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47. Fall of Babylon

¹ “Go down, sit in the dust,
   Virgin Daughter Babylon;
sit on the ground without a throne,
   queen city of the Babylonians. Or Chaldeans; also in verse 5
No more will you be called
   tender or delicate.
² Take millstones and grind flour;
   take off your veil.
Lift up your skirts, bare your legs,
   and wade through the streams.
³ Your nakedness will be exposed
   and your shame uncovered.
I will take vengeance;
   I will spare no one.”

⁴ Our Redeemer—the LORD Almighty is his name—
is the Holy One of Israel.

    ⁵ “Sit in silence, go into darkness,
   queen city of the Babylonians;
no more will you be called
   queen of kingdoms.
⁶ I was angry with my people
   and desecrated my inheritance;
I gave them into your hand,
   and you showed them no mercy.
Even on the aged
   you laid a very heavy yoke.
⁷ You said, ‘I am forever—
   the eternal queen!’
But you did not consider these things
   or reflect on what might happen.

    ⁸ “Now then, listen, you lover of pleasure,
   lounging in your security
and saying to yourself,
   ‘I am, and there is none besides me.
I will never be a widow
   or suffer the loss of children.’
⁹ Both of these will overtake you
   in a moment, on a single day:
   loss of children and widowhood.
They will come upon you in full measure,
   in spite of your many sorceries
   and all your potent spells.
¹⁰ You have trusted in your wickedness
   and have said, ‘No one sees me.’
Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you
   when you say to yourself,
   ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’
¹¹ Disaster will come upon you,
   and you will not know how to conjure it away.
A calamity will fall upon you
   that you cannot ward off with a ransom;
a catastrophe you cannot foresee
   will suddenly come upon you.

    ¹² “Keep on, then, with your magic spells
   and with your many sorceries,
   which you have labored at since childhood.
Perhaps you will succeed,
   perhaps you will cause terror.
¹³ All the counsel you have received has only worn you out!
   Let your astrologers come forward,
those stargazers who make predictions month by month,
   let them save you from what is coming upon you.
¹⁴ Surely they are like stubble;
   the fire will burn them up.
They cannot even save themselves
   from the power of the flame.
These are not coals for warmth;
   this is not a fire to sit by.
¹⁵ That is all they are to you—
   these you have dealt with
   and labored with since childhood.
All of them go on in their error;
   there is not one that can save you.

10. For thou trustedst. He explains what he said in the preceding verse, though it may be extended further, so as to be a censure of the fraud and oppression and violence and unjust practices by which the Babylonians raised themselves to so great power. Almost all large kingdoms are, what a distinguished robber pronounced them to be, great robberies; for there is no other way in which they enlarge their dominions than by extorting them from others by violence and oppression, and by driving out the lawful owners from their dwellings, that they alone may reign at large.

In thy malice. He gives the name of “malice” to that which he will afterwards adorn with more plausible names, namely, wisdom and knowledge. In this manner do tyrants usually disguise their tricks, when they lay aside all regard to justice and equity, and cunningly deceive the people; but the Lord detests and exposes them; so that it becomes manifest that it served no purpose to cover their wickedness by useless veils. Thus Job, after having said that “wise men are taken in their own wisdom,” explains this by calling it “craftiness.” (Job 5:13.)

Thou saidst, No one seeth me. When he adds that Babylon thought that her iniquities were not seen, this refers to free indulgence in sinning; for while men are kept in the discharge of duty by fear or shame, he who neither dreads God as a witness, nor thinks that men will know what he does, breaks out into every kind of licentiousness. It is true, indeed, that even the worst of men are often tormented by the stings of conscience; but, by shutting their eyes, they plunge themselves in: stupidity as in a lurking-place, and, in short, harden all their senses. Above all, we see that they have the hardihood to mock God, as if by their craftiness they could dazzle his eyes; for whenever they wish to defraud simpletons, they think it enough that they are not detected, as if they could impose on God. But to no purpose do they flatter themselves in their cunning, for the Lord will speedily take off the mask from them. All men ought therefore to abhor this wisdom, by which men deceive themselves, and accomplish their own ruin.

I, and there is none beside me. He again repeats those blasphemies, that all may plainly understand how greatly God abhors them, and how near to destruction are all who raise themselves higher than they ought.