Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 13-16.

Today’s passage contains prophecies concerning the downfall of three nations: Babylon, Philistia, and Moab.  The one about Babylon gives no context about when Isaiah made the prophecy.  The one about Philistia says that it was made the year that King Ahaz died.  The final one against Moab says that it will take place within three years, but only tells us that it will happen within three years of being made.  All three prophecies have one point in common.  They all stress that nations and powers rise and fall at God’s whim.  The first tells us that the rulers of Babylon thought that their power would last forever and that they needed to take no thought to doing what was right, or even that there were any actions they needed to take.  They thought their power meant they could do only what they wished and needed to take no thought to maintaining their power.  It serves to remind us that we all will die, and none of our power and wealth in life will aid us after our death.  The second warns us that we should not rejoice over the fall of our enemies; they may be replaced by those who do even worse to us.  The third warns us against the pride of thinking that wealth, and not being one who wields power, will protect us when the powers of the world are shaken up.  To a degree, each of these prophecies reminds us that only putting our faith and trust in God will give us any security.  Only God can give us safety.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 13-16.

I find it interesting that Isaiah, who lived and prophesied before Babylon had risen to be enough of a power to be perceived as a threat to Assyrian dominance, prophesied the downfall of Babylon.  To me, this feels like someone prophesying the fall of the Soviet Union (the Bolsheviks) before the outbreak of World War I.  I wrote about that in order to focus my mind on this passage.  Isaiah warns against the pride of nations and rulers.  Isaiah said that the rulers of Babylon would elevate themselves, in their own minds, to divine status, that everyone had heard of Moab’s pride, and that the Philistines would rejoice at the fall of their oppressors as if they had accomplished it themselves.  But God has other plans and things will happen as God has planned it.  Isaiah tells us that God says:

Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
and as I have purposed, so it will happen.

We can put our trust in this: what God has planned will happen.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 13-16.

Today’s passage starts with a prophecy against Babylon, a nation which was just rising to some level of power while Isaiah prophesied.  Early in this prophecy Isaiah tells his reader to wail because the day of the Lord is near.  As Christians we often want to rejoice that the day of the Lord will soon come, but Isaiah tells us to dread that day because there will be so much suffering.  Interestingly, Isaiah says that, on that day, God will make people scarcer than pure gold (NOTE: I do not believe that Isaiah is speaking a single 24 hour period, but rather an unspecified period of time which could be months or years long).  I find that interesting because I have recently been reading articles about things said by members of the World Economic Forum, a group of wealthy elites from around the world, where they spoke of changing the world to have less than a billion people (currently there are over 7 billion people in the world).  Isaiah’s prophecy here could be taken as predicting that such a population will result from “the day of the Lord”.  Isaiah writes that no one will enjoy the process of getting to that state.  In fact, he wrote earlier in this Book that we should dread that day.  Here, as he discusses the arrival of the day of the Lord, he writes that God will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for their sins.  So, those seeking to bring about the day when “people are scarcer than pure gold,’ should worry about the suffering they themselves may suffer getting there.  I want to make the point that those in positions of power who seek to create a utopian world either fail to recognize the suffering necessary to create the world they envision, or they think they will be exempt from that suffering.  In either case they are fools, but in the latter case they are badly mistaken.  Further, as Isaiah tells us, the world they desire will not be the utopia they imagine.  Isaiah, and all of the Old Testament prophets who speak on the issue, tells us that the only way to utopia is for mankind to follow God’s commands.

I want to make one final point.  What I have written above is depressing because it says that we will all suffer in the coming day of the Lord.  However, in this passage Isaiah writes that God will have compassion on Jacob (the people of Israel) and those who unite with them.  Elsewhere, Isaiah offers comfort to those who seek to honor and obey God.   So, on the one hand, God has promised deliverance to the faithful on His Day, but we should still dread that day because of the suffering which many will suffer.  We should examine our lives to see that we live righteously so as to be eligible for God’s offered relief, and dread the suffering which those we care about may experience because they have failed to do likewise (and the suffering we may experience if we fail to do so).

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on  Isaiah 13-16.

Many scholars who study the Bible believe that Isaiah’s prophecy concerning Babylon is evidence that the Book of Isaiah was not written by Isaiah, was actually written after his death.  The last king who reigned while Isaiah was alive was Hezekiah.  Yet, when Hezekiah was king, Assyria was still the most dominant power on earth and Babylon was lesser.  In fact, at that time there was no reason to believe that Babylon would ever be a great power.  Yet, here Isaiah prophesies that Babylon will fall from being the greatest power on earth.  However, this prophecy is here to bring home to us what God says through Isaiah in Chapter 14 verse 24:

“Surely, as I have planned, so it will be,
    and as I have purposed, so it will happen.”

While Isaiah was alive no one knew of Babylon as a world power which would take the people of Judah into Exile, except for Isaiah.  He knew this because God had revealed it to him.  He also knew that the day would come when God would bring His people back from that Exile.  So, no matter what terrible experience we may be going through, God knew it was coming before it began, and planned for it to happen.  More importantly, He planned to bring about its end.  Let us trust the plans which God has for us.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Isaiah 13-16.

Isaiah prophesied about the fall of Babylon at a time when Babylon was not yet the major world  power, Assyria was still the dominant world power.  Yet, in today’s passage the prophecy regarding the fall of Assyria is secondary.  This suggests to me that the prophesy against Babylon was intended as a more general prophecy against the powerful than most other Old Testament prophecies. I see this prophecy as a warning against those who believe that because they have the power to do whatever they wish, whatever they wish to do is the right thing to do; a warning to those who believe that the fact that they are mighty indicates that they are righteous.  When the wealthy and powerful begin to believe that everything they desire to do is righteous, God will not wait long before He brings judgement upon them.  The prophesies against Philistia and Moab remind us that people need not be among the wealthiest and most powerful in order to fall to the idea that getting what you want justifies mistreating others.  God will, in His time, hold accountable those whom no one else will.