14 Truly, they have become like dry stems, they have been burned in the fire; they are not able to keep themselves safe from the power of the flame: it is not a coal for warming them, or a fire by which a man may be seated.
For see, the day is coming, it is burning like an oven; all the men of pride and all who do evil will be dry stems of grass: and in the day which is coming they will be burned up, says the Lord of armies, till they have not a root or a branch.
For though they are like twisted thorns, and are overcome as with drink, they will come to destruction like stems of grass fully dry.
Who sent out from the east one who is right wherever he goes? he gives the nations into his hands, and makes him ruler over kings; he gives them as the dust to his sword, as dry stems before the wind to his bow.
And the light of Israel will be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: wasting and burning up his thorns in one day.
And a strong angel took up a stone like the great stone with which grain is crushed, and sent it into the sea, saying, So, with a great fall, will Babylon, the great town, come to destruction, and will not be seen any more at all.
For what profit has a man, if he gets all the world with the loss of his life? or what will a man give in exchange for his life?
O my God, make them like the rolling dust; like dry stems before the wind. As fire burning a wood, and as a flame causing fire on the mountains, So go after them with your strong wind, and let them be full of fear because of your storm.
And my face will be turned against them; and though they have come out of the fire they will be burned up by it; and it will be clear to you that I am the Lord when my face is turned against them.
And the ways across the river have been taken, and the water-holes ... burned with fire, and the men of war are in the grip of fear.
Babylon's men of war have kept back from the fight, waiting in their strong places; their strength has given way, they have become like women: her houses have been put on fire, her locks are broken.
See, I am against you, says the Lord, O mountain of destruction, causing the destruction of all the earth: and my hand will be stretched out on you, rolling you down from the rocks, and making you a burned mountain. And they will not take from you a stone for the angle of a wall or the base of a building; but you will be a waste place for ever, says the Lord.
They have only now been planted, and their seed put into the earth, and they have only now taken root, when he sends out his breath over them and they become dry, and the storm-wind takes them away like dry grass.
And he will let it be broken as a potter's vessel is broken: it will be smashed to bits without mercy; so that there will not be a bit in which one may take fire from the fireplace, or water from the spring.
For this cause, as the waste of the grain is burned up by tongues of fire, and as the dry grass goes down before the flame, so their root will be like the dry stems of grain, and their flower will go up in dust: because they have gone against the law of the Lord of armies, and have given no honour to the word of the Holy One of Israel.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Isaiah 47
Commentary on Isaiah 47 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 47
Isa 47:1-15. The Destruction of Babylon Is Represented under the Image of a Royal Virgin Brought Down in a Moment from Her Magnificent Throne to the Extreme of Degradation.
1. in the dust—(See on Isa 3:26; Job 2:13; La 2:10).
virgin—that is, heretofore uncaptured [Herodotus, 1.191].
daughter of Babylon—Babylon and its inhabitants (see on Isa 1:8; Isa 37:22).
no throne—The seat of empire was transferred to Shushan. Alexander intended to have made Babylon his seat of empire, but Providence defeated his design. He soon died; and Seleucia, being built near, robbed it of its inhabitants, and even of its name, which was applied to Seleucia.
delicate—alluding to the effeminate debauchery and prostitution of all classes at banquets and religious rites [Curtius, 5.1; Herodotus, 1.199; Baruch, 6.43].
2. millstones—like the querns or hand-mills, found in this country, before the invention of water mills and windmills: a convex stone, made by the hand to turn in a concave stone, fitted to receive it, the corn being ground between them: the office of a female slave in the East; most degrading (Job 31:10; Mt 24:41).
uncover thy locks—rather, "take off thy veil" [Horsley]: perhaps the removal of the plaited hair worn round the women's temples is included; it, too, is a covering (1Co 11:15); to remove it and the veil is the badge of the lowest female degradation; in the East the head is the seat of female modesty; the face of a woman is seldom, the whole head almost never, seen bare (see on Isa 22:8).
make bare the leg—rather "lift up (literally, 'uncover'; as in lifting up the train the leg is uncovered) thy flowing train." In Mesopotamia, women of low rank, as occasion requires, wade across the rivers with stript legs, or else entirely put off their garments and swim across. "Exchange thy rich, loose, queenly robe, for the most abject condition, that of one going to and fro through rivers as a slave, to draw water," &c.
uncover … thigh—gather up the robe, so as to wade across.
3. not meet … as a man—rather, "I will not meet a man," that is, suffer man to intercede with me—give man an audience [Horsley]. Or, "I will not make peace with any man," before all are destroyed. Literally, "strike a league with"; a phrase arising from the custom of striking hands together in making a compact [Maurer], (see on Pr 17:18; Pr 22:26; 11:15, Margin). Or else from striking the victims sacrificed in making treaties.
4. As for—rather supply, "Thus saith our Redeemer" [Maurer]. Lowth supposes this verse to be the exclamation of a chorus breaking in with praises, "Our Redeemer! Jehovah of hosts," &c. (Jer 50:34).
5. Sit—the posture of mourning (Ezr 9:4; Job 2:13; La 2:10).
darkness—mourning and misery (La 3:2; Mic 7:8).
lady of kingdoms—mistress of the world (Isa 13:19).
6. reason for God's vengeance on Babylon: in executing God's will against His people, she had done so with wanton cruelty (Isa 10:5, &c.; Jer 50:17; 51:33; Zec 1:15).
polluted my inheritance—(Isa 43:28).
the ancient—Even old age was disregarded by the Chaldeans, who treated all alike with cruelty (La 4:16; 5:12) [Rosenmuller]. Or, "the ancient" means Israel, worn out with calamities in the latter period of its history (Isa 46:4), as its earlier stage of history is called its "youth" (Isa 54:6; Eze 16:60).
7. so that—Through thy vain expectation of being a queen for ever, thou didst advance to such a pitch of insolence as not to believe "these things" (namely, as to thy overthrow, Isa 47:1-5) possible.
end of it—namely, of thy insolence, implied in her words, "I shall be a lady for ever."
8. given to pleasures—(See on Isa 47:1). In no city were there so many incentives to licentiousness.
I am … none … beside me—(Isa 47:10). Language of arrogance in man's mouth; fitting for God alone (Isa 45:6). See Isa 5:8, latter part.
widow … loss of children—A state, represented as a female, when it has fallen is called a widow, because its king is no more; and childless, because it has no inhabitants; they having been carried off as captives (Isa 23:4; 54:1, 4, 5; Re 18:7, 8).
9. in a moment—It should not decay slowly, but be suddenly and unexpectedly destroyed; in a single night it was taken by Cyrus. The prophecy was again literally fulfilled when Babylon revolted against Darius; and, in order to hold out to the last, each man chose one woman of his family, and strangled the rest, to save provisions. Darius impaled three thousand of the revolters.
in … perfection—that is, "in full measure."
for … for—rather, "notwithstanding the … notwithstanding"; "in spite of" [Lowth]. So "for" (Nu 14:11). Babylon was famous for "expiations or sacrifices, and other incantations, whereby they tried to avert evil and obtain good" [Diodorus Siculus].
10. wickedness—as in Isa 13:11, the cruelty with which Babylon treated its subject states.
None seeth me—(Ps 10:11; 94:7). "There is none to exact punishment from me." Sinners are not safe, though seeming secret.
Thy wisdom—astrological and political (Isa 19:11, &c., as to Egypt).
perverted—turns thee aside from the right and safe path.
11. from whence it riseth—Hebrew, "the dawn thereof," that is, its first rising. Evil shall come on thee without the least previous intimation [Rosenmuller]. But dawn is not applied to "evil," but to prosperity shining out after misery (Isa 21:12). Translate, "Thou shall not see any dawn" (of alleviation) [Maurer].
put … off—rather, as Margin, "remove by expiation"; it shall be never ending.
not know—unawares: which thou dost not apprehend. Proving the fallacy of thy divinations and astrology (Job 9:5; Ps 35:8).
12. Stand—forth: a scornful challenge to Babylon's magicians to show whether they can defend their city.
laboured—The devil's service is a laborious yet fruitless one (Isa 55:2).
13. wearied—(compare Isa 57:10; Eze 24:12).
astrologers—literally, those who form combinations of the heavens; who watch conjunctions and oppositions of the stars. "Casters of the configurations of the sky" [Horsley]. Gesenius explains it: the dividers of the heavens. In casting a nativity they observed four signs:—the horoscope, or sign which arose at the time one was born; the mid-heaven; the sign opposite the horoscope towards the west; and the hypogee.
monthly prognosticators—those who at each new moon profess to tell thereby what is about to happen. Join, not as English Version, "save … from those things," &c.; but, "They that at new moons make known from (by means of) them the things that shall come upon thee" [Maurer].
14. (Isa 29:6; 30:30).
not … a coal—Like stubble, they shall burn to a dead ash, without leaving a live coal or cinder (compare Isa 30:14), so utterly shall they be destroyed.
15. Thus, &c.—Such shall be the fate of those astrologers who cost thee such an amount of trouble and money.
thy merchants, from thy youth—that is, with whom thou hast trafficked from thy earliest history, the foreigners sojourning in Babylon for the sake of commerce (Isa 13:14; Jer 51:6, 9; Na 3:16, 17) [Barnes]. Rather, the astrologers, with whom Babylon had so many dealings (Isa 47:12-14) [Horsley].
to his quarter—literally, "straight before him" (Eze 1:9, 12). The foreigners, whether soothsayers or merchants, shall flee home out of Babylon (Jer 50:16).