LESSON 18

THE DISTRUCTION OF BABYLON

ISAIAH CHAPTER 47

The prophet Isaiah vividly proclaims the downfall of Babylon in this chapter.  What is so significant about this is that Babylon at this time was a small and insignificant nation on the world scene.  In his book, “The Two Babylons” Alexander Hislop  makes it clear that the fountainhead of all idolatry goes back to Babylon.  The idolatry and drunkenness of Babylon holds a spiritual lesson for all nations and points out how the political power of nations is broken down.

When Isaiah writes, “Come down and sit in the dust,” its like one calls a dog to obedience.  When Jesus spoke to the storm on the sea of Galilee, the same thought was expressed, “Be muzzled.”  God is about to bring low Babylon from her pinnacle of arrogant power to lie under the rubble of time and eternity.  Babylon was the envy of the world with her power and riches and is liken to a delicate and pampered lady.  “Strip thy shirt, expose thy leg” shows her as a lowly slave.  The God of Israel had allowed this nation to hold His people in captivity for 70 years; that was about to change.  “I will take vengeance” (Isaiah 47:3) reveals the hour of reckoning has come, and God is going to use Cyrus to bring this about.  The people of Babylon thought it was their power and might that brought victory over Israel.  God makes it clear in Isaiah 47:6 that He punished His people and delivered them into the hands of the Babylonians.

The interesting thing about Isaiah 47:10-15 is how God led Isaiah to outline those things which brought the pride and downfall of this world superpower.  They trusted in their knowledge and wisdom, their engineering skills, their irrigation system, their military power, their legal system, their enormous temples and palaces, and their arts, which were the envy of the ancient world.  The witchcraft and sorcery had led to a strong influence of astrology.  Isaiah addresses himself with sarcasm to the Babylonians by calling on them in Isaiah 47:12-15 to call on their utterly useless witchcraft to help them in the hour of need.  How sad it is to see the people who read the newspaper’s astrology reports and believe them.  People today are still turning away from the Word of God to fables.  Those who turn to spiritism and theosophy and other occult systems reveals that Babylonianism is still alive and active.  God’s Word makes it clear that the futility of wise men will be exposed in the hour of world calamity.  There is a lesson for us today in the ashes of Babylon, and that is to build our lives on the revealed Word of God.