Babylon and Its Allies Are No Refuge for God’s People

Isaiah 21

My people who have been crushed on the threshing floor, I have declared to you what I have heard from the Lord of Armies, the God of Israel. (Isa 21:10)

Main Idea: Babylon and its allies are enemies of God and thus no refuge for God’s people.

1. Trusting in Babylon: A Devastating Mistake (21:1-2,10)
   1. A message of warning—and comfort—to God’s people
   2. Assyria the threat, God alone the refuge
   3. The way of the world: Babylon betraying, then betrayed by, its allies
2. Isaiah’s Amazing Reaction (21:3-4)
   1. Isaiah overwhelmed
   2. Compassion on the lost
3. Disaster Destroys the Party (21:5).
   1. Overwhelming desire for pleasure even in the face of death
   2. The fulfillment: Belshazzar’s idolatrous feast (Dan 5)
   3. Historical testimony: Herodotus’s account
4. Babylon Has Fallen; Don’t Fall with Her (21:6-10)!
   1. The scene shifts: Israel receives news.
   2. “Babylon has fallen, has fallen!”
   3. Final warning: Don’t share Babylon’s fate.
5. Edom and Arabia Are No Refuge Either (21:11-17).
   1. Edom: a land silenced by judgment
   2. Arabia: a land overrun by refugees
   3. Remaining refuge: only the glory of the Lord

Trusting in Babylon: A Devastating Mistake

Isaiah 21:1-2,10

In the world, but not of it.” This is a perpetual struggle for the people of God in this present evil age. God’s people are constantly tempted to trust in human power (here represented by Babylon and its allies, Edom and Arabia) rather than in God, who should be our only refuge (Isa 8:13-14).

The tiny kingdom of Judah was under constant threat of invasion from Assyria, and therefore they were tempted to seek refuge in alliances with similar nations who were also threatened. Isaiah 19–20 was given to persuade Judah not to trust in Egypt. So also Isaiah 21 was given to Judah to tell her what the future held for Babylon. Like Egypt, Babylon would be destroyed one day. So verse 10 says that God’s people would be “crushed on the threshing floor” by Assyria (in 722 BC) and Babylon (in 586 BC). In between, Judah would be tempted to make an alliance with Babylon against Assyria. Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon, would send emissaries to King Hezekiah for just such a purpose. Isaiah would tell King Hezekiah that someday Babylon would become the enemy of Judah, carrying off all her valuables and many of her people (Isa 39).

But in chapter 21 Isaiah sees even beyond this to the eventual fall of Babylon at the hands of the Medes and Elamites (Isa 13). Babylon, in its struggle against the Assyrian Empire, would make allies of smaller nations like the Medes and the Elamites. But, when the time was ripe for Assyria to be toppled by the growing Babylonian kingdom under Nebopolassar (625 BC), Babylon turned from ally to traitor, from friend to conqueror, and the Medes and Elamites were trampled by this new empire—Babylon.^[7] Babylon would rule the region for three generations, but in due time the Medes would rise with their allies, the Persians, and conquer Babylon. So a whirlwind of destruction would sweep in on Babylon (21:1); the former traitor would now be betrayed, the former looter would now herself be looted. Elam would rise to attack, and Media would rise to lay siege, and together they would put an end to all the groaning caused by wicked Babylon (Pfeiffer, Old Testament History, 472–73; Bright, History of Israel, 360). This is the way of the world, as once subjugated people rise to conqueror their oppressors, only to become oppressors themselves.

Isaiah’s Amazing Reaction

Isaiah 21:3-4

Isaiah reacts to this prophetic insight with remarkable sorrow over Babylon. Just as he had earlier shown compassion for the Moabites (15:5; 16:11), so now Isaiah’s body is wracked with pain, his heart filled with anguish and sheer terror for Babylon (21:3-4). As we noted in Isaiah 15–16, compassion for those under the judgment of God is godly.

Disaster Destroys the Party

Isaiah 21:5

Astonishingly, in verse 5 Isaiah foresees (centuries in advance) the details of Babylon’s fall. Specifically, it is during a feast in which tables are prepared, carpets spread out, and people eat and drink that the slaughter comes. Isaiah even seems to give the Babylonian princes military advice: “Rise up, you princes, and oil the shields!”

This feast occurred during the siege of Babylon by the Medes and Elamites, which makes it all the more amazing. During a siege, the people usually do absolutely everything necessary to conserve food and water. But the arrogant Babylonians, who had stockpiled huge quantities of food to withstand a siege for years and whose water needs were supplied indefinitely by the ever-flowing Euphrates River (Herodotus, Histories 1.190, 102), could stand on walls 76 feet thick and 304 feet high (Histories 1.178, 97) above their besieging enemy and mock them, then retire to the banqueting halls and drink themselves into drunken oblivion, confident of their security.

The idolatrous feast is recorded for us as history in Daniel 5, where Belshazzar, the final king of the Babylonian Empire, held a feast with his nobles and princes and drank toasts to the gods of wood and stone, using vessels stolen from the temple of God in Jerusalem. Suddenly, the fingers of a hand appeared and wrote the epitaph of Belshazzar’s reign: Mene, mene, tekel, and parsin—God has numbered your days and brought them to an end; God has weighed you on the scales and found you wanting; God is going to give your kingdom to the Medes and Persians.

What happened next was foretold clearly by Jeremiah the prophet decades beforehand:

While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast, and I will make them drunk so that they celebrate. Then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up. This is the Lord’s declaration. . . . I will make her princes and sages drunk, along with her governors, officials, and warriors. Then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up. This is the King’s declaration; the Lord of Armies is his name. (Jer 51:39,57)

The drunken feast was essential to Babylon’s fall, for her walls were only vulnerable where the Euphrates River went under them. Alert soldiers could easily guard that weak spot, but God made them all drunk, first with arrogance then with wine. They staggered drunk to their beds and collapsed there. Meanwhile, according to Herodotus, the Medes diverted the Euphrates until the water was only thigh deep, and they came in under the walls (Herodotus, Histories 1.190–91, 102–3). Then they swooped into the houses of the warriors and princes and slaughtered them while they lay drunk in their beds. Isaiah and Jeremiah saw it all by prophetic eye long before it occurred.

Babylon Has Fallen; Don’t Fall with Her!

Isaiah 21:6-10

In verses 6-10 the scene shifts from the place of the arrogant feast to a watchman waiting on the walls of (perhaps) Jerusalem to receive the news. The watchman waits and receives the dramatic news of the fall of Babylon (v. 9), the news that Isaiah’s downtrodden people have been longing to hear (v. 10). But the key for them is to avoid falling with Babylon. As God has made plain, Babylon is falling because of her wicked idolatries. So the timeless warning to the people of God concerning Babylon is given again: “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins or receive any of her plagues” (Rev 18:4).

Edom and Arabia Are No Refuge Either

Isaiah 21:11-17

The chapter ends with two brief oracles against other Gentile nations: Edom (“Dumah”) and Arabia. Allies of Babylon, ready to welcome refugees fleeing the falling city with food and water (v. 14), they wait breathlessly through the night for the terror to end; but one terror follows another. In short, there is no refuge on earth from God’s judgments; find refuge in God alone.

Applications

We should all stand amazed at the astonishing detail of Isaiah’s prophecy. His prophetic eye sees beyond the immediate threat of Assyria, and even beyond the rise of the Babylonian Empire, to the fall of the Babylonians at the hands of the Medes and Elamites. God alone knows the future, and he has revealed enough of the future to us in the pages of Scripture that we will be wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus (2 Tim 3:15). There is no refuge from the wrath and judgments of God on earth—nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The only refuge is faith in Jesus Christ. Until the end of the world, the people of God will often feel like flotsam and jetsam on the waves of history. One mighty nation will rise to conquer the previous one, and God’s people are usually merely along for the ride. But the elect from every nation are the centerpiece of God’s purpose for history, not merely debris on the waves. God’s people will often be crushed on the threshing floor of God’s judgments, with cause to grieve over our sins. We are warned in this chapter not to trust in Babylon or to share in Babylon’s demise. Our citizenship is not earthly but heavenly. So, while we wisely should pray for and seek the welfare of our earthly nation (Jer 29:7), we should also know by prophecy that it will someday be destroyed. Christ alone is our final refuge. So let us live in purity, free from the idols that will bring about the “fall of Babylon.” Let us spread the gospel of Christ in light of that coming judgment.

Reflect and Discuss

1. What does this chapter show about the rise and fall of the world?
2. How should Christians live in this world given these facts? How are we to be “in the world, but not of it”? How would you relate this to Philippians 3:20 and Hebrews 11:13-16?
3. What do you make of Isaiah’s remarkable reaction to the prophecy against Babylon (vv. 3-4)? How do you explain it? How is it related to Jesus weeping over Jerusalem (Luke 19:41) and Paul weeping for unbelieving Jews (Rom 9:2)? If so, what does this teach us about compassion for the lost?
4. How does the history of the fall of Babylon, together with the details covered above from Isaiah 21:5, Daniel 5, and Jeremiah 51, make you marvel at the accuracy of prophecy? How was the drunkenness of the Babylonians essential to the fall of Babylon?
5. What does the fact that the Babylonians wanted to party the night they were conquered show about human nature?
6. How does Isaiah 21:6-9 relate to Habakkuk 2:1 as well as to all of Habakkuk 2?
7. What do the oracles against Arabia teach us as well? How is it that even small nations like these are subject to such judgments from God?
8. How does this chapter teach us to live a holy life in this present age?
9. How does it point to the need to spread the gospel and be passionate about missions?
10. Do you see your present nation as a form of Babylon in some ways? If so, how? If not, why not?