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Proclamation against Babylon

The oracle concerning Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw.

On a bare hill raise a signal,

cry aloud to them;

wave the hand for them to enter

the gates of the nobles.

I myself have commanded my consecrated ones,

have summoned my warriors, my proudly exulting ones,

to execute my anger.

Listen, a tumult on the mountains

as of a great multitude!

Listen, an uproar of kingdoms,

of nations gathering together!

The L ord of hosts is mustering

an army for battle.

They come from a distant land,

from the end of the heavens,

the L ord and the weapons of his indignation,

to destroy the whole earth.

Wail, for the day of the L ord is near;

it will come like destruction from the Almighty!

Therefore all hands will be feeble,

and every human heart will melt,

and they will be dismayed.

Pangs and agony will seize them;

they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.

They will look aghast at one another;

their faces will be aflame.

See, the day of the L ord comes,

cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,

to make the earth a desolation,

and to destroy its sinners from it.

For the stars of the heavens and their constellations

will not give their light;

the sun will be dark at its rising,

and the moon will not shed its light.

I will punish the world for its evil,

and the wicked for their iniquity;

I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant,

and lay low the insolence of tyrants.

I will make mortals more rare than fine gold,

and humans than the gold of Ophir.

Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,

and the earth will be shaken out of its place,

at the wrath of the L ord of hosts

in the day of his fierce anger.

Like a hunted gazelle,

or like sheep with no one to gather them,

all will turn to their own people,

and all will flee to their own lands.

Whoever is found will be thrust through,

and whoever is caught will fall by the sword.

Their infants will be dashed to pieces

before their eyes;

their houses will be plundered,

and their wives ravished.

See, I am stirring up the Medes against them,

who have no regard for silver

and do not delight in gold.

Their bows will slaughter the young men;

they will have no mercy on the fruit of the womb;

their eyes will not pity children.

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,

the splendor and pride of the Chaldeans,

will be like Sodom and Gomorrah

when God overthrew them.

It will never be inhabited

or lived in for all generations;

Arabs will not pitch their tents there,

shepherds will not make their flocks lie down there.

But wild animals will lie down there,

and its houses will be full of howling creatures;

there ostriches will live,

and there goat-demons will dance.

Hyenas will cry in its towers,

and jackals in the pleasant palaces;

its time is close at hand,

and its days will not be prolonged.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

15. Every one that is found shall be thrust through. Here he confirms what he had formerly said, that none shall escape from Babylon, and that all who shall be there shall perish. Xenophon also relates that, by the command of Cyrus, they slew every one that they met in the beginning of the night, and next day all that had not laid down their arms. ²⁰⁴²⁰⁴ {Bogus footnote} But we have already said that the prediction extends farther; for that slaughter was only the forerunner of others, for which Babylon was purposely preserved, that it might frequently be ruined.

And every one that is joined to them shall fall by the sword. Some translators render this clause differently from what I have done; because the Hebrew verb ספה (saphah) signifies to destroy or consume, they read it, Whosoever shall be destroyed, and explain it as relating to the old men, who were already worn out with age, and could not otherwise live longer; as if he had said, “Not even the men of advanced age, who are sinking into the grave, shall be spared, even though they are half-dead, and appear to be already giving up the ghost.” But because that is a feeble interpretation, and the verb ספה (saphah) signifies likewise to add, I rather agree with Jonathan ²⁰⁵²⁰⁵ {Bogus footnote} and others, who think that it denotes companies of soldiers, as in taking a city the soldiers are collected together in the form of a wedge, to ward off the attacks of the enemy. But it will perhaps be thought better to understand by it the confederates or allies who were joined to Babylon, and might be said to be united in the same body, in order to show more fully the shocking nature of this calamity.

²⁰⁴ {Bogus footnote}

²⁰⁵ {Bogus footnote}