Wicked Babylon’s Fall from Its Lofty Throne

Isaiah 47

Go down and sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter Chaldea! For you will no longer be called pampered and spoiled. (Isa 47:1)

Main Idea: Babylon is portrayed as a pampered and wicked sorceress queen whom God will throw from her lofty throne to vindicate his chosen people.

1. God Commands Humiliated Babylon to Vacate Her Throne (47:1-4).
   1. God commands pampered Daughter Babylon to sit in the dust.
   2. Babylon is stripped and humiliated.
   3. Israel is avenged by God her Redeemer.
2. God Takes Vengeance on Babylon for Israel’s Sake (47:5-6).
   1. God’s purpose is to punish Israel within measure.
   2. This is God’s vengeance for Babylon’s cruelty to Israel.
3. Babylon’s Arrogant Security Comes to a Shocking End (47:7-11).
   1. Babylon’s arrogance: “No one sees me” and “No one is like me.”
   2. Sudden devastation comes: widowhood and loss of children.
4. Babylon’s Occult Powers Fail to Save Her (47:12-15).
   1. Babylon’s occult powers are stubble in the inferno.
   2. Babylon cannot save herself.

God Commands Humiliated Babylon to Vacate Her Throne

Isaiah 47:1-4

There is a theological symmetry between the judgment on Babylon’s gods (Bel and Nebo) in Isaiah 46 and the fall of Babylon itself in Isaiah 47. Time and again in these chapters the true and living God warns idolaters that their false gods cannot save them but will actually end up destroying them. The Isaiah 46–47 couplet is more powerful evidence to support this warning God is giving to every generation to the ends of the earth. For as we have already seen several times, “Babylon” in the Bible is more than merely an ancient city that rose from the fertile Mesopotamian plain alongside the Euphrates River. It was certainly that, and the prophecy of Isaiah 47 has as its immediate fulfillment the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Great in 539 BC. But the term “Babylon” reemerges in 1 Peter 5:13, where Peter writes, “She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you greetings.” Since Peter was in Rome at the time of his death, it is likely that the term “Babylon” there refers to Rome, the seat of the most powerful empire on earth. In the book of Revelation, “Babylon the Great” is prophesied against repeatedly as the great city that made the nations drunk with the wine of her fornications (Rev 14:8) and that will fall under the final wrath of God. And Revelation 17–18 especially portrays Babylon as a wicked woman, a temptress, echoing the feminine imagery and the actual verbiage of Isaiah 47. In Revelation 18:7-8 “Babylon the Great” speaks words that paraphrase Isaiah 47:7-9.

Thus “Babylon” has a symbolic meaning of the world’s system under satanic domination. More specifically, it seems that in every era of world history, the “Spirit of Babylon” settles down under Satan’s dark wisdom to refer to whatever realm is dominating the earth militarily and/or economically. So the prediction of the fall of Babylon in Isaiah 47 is ultimately timeless, relevant to every generation of human history.

As the Lord speaks this oracle of doom to Babylon through the prophet Isaiah, he begins by commanding the “Virgin Daughter Babylon” to vacate her throne and sit down in the dust, utterly degraded and humiliated. The “Virgin Daughter” language refers to Babylon’s pristine status as never having been conquered, being protected in a walled citadel that seems inviolable. She is pampered by her status as “mistress of kingdoms” (v. 5), needing to do no labor, living in luxury off the fat of her conquests on the backs of the peoples she has enslaved. But now this spoiled daughter, haughty and arrogant, is cast down with violence from her throne (vv. 1-2). She must do the labor of a common slave: grinding flour. She will be stripped bare and have to wade through streams. Her nakedness will be exposed, to her everlasting shame (vv. 2-3). This degrading demotion is the direct judgment of a Holy God acting in vengeance (v. 3) for the sake of his chosen people.

So verse 4 serves as a transition between verses 1-3 describing the judgment of Babylon and verses 5-7 describing why the judgment will come. God is Israel’s Redeemer, and he will take vengeance on Babylon for the sake of his people because Babylon laid a crushing yoke on their necks, showing them no mercy (v. 6). This is the ultimate reason for this judgment on Babylon: God’s desire to redeem his people from sin and restore them to himself, free from the defilements of Babylon. It is fascinating that God calls himself the Lord of “Armies” (Hb tsebaoth), a word that also describes “stars,” by which he may have intended to call to mind the worship of the stars by the Babylonian stargazers (v. 13). Those are the very stars that God created and calls out by name (Isa 40:26); they are his servants to do his bidding, and they do not communicate his secret counsels to wicked pagan priests in Babylon.

God Takes Vengeance on Babylon for Israel’s Sake

Isaiah 47:5-6

This chapter is an oracle of vengeance on a wicked world for how it has treated God’s chosen people. The mystery of divine sovereignty and human responsibility is never far from our minds as we take in the vast complexity of the book of Isaiah. God willed that Babylon conquer Judah and Jerusalem because he was angry with his people for their sins (v. 6). He gave Judah over to the control of the Babylonians, carefully measuring out the level of the suffering of his people. But the Babylonians committed two sins while serving this eternal purpose of God: first, like the Assyrians in Isaiah 10:5, although they did what God wanted them to do, they did it from wicked motives, not for the glory of God but for their own glory in building a kingdom; second, they went beyond the measured punishment of his people by treating them with excessive cruelty, laying even on the elderly a heavy yoke of oppression (v. 6; Dan 4:27).

In the book of Revelation an angel pours out a bowl and turns the waters of earth to blood because the wicked on earth shed the blood of God’s people (Rev 16:3-7). So in Isaiah 47, the central motivation of God for judging Babylon is the harsh treatment they showed the exiled chosen people of God.

Babylon’s Arrogant Security Comes to a Shocking End

Isaiah 47:7-11

This section depicts the arrogant security that characterizes Babylon: “You said, ‘I will be the queen forever.’ You did not take these things to heart or think about their outcome” (v. 7). This arrogant security characterizes all the unregenerate wicked on earth. They push out of their thoughts the nagging conscience that tells them there will be a day of judgment someday. They arrogantly presume that things will go on like this forever. Babylon assured herself that she would never be a widow or suffer the loss of children (vv. 8-9). But both of these will come on her suddenly, in an instant. These two calamities represent the worst things that can happen to a woman in that society, for a husband and children represent economic security and hope for a comfortable future. “Widowhood” comes on Babylon when her young men (soldiers) fall in battle against the Medes and Persians. And “loss of children” follows literally, when the Babylonian population is slaughtered subsequently.

Verses 9-11 reveal that some of Babylon’s security comes from her confidence in occultic powers—sorceries and potent spells. She came to two false conclusions: “No one sees me” and “I am, and there is no one else” (vv. 8,10). Both of these thoughts clearly forget almighty God, who sees everything, who alone can say, “I am, and there is none like me” (see Exod 3:14; Deut 32:39). How tragic it is when wicked people go into secret chambers and do wicked things, thinking there is no God who will judge them for their sins (Ps 14:1)!

Babylon’s Occult Powers Fail to Save Her

Isaiah 47:12-15

The Chaldeans were known for their astrology, their stargazing and interpretation of omens and dreams. All of this was an effort to discern the future so that forewarned would be forearmed. Beyond that, these Babylonian sorcerers sought demonic powers by which they could defeat human enemies. So occult power was a mainstay of Babylonian confidence: supernatural knowledge coupled with supernatural power. But verses 12-15 make plain that they will be shocked at the devastation that will come on them because their secret powers will not reveal the future accurately. God has again and again made plain that idols cannot foretell the future; only he can (Isa 41:23). And Proverbs 21:30 says, “No wisdom, no understanding, and no counsel will prevail against the Lord.” When God threatens coming wrath, the only wise counsel is to run to the Lord and plead for his mercy. Nothing else will succeed. So God ironically taunts them to try their dark powers one last time. These efforts will fail; their reputed power will only be stubble for the fire of God’s wrath.

Applications

As we read this terrifying chapter, we are immediately led to consider the symbolic significance of Babylon in the Bible. Babylon represents the evil world system that, under Satan’s secret power, dominates the face of the earth. Babylon represents “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions” (1 John 2:16). The geographical/national base of Babylon has migrated as one empire has given way to the next. But we who are in exile from heaven live in Babylon. In the next chapter we will be warned to “leave Babylon, flee from the Chaldeans” (Isa 48:20), which Paul picks up on (2 Cor 6:17), as does the angelic warning in Revelation 18:4. But we cannot be warned enough of the deadly dangers of this sorceress queen, of her luxuries, of her occult allurements, and of her future judgments by God. We must keep ourselves from being polluted by her many charms and defiled by her wicked and dark idolatries. We must be acutely aware that God sees what is done in secret and will most certainly bring to judgment every wicked act and idolatrous heart.

As always, this points us to the cross of Jesus Christ. Verse 4 celebrates that the Lord of Armies is the Redeemer of Israel, which he accomplishes ultimately by the shed blood of Jesus Christ. Israel is no better than Babylon; tempted again and again by Satan’s dark allurements, we too are as defiled as the Babylonians. We should repent and flee to the cross for the cleansing the blood of Christ alone can give. Beyond this, we have a sacred duty to do precisely what Isaiah is doing in this chapter: warning Babylon of her impending judgment by God. We have the clear gospel of Jesus Christ to proclaim in this present version of Babylon all over the world. It is the only hope for the world, and it is our responsibility to warn the inhabitants of Babylon to flee the wrath to come.

We should be keenly aware of the growth of occult practices where we live. More and more movies, books, and songs celebrate dark forces of the occult: witchcraft, demons, omens, supernatural divination, communication with the dead—these have become much more visible in our culture over the past decade and more. Beware, for this is the very thing Isaiah 47 exposes; it will lead to Babylon’s destruction.

Finally, we should see the zeal God has to avenge his people. In a wicked and turbulent world that hates Christ and attacks Christians, God will finally avenge his people and save them from their enemies. As we hear of the persecuted church in Muslim and totalitarian countries, and as we cry for justice while our brothers and sisters die, we should remember that God’s zeal to avenge his people is vastly greater than we can imagine.

Reflect and Discuss

1. Who is talking to whom throughout this chapter? Note that the word you or your is used forty-six times in this chapter, including nine times in verse 12.
2. What is the symbolic significance of “Babylon” in the Bible? (See pp. 90–91 of this commentary for a brief overview.)
3. How is Babylon like a spoiled, pampered princess living in luxury? What is going to happen to her, according to verses 1-3?
4. How is God identified in verse 4? How does verse 4 connect with verse 6 to show us God’s zeal for his own people as they suffer in Babylon?
5. How should verse 6 make Christians fear sin and God’s righteous discipline on the church?
6. How does verse 7 show the arrogant confidence that sinners tend to have that judgment day will never come and that everything will go on just as it always has? How do we Christians have a responsibility to warn people that such a confidence is spiritually deadly?
7. What is the danger of luxury according to Isaiah 47? How is 1 Timothy 6:17-18 a healthy remedy to the dangers of luxury for Christians?
8. How do you see the growth of occultism in our culture these days? What is the danger of this to Christians?
9. How should this chapter strengthen our resolve to be holy in the “Babylon” in which we live?
10. How should this chapter strengthen our zeal for missions?