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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.

18. And with bows they shall dash in pieces the children. ²⁰⁷²⁰⁷ {Bogus footnote} Some render it, they shall cut. They think that the language is exaggerated, as if they made use of the children of the Babylonians in place of arrows, and afterwards dashed them to the ground, that they might be broken with greater violence. But I choose rather to take a more simple view of the words, that the cruelty of the Medes will be so great, that they will not spare even infant children, on whom men do not commonly lay hands unless where there is the utmost barbarity; and, in short, that no allowance will be made for age, as we have formerly said.

But we do not read that the Medes exercised so great cruelty, and Babylon stood and flourished for a very long period after that calamity; and although the seat of the empire was removed from it, still it retained its name and reputation. Besides, after the dawn of the following day, no cruelty was exercised but against those who bore arms. Though it was the Prophet’s design to include other judgments of God which awaited the Babylonians, and by which the first calamity was followed long afterwards, yet it is not improperly or unseasonably that he describes the barbarous manners of the nation, that the Jews may be more fully aware that a just reward is prepared for the tyranny of Babylon. Nor can it be doubted that it was in reliance on this promise that believers afterwards presented that prayer;

Blessed is he who shall dash thy little ones against the stones.
(Psalm 137:9.)

²⁰⁷ {Bogus footnote}