Isaiah 13:15-18

[kelgeal]

I’m having a hard time with understanding this verse. Can someone try to explain it?

5 Anyone who is found will be thrust through, And anyone who is captured will fall by the sword. 16 Their little ones also will be dashed to pieces Before their eyes ; Their houses will be plundered And their wives ravished.
Babylon Will Fall to the Medes
17 Behold, I am going to stir up the Medes against them, Who will not value silver or take pleasure in gold. 18 And their bows will mow down the young men, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.

 

[Hokomai]

Either this does not represent the will of God, or God is evil. That’s how I would explain it. I’d choose the former, because I do not think there is a god.

 

[po18guy]

Read it within the context of the entire prophecy. Babylon had run afoul of God and was therefore to pay the price for her sin. Compare and contrast this to the destiny of Nineveh, which repented, in the book of Jonah. Isaiah lived in the eighth century BC and Babylon was known to have been desolate by the mid-second century BC. Babylon is also spoken of by Isaiah later in his prophesies (Isaiah 21), as well as in Jeremiah 51, as well as Revelation 14 and 18. Yet, in the main, prophecy teaches principle, not precision.

Do I sniff the scent of something…?

 

[InspiritCarol]

I’m having a hard time with understanding this verse. Can someone try to explain it?

It’s an oracle.

From (bibletrack.org/cgi-bin/bible.pl?incr=0&mo=9&dy=20) where there’s lots of good stuff on Babylon.

Isaiah is issuing this oracle against the city, not the entire kingdom of Babylon. Notice the comparison between Babylon and another city, Sodom and Gomorrah in verse 19. This took place in 689 B.C. when Sennacherib, the king of Assyria wiped out the city of Babylon. Today Babylon is covered up by sand in Iraq. There was a period after Sennacherib’s destruction that Babylon was rebuilt and became a showplace city. In 539 B.C., after having become a world empire, Babylon (the empire) fell again to the Medes and Persians. However, at that time there was no destruction of the city itself as referenced here in chapter 13. The reference in verse 17 to the Medes tends to present a basis for conflicting opinions concerning which historical event fulfills this prophecy. To properly state the historical/prophetical dilemma here: Babylon (the city) was ransacked and conquered in 689 B.C. by Sennacherib, the Assyrian; Babylon (the empire) fell to the Medes and Persians in 539 B.C. leaving the city itself without destruction. Some have suggested that Isaiah was seeing a combination of both events. One thing is for certain: Isaiah’s prophecy regarding the fall of Babylon was fulfilled and the city of Babylon remains in ruins until this day as a result of centuries of turmoil.

And (from enduringword.com/commentaries/2313.htm)

c. I will punish the world for its evil: This prophetic identification of Babylon with the world, ripe for ultimate judgment, is consistent through the Scriptures. We aren’t surprised that Isaiah has prophetically combined the vision of Babylon’s judgment with the judgment of the whole world for its evil.

i. Babylon is mentioned 287 times in the Scriptures, more than any other city except Jerusalem. Babylon was a literal city on the Euphrates river; right after the flood (Genesis 11:1-10), Babylon “Was the seat of the civilization that expressed organized hostility to God.” (Tenney, Interpreting Revelation). Babylon was later the capitol of the empire that cruelly conquered Judah. “Babylon, to them (the Jews), was the essence of all evil, the embodiment of cruelty, the foe of God’s people, and the lasting type of sin, carnality, lust and greed.” (Tenney) To those familiar with the Old Testament, the name Babylon is associated with organized idolatry, blasphemy and the persecution of God’s people. In the New Testament, the worlds system of the last days is characterized both religiously and commercially as Babylon (Revelation 17 and 18). Therefore, Babylon is a “Suitable representation . . . of the idolatrous, pagan world-system in opposition to God.” (Martin)

Babylon is evil. God allows evil to destroy evil. Don’t think for a second that God did not do everything in His power to turn this city from its evil path. He lets us have free will and so, just as Pharoh was allowed to name his own doom, so went the Babylonians.