Isaiah began this section of the book dealing with God's grace to Israel (chs. 40-48) by glorifying God as the incomparable Lord of His servant Israel (ch. 40). Then he explained God's promises to (41:1-42:9) and His purposes for (42:10-44:22) His servants. This leads into a more particular revelation of the redemption that God had in store for Israel (44:23-47:15).
The section begins with an announcement of the salvation that God would provide for His chosen people.
44:23 This verse concludes the thought expressed in the preceding one, so many translations and commentators regard it as the end of the preceding section. However, it is a hymnic call to praise similar to the one in 42:10-13, and it seems to introduce what follows, as that earlier call to praise did. The content of the praise also points ahead to what follows rather then backward to what has preceded. It provides a very smooth transition.
Isaiah again called on all the elements of the created universe to witness something. Earlier they witnessed Israel's rebellion (cf. 1:2), but now they witness Israel's salvation. As in the previous verse, redemption is spoken of as already complete. This is the translation of the Hebrew prophetic perfect tense verb that speaks of things in the future as though they had already happened in the past because they are certain to occur. A future redemption is in view that will manifest Yahweh's glory. This becomes clear in the verses that follow.
44:24 The Lord prefaced His stunning prediction with a reminder of who was making it. He was Yahweh, Israel's covenant God who had redeemed her and would yet redeem her. He had brought her into existence by Himself, as He had created all things including the heavens and the earth (cf. 40:12-14, 21-22). The often repeated phrase "Thus says the LORD"in this part of Isaiah engenders confidence in the promises of redemption that follow (cf. 45:1, 11, 14, 18).
44:25 God embarrasses astrologers, diviners, and fortune tellers by controlling history in ways that deviate from past patterns. Ancient and modern prognosticators usually base their predictions on the belief that things will work out in the future as they have in the past. But Yahweh can move future events in entirely new directions.469He can do things never before done.
44:26 Conversely, Yahweh could bring the predictions that He had revealed to His servant Isaiah (cf. 20:3) and His messengers the prophets to pass. Here he predicted that Jerusalem and the cities of Judah would be rebuilt, after their destruction by the Babylonians.
44:27 God is the one who dried up the Red Sea during the Exodus. Likewise He could dry up rivers in the future to bring His will to pass (cf. 48:21).470God's promises covered both the rebuilding of Judah's cities (vv. 26, 28) and the exiles' return home.
44:28 God announced that Cyrus would be the person who would allow Jerusalem to be rebuilt and the temple foundations relayed. The mention of his name climaxes this prophecy (vv. 24-28). Cyrus would be the Lord's shepherd, the one who would lead the Israelites back into their land by permitting its restoration. He would carry out all God's desire (cf. 41:2-3, 25).
The title "My Shepherd"was one that God used of the Davidic kings (cf. 2 Sam. 5:2; 1 Kings 22:17; Ezek. 34:23). The fact that He used it here of a pagan monarch shows that God would use pagans to fulfill His wishes since the Davidic kings had proved unreliable (cf. 7:13; 39:7). This was indeed a new thing that God had not done before (cf. 43:19).
"In a wonderfully ingenious way, just as the foreigner, Ruth, became an ancestress of David (Ruth 4:13-22), the foreigner Cyrus typifies the Davidic Messiah (Isa. 53:10; Zech. 11:4; 13:7; John 8:29; 10:11)."471
Cyrus (559-530 B.C.) issued his decree to allow the Jewish exiles to return and rebuild Jerusalem in 538 B.C. This happened about 190 years after Isaiah announced this prophecy.472The Persian monarch had not even been born at this time. When Isaiah made this prophecy his hearers probably said to one another, who did he say would do this? Who is Cyrus?
This prophecy is the primary reason destructive critics of Isaiah have insisted that Isaiah of Jerusalem could not possibly have written this prediction. It must have been written, they say, sometime after Cyrus issued his decree.473However, the point that Yahweh was making throughout this book was that He alone could predict and create the future.474
Motyer noted parallels between 44:24-48:22 and 49:1-53:12.475These sections provide the solutions to Israel's double need: national bondage (cf. 42:18-43:21) and spiritual sinfulness (cf. 43:22-44:22).
This section begins with God's promise to Cyrus (vv. 1-8; cf. Ps. 2: 110) and concludes with a vindication of God's right to use whom He will (vv. 9-13). The promise to Cyrus was, of course, for the benefit of the Israelites who wondered how God would restore them to the land as He promised.
45:1 Yahweh shockingly referred to Cyrus as His anointed (Heb. mashiah), a title previously reserved for Israel's prophets, priests, and kings.476It also refers to the Messiah. The Israelites thought of their anointed leaders as those whom God uniquely raised up to accomplish His purposes. By calling Cyrus His anointed, the Lord was teaching them that He was the Lord of all the earth, not just Israel. He could and would use whomever he chose to deliver His people. Cyrus' election for this task was not due to anything in himself (cf. Rom. 9:16). The Lord had taken him by the right hand, as a parent does a small child, and would enable him to conquer and subdue those nations and kings whom he would.
"Since Israel in exile had no king, Cyrus functioned in a sense as her king (the anointed one) to bring about blessing."477
"Cyrus is the only Gentile king who is called God's anointed.' Since this is the translation of the Hebrew word which we spell in English as Messiah, Cyrus is in a sense a type of the Anointed One, the Lord Jesus Christ. . . . The only intended resemblance is in the fact that Cyrus was the anointed one who delivered the people of Israel from their captivity. As such he points us to the greater Anointed One who saves His people from their sins."478
45:2-3 God would precede and prepare the way for His conqueror. He would find it relatively easy to overcome his enemies, Lydia and Babylon, and to take even their hidden treasures. One reason God would do this was so Cyrus would learn that Yahweh, the God of Israel, had blessed him. This is not a promise that Cyrus would become a believer in Yahweh but that he would know that Yahweh was behind what had happened to him (cf. the Pharaoh of the Exodus).479
45:4 Second, God chose to use Cyrus for the sake of the Israelites, so He might fulfill His promises to them. It was Yahweh's choice of him that had resulted in Cyrus' honorific titles (Shepherd, 44:28, and Anointed, v. 1). People do not have to be believers in Him for God to use them and bless them. The choice is His; He is sovereign.
45:5 The issue is who the Lord is, not who Cyrus is. Yahweh is the only true God, so He could choose whom He would even though Cyrus did not know Him.
45:6 Third, God chose Cyrus so everyone would come to know that He is the only true God.480This is important, not because God has a huge ego, but because it is only as people recognize Yahweh for who He is that they will stop ruining their own lives with idolatry. God's use of Cyrus preserved the Israelites and thus made the Incarnation possible. That event, in turn, has made salvation available to the whole world.
45:7 The point is that Yahweh alone is ultimately responsible for everything in nature and history. Everything that exists does so because of the creative will of God. God was not claiming that He creates moral "evil"(AV) but both well-being (Heb. shalom) and calamity (Heb. ra'). He causes bad things to happen to people for His own reasons, as well as good things, but He does not cause people to make morally evil decisions.
45:8 Since God is who He is, the earth can anticipate salvation. God's transcendence and uniqueness are not just abstract truths to be believed. They have practical and positive ramifications. Since God created the earth He can pour out blessings on it, fertility and salvation. Even though God is ultimately responsible for everything that happens, His creation can rejoice because He will only and always do what is right.
". . . the saving of his people is the clearest expression of God's essential character, to do right [righteousness]."481
In view of the Exodus, this announcement of a second exodus from Babylon would have been good news to Isaiah's audience. But that God would reveal Himself to a pagan and use him to lead them out, rather than another Moses, must have come as an almost unbelievable shock. Truly God would do a new thing (cf. 43:19; 48:6). Some of the Israelites would not believe that God would do such a thing. Thus the following section sought to convince them to believe God's promises concerning Cyrus. The Creator can do anything He wishes that is consistent with His own character and stated purposes.
45:9 "Woe"is a funeral cry that, in this context, indicates the extreme folly of dictating to the Creator how He may work (cf. chs. 5; 28-33). The Israelites, and we, must let God be God. People are clay vessels that God has made for His own purposes (cf. 29:16; Jer. 18:6; Rom. 9:20-21). We have no right to dictate to our Maker how He should behave any more than the works of our hands have a right to question how we make them.
45:10 The same principle applies in the family realm. It is folly to tell parents that their children should not have been born or should look different. The parents are responsible for the birth of their children and the appearance of their children, and no other people have anything to do with it. Likewise God is the Father of humanity and He alone is ultimately responsible for His children. The use of "woman"instead of the more parallel "wife"in this verse may have been done to avoid identifying Yahweh with the mother goddesses of the ancient Near East.
45:11 Since Yahweh is Israel's Lord, Holy One, and Creator, what right did the Israelites have to question His decision to use Cyrus to deliver them in the future? The question in this verse is probably ironic in meaning: go ahead and question my judgment concerning my sons (Israel and Cyrus), and command me concerning the work of my hands.
45:12 Again, God has the right to do with His creation what He chooses. If God created the universe, He certainly has the right to shape human history as He will.
45:13 God's raising up Cyrus was consistent with His righteousness. He would enable Cyrus to succeed. Cyrus would be responsible for the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the release of the Israelites from Babylonian exile. The Almighty Yahweh would do this without even rewarding Cyrus. Cyrus' action would not put him in the Lord's debt because he would simply be carrying out the will of the sovereign God (cf. Luke 17:9-10).
This section develops the ideas that preceded by unfolding the characteristics of Yahweh that His people needed to appreciate in view of the shocking news that their new Moses would be Cyrus. It opens with an emphasis on God as Savior (45:14-19), then contrasts Yahweh with idols (45:20-46:7), and closes with an emphasis on God as righteous (46:8-13). The purpose of the unit was to strengthen the Israelites' confidence in God.
45:14 Yahweh affirmed (cf. v. 1) that because of what He would do in redeeming Israel from Babylonian captivity Gentiles from the ends of the earth would submit themselves to Israel having learned of Israel's great God (cf. 43:3).482Perhaps one evidence of this happening is the Ethiopian eunuch's reverence for Yahweh (cf. Acts 8:26-40). No matter how remote, wealthy, or regal they may be, Gentiles will voluntarily acknowledge Yahweh's deity.483
45:15 The nations that will come to God, or perhaps Isaiah himself, observed that God hides His acts of salvation so they are not obviously apparent. They become clear to those who carefully observe what He has done, and whom God enlightens, but they do not inevitably impress every single individual.484This is essentially a testimony to God's transcendence.
45:16-17 The idols would humiliate their makers when it became clear that they have no power to save. But God's ability to save His people forever will not result in His being put to shame. Yahweh's deliverance of Israel to continued existence would impress the Gentiles after Cyrus' decree (vv. 14-15). But God would provide an eternal salvation for His people that only Gentiles after the coming of Christ could appreciate (cf. Rom. 9:33; 10:11; 1 Pet. 2:6).
45:18 Again the Lord affirmed (cf. vv. 1, 14) that He created the heavens, and there is no other God beside Him (cf. Exod. 20:1-3; Deut. 6:4).485God is trustworthy and will not embarrass His worshippers because He is the almighty Creator. Isaiah's elaboration on this statement stresses that God's creative activity was for the welfare of His creatures.
Some readers of this verse have understood the statement that God did not create the earth waste (Heb. tohu) as clarifying the creation process. When God created the heavens and the earth did He create them unformed and then formed them, or does the waste condition of Genesis 1:2 describe the universe before Creation? I think this verse means that God's intention in Creation was not to create something permanently without form but to create an environment for His creatures that He suitably formed for their habitation. Thus this verse says nothing about the steps God may have taken in creating the cosmos. It rather explains His purpose in creating the cosmos.
45:19 Since God made the world for human habitation, it is reasonable that he would communicate His plans and purposes to humans. This is what He has done. God made Himself known to the Israelites. What He has revealed is in harmony with how He created the world. He has done what is right and has not distorted the truth. He has not hidden Himself (cf. v. 15; John 18:20).
". . . the point appears to be to contrast God's method of revelation with the dark practices of the heathen soothsayers."486
In the following segment (vv. 20-25), God contrasted His salvation with that of the Babylonian idols.
"Throughout chs. 40-55, the people of Israel are envisioned as being in bondage in Babylon. . . . Has not the God of Israel been thoroughly discredited? Should not Israel adopt the gods of her captors? . . . Instead, he [Isaiah] insists that it is the captors, the Babylonians, who need to look to their deliverance. Far from Israel being concerned over whether their God can deliver them from Babylon, it is the mighty Babylonians who should be worrying over whether the gods whom they have served can deliver them!"487
45:20 The Lord again summoned the people of the world, possibly after Cyrus' judgments, for a disputation (cf. 41:1, 21; 43:8-9). He claimed that pagan idol worshippers were ignorant (cf. 44:9). They carried their gods of wood rather than being carried by a personal God (cf. 1 Sam. 4-5). And they prayed to gods that could not save.
45:21 God challenged the idol worshippers to consult together and to present a case in defense of their idols. Who was the challenger who claimed "this?"Evidently the prophecies about Cyrus are the "this"in view (cf. 46:9-11)? He was Yahweh, the only true God who does what is right and who saves.
45:22 Since Yahweh alone saves, people and nations around the world should turn to Him for salvation (cf. Num. 21:8-9). In so doing they could experience the same salvation that Israel would enjoy. Yahweh is the saving God of the whole earth, not just Israel, so salvation is available to all, not just Israel.
45:23 God Himself swore (cf. Gen. 22:16) that everyone will eventually bow to His authority (some as condemned sinners and others as pardoned worshippers) and appeal to Him (cf. Rom. 14:10-12; Phil 2:9-11). In view of this, it is only reasonable to call on Him for salvation now. This word from God, confirmed with His oath, is as sure as His promises to Abraham and His words predicting Cyrus' activities.
45:24-25 The only hope of all humankind is in Yahweh. Pagans will turn to the Lord in repentance because of His power to deliver, His faithfulness to His promises, and His complete righteousness. The Israelites will also eventually bow in submission to the only true God enjoying His salvation and glorifying Him. This will happen when Jesus Christ returns to the earth.
The emphasis now shifts from God as the true Savior (45:20-25) to the idols who cannot save (46:1-7). The following pericope sums up the argument that Yahweh is superior to pagan gods and expands the idea introduced in 45:20 that a god that people need to carry cannot save.
46:1-2 Bel and Nebo were the two chief gods of Babylonia. Bel ("lord,"cf. the Canaanite Baal) was the title of the father of the gods in the Babylonian pantheon, namely, Enlil. Bel was also later the title of Marduk, the city god of Babylon and the hero of Enuma Elish, the Babylonian Creation account. Nebo was Marduk's son and Bel's grandson and was supposedly a wise administrator.488He was the god of learning, writing, and astronomy. The Babylonians carried images of these prominent gods in their New Year's day parades.
Isaiah envisioned Bel and Nebo as bending over as the Babylonians carried their images in procession (cf. 1 Sam. 5:3-4). These images rode on carts that beasts of burden hauled with some difficulty, evidently because of their weight. The gods, which the images both represented and contained, were a burden to these animals. Rather than lifting burdens, these idols created them for their worshippers. The prophet foresaw the idol images and the gods being carried off into captivity (by Cyrus), powerless to aid their worshippers.
46:3-4 Addressing the remnant (house) of His people, Yahweh reminded the Judahites that He had carried Israel (as a burden sometimes) throughout her history (cf. 63:9; Exod. 19:4; Deut. 1:31; 32:11; Ps. 28:9), and He would continue to do so. This, of course, is the opposite of what the Babylonians had to do to their idols (vv. 1-2). The Israelites had never carried Him, but it was He, and only He, who had always carried them.
"Normally, we expect that as children reach maturity, they do not need to be carried any longer. Furthermore, there usually comes a time when the child must begin to carry the aged parent. This is where God transcends the imagery. There will never come a time when we outgrow our dependence on God. . . . Nor will there ever be a time when a doddering old grandfather-God will somehow need to lean on us, and we will need to find a young, virile god for a new age."489
46:5 There is no comparison between the true God and false gods (cf. 40:18).
46:6-7 This is Isaiah's fourth and last exposé of the folly of idol worship (cf. 40:19-20; 41:6-7; 44:9-20). How foolish it is to spend a lot of money and effort to make something that cannot care for itself much less its worshipper. It has no power to respond in any way much less to save.
"There are two kinds of gods in this world: the kind you carry and the One who can carry you."490
The last segment of this section (45:14-46:13) returns to the subject of God as the righteous deliverer (cf. 45:14-19).
46:8 God called the transgressing Israelites to remember what He was about to say that would summarize the point being made in this section. It would give them confidence as they recalled it in the future. Again, remembering is the antidote to unbelief. Israel needed much encouragement and stern warnings because she was only a small island of monotheists in a sea of polytheists.
46:9 The Israelites needed to remember all that God had done going all the way back to Creation. Only then would they become convinced that Yahweh was unique, the only true God.
46:10-11 God had throughout history predicted how history would unfold including things that had not happened previously. His revelations were in harmony with His purpose to carry out His beneficial will for humankind. Most recently He had predicted Cyrus, who would descend on Babylon like an eagle on a rabbit. His audience could count on this prediction coming to pass because it was just the latest example of what He had done since the beginning.
46:12 God challenged the hard-hearted Israelites, who found it hard to believe that God would deliver them, to pay attention to Him (cf. v. 3). They were far from the righteous act of believing God that constitutes conformity to His will.
"Those who are far from righteousness are those who are far from being right with God, and so are deep in their own sin and depravity."491
46:13 God would be faithful to His covenant promises and bring salvation to Zion (cf. 44:26-28; Rom. 3:21-25; 5:8; 1 Cor. 1:30). He would bring the righteousness that His people lacked soon. This deliverance would glorify His name.
"This proves to be Isaiah's final appeal to Israel to accept the Lord's will, to believe what he says and trust what he does, though even as he make [sic] his appeal he senses that it is falling on deaf ears (12)."492
This section of Isaiah on "The Lord's redemption of His servant [Israel]"(44:23-47:15) has included an announcement of redemption (44:23-28), the identification of the instrument of redemption, Cyrus (45:1-13), and a reminder of the uniqueness of the God of redemption (45:14-46:13). Now it concludes by depicting Babylon, the nation from which the Lord would redeem His people from captivity, as a proud woman full of self-confidence. In her case, as in so many others, pride goes before a fall. This section is another oracle against a foreign nation (cf. chs. 13-23; Jer. 46-51; Ezek. 25-31) and an oracle of salvation for Zion (cf. 46:13). The main point of this chapter is not to predict Babylon's fall, however, but to glorify the power and grace of Yahweh using the destruction of Babylon as a backdrop.
The first four verses constitute the introduction to the oracle.
47:1 God depicted Babylon here as a rather prissy virgin. The city, representing the kingdom of Babylon, had, like a virgin, thus far not experienced the breaching of her walls by invaders. The Lord summoned her to sit on the ground rather than on the throne that she intended to occupy. Sitting in the dust was an act that depicted great mourning (cf. Jon. 3:6). She thought that she would be a queen, but in reality she would become a common, even a humiliated, beggar. Other peoples had regarded her as superior, but she would no longer be that. The Chaldeans were the residents of southern Mesopotamia who had been the leaders in throwing off Assyrian dominance and had provided the leadership for Neo-Babylonia.
47:2 Babylon would need to do servile work, grinding meal by rotating a millstone (cf. Exod. 11:5; Job 31:10; Matt. 24:41). She should remove her veil, which she, as an upper-class lady, had worn previously to hide her beauty from commoners. This would disgrace her. She should take off her long skirt and uncover her legs so she could do work in the fields and wade through the irrigation ditches of the rivers. She would become not only a beggar (v. 1) but a servant.
47:3 In the ancient world people regarded nakedness as a shame because it left them open to the gaze of others and so made them defenseless. People seen naked were often taken advantage of. Thus to be uncovered was to be shamefully exposed. Babylon had regarded herself as someone special and superior, but now it would become clear that she was just like every other nation. God promised to take vengeance on Babylon for exalting herself to a place that He alone deserves. He would not spare anyone deserving humiliation.
47:4 The foregoing description of God's humbling of Babylon, for essentially the same reason He humbled Egypt in the Exodus, drew an ejaculation of praise from Isaiah. Almighty Yahweh, the Holy One of Israel, would again redeem His people from a nation that had lifted up herself in pride and had oppressed God's chosen people.
"These verses assert two principles which lie at the heart of divine providential government of the world: retribution (3cd) and the centrality of the people of God (4)."493
The Lord became more specific about Babylon's sins and the reasons He intended to punish her in the following pericope (vv. 5-11).
47:5 Babylon would no longer be the queen of the nations, having many other kingdoms under her authority. Rather than enjoying the public activity and prominence that go with being a leader, Babylon would find herself sitting in silence and darkness.
"From the blare of world publicity and the glare of the palace lights to the silence of obscurity (v. 5)!"494
47:6 Babylon had not been kind to the Israelites whom Yahweh had handed over to her. She had not really conquered Judah; God had given the Judahites over to the Babylonians. The Babylonians had been unmerciful toward the Israelites and had made life hard even for their elderly, those who deserved mercy simply because of their age. The Babylonians were not as hard on the Israelites as the Egyptians and the Assyrians had been. It was their arrogance more than their physical cruelty that made them unmerciful.
47:7 The mark of Babylon's arrogance was that she assumed that she would continue to rule the world forever. She had defeated Assyria, which had been the most powerful world ruler for 300 years, and there was no power on the horizon that Babylon could see that would threaten her sovereignty. She had not considered that all nations are subject to Yahweh's sovereignty, that no nation is self-sufficient or self-existent. She had failed to consider that someone more powerful than herself could call her to account for her treatment of the people she had conquered.
47:8 Babylon was sensual (a lover of luxury) in that she assumed that what she enjoyed were her rights by virtue of her superiority. Her present condition had led her to think that she would always enjoy provision, protection, status, and security. But she could not avert the doom that would come on her because she had exalted herself to God's place. The pleasure-loving lady of leisure would become a childless widow.
47:9 She would lose her empire and her population with unexpected suddenness. In spite of the sorcery and magic that Babylon relied on for protection, God would bring judgment on her.
"Babylon was proverbial in the ancient world for its development of the magical arts. So firm was this association that in Daniel, Chaldean' is a term for magician (1:20; 2:2, 27, etc. . . .). The great Babylonian interest in astronomy was prompted by an even greater interest in astrology. The names given to the astrological constellations today are translations of the ones originated by the Babylonians. More than anything else, magic is engaged in to ensure good fortune and prevent misfortune."495
47:10 Babylon felt secure in mistreating people because her great learning and wisdom in the magical arts had led her to conclude that she was superior and invulnerable. Knowledge puffs up, and one of the delusions it spawns is that people who know more are not as morally and ethically responsible as everyone else. A corollary is that if I can get away with something, it's all right. Such thinking forgets that there is a sovereign and righteous God in heaven to whom we are responsible.
"Chaldean Babylon . . . combined the practical atheism of the freethinker with astrology, necromancy, and crass superstition."496
47:11 In spite of how the Babylonians thought, God would bring judgment on them suddenly that incantations would not affect, sacrifices could not deflect, and magic could not anticipate. Daniel 5 describes Belshazzar's feast, which took place on the night Babylon fell. Cyrus took the Babylonian king and his city completely by surprise, and the empire fell suddenly.
"Cyrus took Babylon effortlessly, and by morning every citizen of the empire was not a Babylonian but a Persian."497
Yahweh's denunciation of Babylon comes to a climax in the final four verses. In spite of her pride, Babylon would need a savior, but there would be none for her.
47:12-13 God sarcastically challenged the Babylonians to continue to trust in their mediums and horoscopes since they might be able to deliver them from the fate He announced. They were not about to humble themselves, as the Ninevites did in Jonah's day. If there was any time the Babylonians needed help from their wise men it was before the Lord visited them with judgment.
47:14-15 However, their powers would be no match for the consuming judgment of God that was coming on them like a fire. It would sweep everything in its path away, the astrologers as well as their predictions. They would become the fuel for this fire that would be like a wild forest fire, not a comfortable campfire.
"They do not even have the enduring power of wood in the fire, for they are consumed instantly [as stubble], and are not able to save themselves from the flame that devours them. If they cannot save themselves it is foolish to look to them to save Babylon."498
False religion offers the comfort of a fire, but it turns into a furnace of destruction. The philosophical leaders of Babylon would not be saviors in that day of judgment. In fact, there would be none to save then.
"These few words at the end of v. 15 capture the whole argument of chs. 40-47: everybody needs a savior; the gods and the magical worldview on which they rest cannot save; the Lord who stands outside the cosmos and directs it according to his good purposes can save; which shall we choose?"499
The fulfillment of this prophecy came when Cyrus invaded Babylon in 539 B.C. But the similarities between this chapter and Revelation 17 and 18 remind us that a future eschatological destruction of Babylon is also coming.
"Those who have turned from the living God to the daily horoscope in our own society would do well to heed this passage."500
"The point of chapters 41-47 is that the entire structure and system of the Babylonian Empire (represented by her idols) was developed by humans; Babylon had no lasting divine sanction. Just as an idol is of human fabrication, with no autonomous power or usefulness of its own, so the entire Babylonian system of society, economics, and politics was a human fabrication which in time would collapse. Israel, then, must reserve her worship, her ultimate commitment, for YHWH. This commitment must stand above all other systems and values. YHWH may grant these systems (including Assyria, Persia) temporary sanction to do his will, but he also reserves the right to repudiate and destroy them. Only YHWH deserves worship."501
