon name and remnant” (ASV, NAB, and NRSV all similar).

[14:22]  ¹² tn Heb “descendant and child.”

[14:23]  ¹³ tn Heb “I will make her into a possession of wild animals.” It is uncertain what type of animal קִפֹּד (qippod) refers to. Some suggest a rodent (cf. NASB, NRSV “hedgehog”), others an owl (cf, NAB, NIV, TEV).

[14:23]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction.”

[51:29]  ¹⁵ sn The figure here is common in the poetic tradition of the Lord going forth to do battle against his foes and the earth’s reaction to it is compared to a person trembling with fear and writhing in agony, agony like that of a woman in labor (cf. Judg 5:4; Nah 1:2-5; Hab 3:1-15 [especially v. 6]).

[51:29]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “For the plans of the Lord have been carried out to make the land of Babylon…” The passive has been turned into an active and the sentence broken up to better conform with contemporary English style. For the meaning of the verb קוּם (qum) in the sense used here see BDB 878 s.v. קוּם 7.g and compare the usage in Prov 19:21 and Isa 46:10.

[51:29]  ¹⁷ tn The verbs in this verse and v. 30 are all in the past tense in Hebrew, in the tense that views the action as already as good as done (the Hebrew prophetic perfect). The verb in v. 31a, however, is imperfect, viewing the action as future; the perfects that follow are all dependent on that future. Verse 33 looks forward to a time when Babylon will be harvested and trampled like grain on the threshing floor and the imperatives imply a time in the future. Hence the present translation has rendered all the verbs in vv. 29-30 as future.

[51:63]  ¹⁸ tn The word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied for clarity.

[51:64]  ¹⁹ tn Or “disaster”; or “calamity.”

[51:64]  ²⁰ sn The final chapter of the book of Jeremiah does not mention Jeremiah or record any of his prophecies.

[18:21]  ²¹ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence within the narrative.

[18:21]  ²² tn On ὅρμημα ({ormhma) BDAG 724 s.v. states, “violent rush, onset ὁρμήματι βληθήσεται Βαβυλών Babylon will be thrown down with violence Rv 18:21.” L&N 68.82 refers to the suddenness of the force or violence.

[18:21]  ²³ sn Thrown down is a play on both the words and the action. The angel’s action with the stone illustrates the kind of sudden violent force with which the city will be overthrown.

[18:22]  ²⁴ tn The shift to a second person pronoun here corresponds to the Greek text.

[18:22]  ²⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated because of differences between Greek and English style.

[18:22]  ²⁶ tn On this term BDAG 1001 s.v. τεχνίτης states, “craftsperson, artisan, designer…Of a silversmith Ac 19:24, 25 v.l., 38….Of a potter 2 Cl 8:2 (metaph., cp. Ath. 15:2). πᾶς τεχνίτης πάσης τέχνης Rv 18:22.”

[18:22]  ²⁷ tn This is a different Greek word (μύλος, mulos) from the one for the millstone in v. 21 (μύλινος, mulinos). See L&N 7.68.

[18:23]  ²⁸ tn Or “all the Gentiles” (the same Greek word may be translated “Gentiles” or “nations”).

[18:23]  ²⁹ tn On the term φαρμακεία (farmakeia, “magic spells”) see L&N 53.100: “the use of magic, often involving drugs and the casting of spells upon people – ‘to practice magic, to cast spells upon, to engage in sorcery, magic, sorcery.’ φαρμακεία: ἐν τῇ φαρμακείᾳ σου ἐπλανήθησαν πάντα τὰ ἔθνη ‘with your magic spells you deceived all the peoples (of the world)’ Re 18:23.”