Isaiah 47
God's Judgment upon Babylon and Chaldea
God's Promise Of Salvation and the Future Glory of Israel1
2
Take the millstones, and grind flour.Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs,and wade through the rivers.
3
Your nakedness will be uncovered.Yes, your shame will be seen.I will take vengeance,and will spare no one."
4
Our Redeemer, the LORD of Hosts is his name,is the Holy One of Israel.
5
"Sit in silence, and go into darkness,daughter of the Chaldeans.For you shall no longer be calledthe mistress of kingdoms.
6
I was angry with my people.I profaned my inheritance,and gave them into your hand.You showed them no mercy.You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged.
7
You said, 'I will be a princess forever;'so that you did not lay these things to your heart,nor did you remember the results.
8
"Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures,who sit securely,who say in your heart,'I am, and there is no one else besides me.I shall not sit as a widow,neither shall I know the loss of children.'
9
But these two things shall come to you in a moment in one day,the loss of children and widowhood.They will come on you in their full measure,in the multitude of your sorceries,and the great abundance of your enchantments.
10
For you have trusted in your wickedness.You have said, 'No one sees me.'Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you.You have said in your heart, 'I am, and there is no one else besides me.'
11
Therefore disaster will come on you.You won't know when it dawns.Mischief will fall on you.You won't be able to put it away.Desolation will come on you suddenly,which you don't understand.
12
"Stand now with your enchantments,and with the multitude of your sorceries,in which you have labored from your youth;as if you might profit;as if you might prevail.
13
You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels.Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that will come on you.
14
Behold, they are like stubble.The fire will burn them.They won't deliver themselves from the power of the flame.It won't be a coal to warm ator a fire to sit by.
15
The things that you labored in will be like this:those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way.There will be no one to save you.
Isa 47:1-15. THE DESTRUCTION OF BABYLON IS REPRESENTED UNDER THE IMAGE OF A ROYAL VIRGIN BROUGHT DOWN IN A MOMENT FROM HER MAGNIFICENT THRONE TO THE EXTREME OF DEGRADATION.
1. in the dust--(See on Isa 3:26; Job 2:13; La 2:10).
virgin--that is, heretofore uncaptured [HERODOTUS, 1.191].
daughter of Babylon--Babylon and its inhabitants (see on Isa 1:8; Isa 37:22).
no throne--The seat of empire was transferred to Shushan. Alexander intended to have made Babylon his seat of empire, but Providence defeated his design. He soon died; and Seleucia, being built near, robbed it of its inhabitants, and even of its name, which was applied to Seleucia.
delicate--alluding to the effeminate debauchery and prostitution of all classes at banquets and religious rites [CURTIUS, 5.1; HERODOTUS, 1.199; BARUCH, 6.43].