The Book Of Isaiah. Day 59, The Doom Of The King Of Babylon, Part One

This next segment of Scripture is another example in the book of Isaiah of prophecy that is both for the near future and for the far future. It regards the literal nation of Babylon of ancient times---or rather, it's king or kings---and it regards the leader of the corrupt world system of the end times---otherwise known as the Antichrist.

In Isaiah's day the nation of Babylon was not yet capable of overthrowing the Assyrian Empire, which was the empire the people of Judah and Israel most feared. Indeed, the Assyrian Empire did cause the fall of the northern kingdom of Israel. But Babylon will soon be on the rise and become the greatest world power on earth. Babylon will overthrow Assyria in a little over a century, then later causing the fall of Judah about 130 years after Isaiah prophesied the fall of Judah.

The verses we will be studying over the next several days are speaking of the king (or all the kings combined together) of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Later on we will get into how these verses apply to the "man of sin" of the end times as well. But meanwhile I want to note that scholars are in disagreement over which king of the literal nation of Babylon is intended by these verses or whether these verses describe the attitude of all the kings of the Neo-Babylonian Empire---that Isaiah foresaw them all as "one king" because they all had the same type of pride, the same enormous ego, and the same grand world-conquering ambitions. Some scholars believe Isaiah is speaking of King Nebuchadnezzar, who was the king of Babylon when Babylon caused the fall of Jerusalem and Judah and took the majority of the people captive. 

Others believe the final king of Babylon, Belshazzar, is the one Isaiah foresaw, for Nebuchadnezzar appears (in the book of Daniel) to have repented of his overweening pride and to have acknowledged the God of Israel. Whether or not Nebuchadnezzar placed all of his faith in the Lord and renounced all his pagan gods is up for debate; the Bible does not make it clear whether or not this was the case. But the book of Daniel does seem to indicate that Nebuchadnezzar underwent a major attitude adjustment. The book of Daniel also indicates that Belshazzar was wicked to the end. On the very night the walls of the capital city of Babylon were about to be breached by the enemy army, Belshazzar was throwing a wild and drunken party during which he deliberately scorned the God of Israel by calling for the vessels taken from the temple at Jerusalem to be brought to the party where he and his top officials drank from them and toasted their own heathen gods. 

Isaiah foresees the defeat of a king, and although we don't know which king he had in mind, we know that his prediction came true. Babylon did fall and it exists no more in our day, just as Isaiah has already predicted in our Bible study. Belshazzar was killed on the night the city walls were breached and I think it's quite likely that Belshazzar is the man Isaiah foresaw. But whoever it was, the verses of Chapter 14 clearly show us that no matter how much a person achieves in this life, those things will be of no use to a person once he is dead. Only a relationship with the Lord matters once a person has passed out of this life. Isaiah begins sharing his vision of the death of the king.

"The realm of the dead below is all astir to meet you at your coming; it rouses the spirits of the departed to greet you---all those who were leaders in the world; it makes them rise from their thrones---all those who were kings over the nations. They will all respond, they will say to you, 'You also have become weak, as we are; you have become like us.' All your pomp has been brought down to the grave, along with the noise of the harps; maggots are spread out beneath you, and worms cover you." (Isaiah 14:9-11) 

This is a graphic description of the king becoming "worm food", to use a modern expression. But it's accurate because no matter how wealthy and powerful a person is, he cannot keep himself alive forever. Death and decay come to the rich and the poor alike, to the powerful and to the weak alike.

The kings who preceded him in death and who are taunting him may be the pagan kings whose nations were conquered by Babylon. Or they may represent all the kings of all the ages who thought their power and glory would protect them from death, or would protect them from being forgotten in death,  or would secure for them a godlike status at death. But now the mighty king who has boasted in himself has become just like they are. His fate is the same as theirs. Because this description of their afterlife is so gloomy, we know that none of these kings were men of God. They aren't resting in peace, awaiting the day when they will be resurrected in glorious eternal bodies to live in the presence of the Lord forever. No, these kings are experiencing an eternity of defeat. They are experiencing an eternity without any hope of their circumstances turning around. 

Although we are ending today's study on a depressing note, we must keep in mind that the fate of these unbelieving kings is not our fate. If we have placed our trust in the Lord for salvation, an extremely different---and gloriously superior---eternity awaits us. As the author of Psalm 49 said when contrasting the fate of the wicked with the fate of believers: "This is the fate of those who trust in themselves, and of their followers, who approve their sayings. They are like sheep and are destined to die; death will be their shepherd (but the upright will prevail over them in the morning). Their forms will decay in the grave, far from their princely mansions. But the Lord will redeem me from the realm of the dead; He will surely take me to Himself." (Psalm 49:13-15) 

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 58, Chosen Israel, Part Two

The Lord has been talking about judgments against Israel, Judah, and the Gentile nations of Isaiah's era. But His judgment against His people is not for the purpose of permanently destroying them as a sovereign nation, as is His purpose for bringing down nations such as the Assyrian Empire and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. He has not cast the descendants of Jacob away from Him. He will restore them.

When we studied verse 1 in our last study session we found the Lord assuring the people that a return to the land will occur. We talked about how the remnant of their captive people were allowed, in ancient times, to return to the land if they so desired. We also talked about how, in 1948, the prophecy of Israel again becoming a sovereign nation in the world came true and that the Lord used a number of Gentile nations to help this to come about. 

This next segment likely deals with fulfillment of prophecy in ancient times (when the Lord destroyed Babylon with the Medo-Persian army), and with fulfillment of prophecy when Israel was assisted by other nations in establishing a sovereign government of her own in 1948, and with fulfillment of prophecy in the future when Israel will have no enemies anywhere in the world. "Nations will take them and bring them to their own place. And Israel will take possession of the nations and make them male and female servants in the Lord's land. They will make captives of their captors and rule over their oppressors." (Isaiah 14:2)

Many times since the Lord chose the descendants of Jacob as His special people, other nations and tribes have attempted to wipe these people off the face of the earth. Jacob's descendants have been attacked numerous times, conquered several times, taken captive and deported several times, and persecuted in many ways by a number of different peoples. The Lord has so far defeated every plot every plot to remove them entirely from the earth and He will continue to defeat all such plots. A day is coming when Jerusalem will not only be the capital of Israel but will be the capital of the entire world. The Messiah will reign from Jerusalem and when He reigns over the world forever there will be no more war and bloodshed. Israel will never need to fear an enemy attack again.

This next passage appears to deal primarily with the overthrow of ancient Babylon but many scholars believe it also deals with the "Babylon" of the end times: the corrupt world system during the brief reign of the Antichrist in the last days. "On the day the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and turmoil and from the harsh labor forced on you, you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon: 'How the oppressor has come to an end! How his fury has ended! The Lord has broken the rod of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, which in anger struck down peoples with unceasing blows, and in fury subdued nations with relentless aggression.'" (Isaiah 14:3-6) These verses certainly describe the literal nation of Babylon which subdued nations and tribes and treated them harshly. These verses unquestionably describe the fall of literal Babylon, about which the Lord said earlier in the book of Isaiah that it would become nothing but a rubble of ruins never to be rebuilt. 

But the remainder of this segment goes beyond what happened at the fall of ancient Babylon and its gradual decay into nothingness. There are things mentioned in the next verses that have not yet come to pass---things that appear to be references to end time events and then the Messiah's eternal reign of peace. We will discuss those verses and the prophecies contained therein in our next study session. Time does not permit us to do a really in-depth study of them in conjunction with the verses we've looked at today.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 57, Chosen Israel, Part One

The book of Isaiah contains some dire prophecies against Israel and Judah as well as against other nations of that day. But it also contains some beautiful promises. Hardships are going to come upon the people of Israel and Judah but blessings are going to come upon them too. The Lord has not rejected them. He is disciplining them for a season but He is not casting them away.

"The Lord will have compassion on Jacob; once again He will choose Israel and will settle them in their own land. Foreigners will join them and unite with the descendants of Jacob." (Isaiah 14:1) When the Assyrian Empire conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and carried most of the people captive to foreign lands and resettled Israel with other captives, it must have appeared to human reasoning as if all was lost. Likewise, when the same things happened to the kingdom of Judah at the hands of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, to human eyes it must have looked as if all was lost. But the Lord has already announced His intention to judge both Assyria and Babylon; when that happens the descendants of those who were carried away captive will be allowed to return. Not all of them will choose to return but remnants of every tribe will have the opportunity to do so.

They will be helped by the Gentile nations, which is why the Lord says, "Foreigners will join them." They were helped in antiquity by the Gentiles; for example, Cyrus the Great of Persia gave all the captives of Babylon permission to return to their native lands and rebuild. He did not worship the God of Israel but he believed in religious freedom and he viewed himself as a liberator to all those who had been forcibly removed from their own lands and prevented from practicing their own religions in Babylon. Cyrus did recognize the God of Israel as a god and believed he had been chosen by God (which indeed he was, as we'll be told later) to set the descendants of Jacob free.

Not only were the descendants of Jacob helped by the Gentiles in the distant past, they were helped by the Gentiles in the more recent past, such as when many Gentile nations recognized and supported Israel as a sovereign nation in 1948 and helped to establish Israel again. I believe this next segment has already been fulfilled in several stages and that only one stage remains in our time. "Nations will take them and bring them to their own place." (Isaiah 14:2a) When the Gentiles of ancient times allowed the descendants of Jacob to return and rebuild, that was a partial fulfillment of verse 2a. When Gentile nations recognized Israel as a sovereign nation in 1948, that was a partial fulfillment of verse 2a. The book of Revelation indicates that the largest ingathering of the descendants of Jacob will occur when the Messiah reigns from David's throne in Jerusalem, so that part of verse 2a is still in the future.

I personally don't believe the end times are very far in the future now. Technically, we've been in the last days ever since the Lord Jesus Christ ascended to the Father in heaven, but the last last days will soon come to pass, in my opinion. No prophecy of the Bible remains to be fulfilled in regard to the rapture of the church, when Jesus will call His bride out of the world. That could occur at any moment. And when it does, the last last days will be upon the earth. Those of us who have placed our trust in the Lord Jesus Christ are to be looking for Him, not anxiously casting about us for signs that the Great Tribulation is about to begin, and those who have not yet turned to Jesus for salvation still have time to do so and need to do so. It won't be impossible to be saved during the Great Tribulation, as we'll see when we arrive at the book of Revelation, but that is a time period no one has to endure or should want to endure. It will be far better to already belong to Christ prior to that time than to be on the earth during the darkest days the world has ever experienced.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 56, A Prophecy Against Babylon, Part Five

Today we will be concluding our look at the prophecy contained in Chapter 13. It is a twofold prophecy regarding the actual nation of Babylon in ancient times and regarding the corrupt world system of the end times. As we study the remaining verses we will find the narrative shifting away from end times prophecy to focus again on the literal Babylon of the Bible.

The Lord foretells the fall of the Neo-Babylonian Empire. At the time He speaks the words of this prophecy, Assyria is the major world power striking fear in the hearts of the people of Israel and Judah. Assyria will conquer Israel but the Lord will miraculously prevent Jerusalem from falling to the Assyrian army, thus preserving the nation of Judah for approximately 130 years longer than the northern kingdom of Israel. Babylon, which is not powerful enough in Isaiah's day to conquer Assyria, will cause the fall of Assyria and the fall of Judah. But the Lord will judge Babylon for its people's sins as well, and He names a nation in today's study that must have seemed inconsequential to the people of Isaiah's time. 

Of the fall of Babylon the Lord says: "Like a hunted gazelle, like sheep without a shepherd, they will all return to their own people, they will flee to their native land. Whoever is captured will be thrust through; all who are caught will fall by the sword. Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives violated." (Isaiah 13:14-16) 

These verses are graphically violent but they are accurate in describing the habits of invading armies---both in ancient times and in modern times. The things described here still happen in some places of our world today when enemy soldiers flood into a territory that they want to take for themselves. And we must keep in mind that the Babylonians perpetrated such atrocities themselves when they invaded other nations. In addition, they often used siege as a method to cause city leaders to surrender to them, and siege always resulted in numerous deaths by starvation and especially deaths of the very young and very old. The Babylonians will be given a taste of their own medicine, so to speak, when an invading army treats them the way they treated the peoples they previously invaded.

Babylon didn't fall in a single day like Sodom and Gomorrah, although the Bible predicted that Babylon would be as utterly destroyed as those sinful cities. Babylon's decline happened in stages but the Lord's words still came true: Babylon ceased to exist and nothing but ruins are left of it. He did not say that He would rain down fire and brimstone to destroy it in a single day; He simply said that it would cease to exist and never be rebuilt. 

Now He names the very nation (the Medo-Persian Empire) that will attack and take over Babylon. This is but the beginning of Babylon's decline and eventually it will end up deserted as it is today. "See, I will stir against them the Medes, who do not care for silver and have no delight in gold. Their bows will strike down the young men; they will have no mercy on infants, nor will they look with compassion on children. Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the pride and glory of the Babylonians, will be overthrown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; there no nomads will pitch their tents, there no shepherds will rest their flocks. But desert creatures will lie there, jackals will fill their houses; there the owls will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about. Hyenas will inhabit her strongholds, jackals her luxurious palaces. Her time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged." (Isaiah 13:17-22)

Where is the ancient nation of Babylon today? It is no more, just as the Lord predicted. All these things came true exactly as He said they would. In the book of Isaiah we've found Him predicting the fall of Israel to Assyria; this happened. We found Him predicting the fall of Judah to Babylon; this happened. We found Him predicting the fall of Babylon to the Medo-Persian Empire; this happened. Everything else He's ever predicted, which is yet to come, will happen. His words are completely dependable in every way.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 55, A Prophecy Against Babylon, Part Four

Today we are continuing our look at Chapter 13 which involves a prophecy against the literal nation of Babylon of ancient times and a prophecy against the sinful world system, symbolized as "Babylon", of the end times.

The Lord says: "I will punish the world for its evil, the wicked for their sins. I will put an end to the arrogance of the haughty and will humble the pride of the ruthless. I will make people scarcer than pure gold, more rare than the gold of Ophir." (Isaiah 13:11-12) Babylon was the nation that conquered Judah and the Babylonians treated the people of Judah more harshly than necessary. The Lord will punish them for any and all atrocities committed against His people. In this same way, He will punish those who take part in the spiritually corrupt world system of the end times because, as we discussed yesterday, those people will be more wicked and heartless than anyone who has ever lived before them. 

The Lord will shake the entire creation so that only that which is good will remain and so that what is His very best will come. "Therefore I will make the heavens tremble; and the earth will shake from its place at the wrath of the Lord Almighty, in the day of His burning anger." (Isaiah 13:13) The Lord spoke similar words to the prophet Haggai: "This is what the Lord Almighty says: 'In a little while I will once more shake the heavens and the earth, the sea and the dry land. I will shake all nations, and what is desired by all nations will come, and I will fill this house with glory,' says the Lord Almighty." (Haggai 2:6-7) 

The Lord will shake loose the hold that wicked people have upon this earth and He will shake loose the hold that sin and Satan have upon this earth. He will end the access that the fallen angels currently still have to His throne room in heaven, which is something we will talk about when we arrive at Revelation. When He shakes the earth and the heavens He will send "what is desired by nations"---the Lord Jesus Christ, the Messiah---to reign over the world in righteousness forever. 

The Lord of lords and King of kings is what is "desired by nations"---desired by every human heart--- because God created man to desire a relationship with Him. Even those who reject Him desire a relationship with Him, though they do not know it, and their rejection of Him causes them to try to fill the emptiness in their souls with other things. This is why so many who reject the Lord fall into various addictions and end up doing harm to themselves and to those around them. They are denying who they were created to be and they are denying the One who created them.

The author of Hebrews spoke of our passage from Isaiah 13 and stated that the Lord would shake loose all the bad and preserve all the good: "Now He has promised, 'Once more I will shake not only the earth but the heavens.' The words 'once more' indicate the removing of what can be shaken---that is, created things---so that what cannot be shaken may remain." (Hebrews 26b-27) The reference to having shaken things up before is a reference to the way His voice shook the earth at Mount Sinai when He gave the law to the people. In the end times He will shake the earth and the heavens; doing away with everything that is temporary and establishing only what is eternal. 

Once He has done that, this prophecy about the Messiah's eternal kingdom on earth will come true: "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." (Revelation 21:27) There will be no sin and no sinners on earth. Satan and the angels who followed him in his rebellion will be in their eternal place of punishment. No temptations will befall the children of God. There will be no sickness, no death, no heartbreak. Isn't this what the human heart desires most of all, to forever be with and behold the face of our God and to live in a state of peace and joy forever? Isn't this the culmination of all things the Lord planned since before He created the universe? Isn't this the glorious destiny He wanted for mankind? We can have it! We can have it forever by placing all our hope and trust in the Lamb of God.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 54, A Prophecy Against Babylon, Part Three

The Lord has been predicting judgment for Babylon: for the literal Babylon of ancient times and for the spiritual/political/economic "Babylon" of the end times. We will get far deeper into the use of the word "Babylon" for the conditions of the world in the end times when we arrive at the book of Revelation, but the use of this word symbolizes rebellion against God and it symbolizes false religions, greed and materialism, and a general lack of concern for one's fellow man.

The Apostle Paul spoke of the end times "Babylon" like this: "There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God---having a form of godliness but denying its power." (2 Timothy 3:1-5a)

There have been people in every era of time who have had the attitudes listed above by the Apostle Paul, but these attitudes will abound more and more in the last days. We can already see this happening. I'm fifty-four years old and I have never before seen such a lack of regard for others as I'm seeing in today's world. This will only grow worse as time goes on. We need not be amazed or alarmed by it because the Lord has foretold it and, as children of God, a different fate is in store for us than that which is in store for the wicked.

Because wickedness will abound as never before, the Lord's wrath will be poured out in the last days. Isaiah foretells: "See, the day of the Lord is coming---a cruel day, with wrath and fierce anger---to make the land desolate and destroy the sinners within it." (Isaiah 13:9) The "day of the Lord" is a day only the wicked ("sinners"---those who have rejected the Lord and His precepts) need to fear.

Next Isaiah predicts the dreadful signs and wonders that will appear in the heavens and on the earth in those days. "The stars of heaven and their constellations will not show their light. The rising sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light." (Isaiah 13:10) I believe verse 10 is to be taken literally. I believe literal darkness will fall upon the earth because the people preferred darkness to light and the Lord is going to give them darkness. Just as the Lord caused a deep darkness to fall over Egypt in the days preceding the exodus, in the end times He's going to cause a deep darkness, only on a much larger scale.

In my opinion, He will bring this about by allowing a large asteroid to strike the earth which will, in turn, cause the skies to be darkened by debris for quite some time. The Apostle John describes a large object striking the earth in the book of Revelation and an enormous asteroid, such as may have occurred in the distant past that wiped out the dinosaurs, would cause huge dust clouds to be thrown up into the atmosphere. It would cause violent earthquakes and eruptions of volcanoes. In ancient history when large volcanoes have erupted there was so much ash in the atmosphere that the skies appeared darkened for quite some time afterward and at night the ash caused the moon to look as red as blood. I believe that's what's being described here in the book of Isaiah and in the book of Revelation and in other passages of Scripture. 

We can count on the words of Isaiah's prophecy to come true. The Lord Jesus quoted from the book of Isaiah, saying, "Immediately after the distress of those days, 'The sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken.'" (Matthew 24:29) The Apostle John was given a vision of the end times that included the very things the prophet Isaiah and the Lord Jesus Christ predicted: "I watched as He opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. The sun turned black like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken in a strong wind. The heavens receded like a scroll being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place." (Revelation 6:12-14) 

There are very strong and compelling reasons for believing that those who have placed their faith in the Lord Jesus will have been removed from the earth before these things take place, and we will discuss those reasons when we arrive at the book of Revelation, so we need to keep in mind that this is a prophecy of judgment against the wicked. Just as Isaiah's prophecy was about ancient Babylon in all of its wickedness, his prophecy and the words of other prophets and of the Lord Jesus are also about the wickedness of the "Babylon" of the end times. The Lord would not refer to His children as "Babylon" or pronounce judgment against them; therefore, we must conclude that these woes will fall only upon those who have rejected Him---and in rejecting Him, have rejected His mercy.

The Book Of Isaiah. Day 53, A Prophecy Against Babylon, Part Two

When Isaiah makes his prophecy against the kingdom of Babylon, that kingdom is not yet a powerful enough player on the world screen to subdue other great nations, such as Assyria and Judah. But in time the Lord will use Babylon to chastise the nation of Judah for its people's idolatry and wickedness. The Lord will also, in time, subdue Babylon with the Medo-Persian Empire. These events are still far in the future in the day Isaiah predicts them but when these things have come to pass the people will remember what Isaiah said. They will know that his words must have been the words of the Lord Himself, for the words have come true exactly as predicted.

This prophecy is twofold. It predicts judgment against the literal kingdom of Babylon and it predicts judgment against figurative Babylon: a corrupt world system. In the Bible, after the rise and fall of Babylon, we will sometimes find the word "Babylon" used to symbolize man's organized rebellion against God. It was in the region of Babylon that the first organized rebellion against God took place at the tower of Babel. The political and spiritual condition of the world in the end times will be referred to as Babylon in the book of Revelation because in the book of Revelation we find man's final organized rebellion against God taking place. 

In our text today we see references to "the day of the Lord". That expression is generally used in the Scriptures to indicate the final judgment at the end of days and this appears to be the way the expression is being used here in Chapter 13.

"Wait, for the day of the Lord is near; it will come like destruction from the Almighty. Because of this, all hands will go limp, every heart will melt with fear. Terror will seize them, pain and anguish will grip them; they will writhe like a woman in labor. They will look aghast at each other, their faces aflame." (Isaiah 13:6-8) I am sure the reactions described above were actually experienced by the Babylonians when the Babylonian Empire fell to the enemy the Lord raised up against them. They shook with fear and their faces were red with shame (the Lord phrases it as "their faces aflame") because they had not believed their nation could be conquered. When we arrive at the book of Daniel we will learn that the king of Babylon and his entire court and many guests were holding a drunken feast of debauchery while their city's very walls were being broken into by the enemy. They trusted in their gods to protect them from the Medo-Persian Empire and, to their shame, their gods did not come through for them. They couldn't come through for them because they were nonexistent gods.

The reactions described above will occur in the end times as well. We will be looking at some further prophecies from other books of the Bible regarding that time as we continue on through our study of Chapter 13. The Lord Jesus Himself quoted from Chapter 13 when describing the terrible times at the end of days. But something we have to keep in mind is that the time of judgment is for the wicked, not for the children of God. We do not have to shake with fear. A very different future is in store for those of us who have placed our trust in the Lord.

In our next study session we will take a look at how Jesus used text from Isaiah 13 to warn the wicked about what is in store for them in the judgment.