Isaiah 13

This is the message of doom against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw.

1The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.

Note"Burden" translates a Hebrew word (massa) used as a technical label for a prophetic pronouncement, usually one announcing disaster; it heads several chapters here. "Saw" is not loose language: prophets were said to see their messages, so a spoken oracle could be described as a vision. Babylon was a great city on the Euphrates in southern Mesopotamia, in what is now Iraq. In Isaiah's own time it was a subject city under Assyrian control; it became the dominant imperial power over a century later, and fell to Cyrus in 539 BC.

2Raise a flag on a bare hilltop. Shout to them. Wave your hand, so they can march into the gates where the important people live.

2Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles.

NoteThe banner is a military signal flag, raised on a bare, treeless height so troops assembling from a distance can see it; the shout and the hand signal are the other two ways of mustering an army in open country. "The gates where the important people live" renders a phrase whose sense is disputed: it may mean the gates of the nobles' city (Babylon), or simply the gates of the great ones, i.e. the entrances of a proud capital.

3I have given orders to the ones I set apart for this. I have called up my warriors to carry out my anger, and they celebrate my greatness.

3I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness.

Note"Set apart" (older translations: "sanctified") is ritual language. In the ancient world war was a religious undertaking, and soldiers were formally consecrated before a campaign, as at a festival. Here the consecrated troops are foreigners, unaware of who has enlisted them.

4Listen: a roar in the mountains, like a huge crowd. Listen: an uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together. The LORD who commands armies is gathering an army for war.

4The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.

NoteWhere LORD appears in capitals it stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written Yahweh, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud. "LORD of hosts", here "the LORD who commands armies", is a stock title; "hosts" means armed forces, and the phrase pictures God as a commander mustering troops.

5They come from a distant country, from the far edge of the sky. The LORD comes, and with him the weapons of his anger, to destroy the whole land.

5They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.

Note"The far edge of the sky" is the horizon: the invaders come from the limit of the known world. The word translated "land" also means "earth" in Hebrew, and the chapter moves back and forth between the destruction of one country and a judgment on the whole world without ever settling the ambiguity.

6Cry out loud, because the day of the LORD is near. It will come as destruction from the Almighty.

6Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty.

Note"The day of the LORD" was already a familiar phrase to Isaiah's hearers, a fixed expression for a decisive day when God acts in judgment, which people apparently expected to bring victory over their enemies; the prophets repeatedly turn it against their own audience. "Almighty" translates Shaddai, an old title of God whose original meaning is uncertain; the Hebrew here makes a pun, since the word for "destruction" (shod) sounds like Shaddai.

7So every hand will go limp, and every man's courage will melt away.

7Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man’s heart shall melt:

8They will be terrified. Sharp pain and grief will grip them. They will twist in pain like a woman giving birth. They will stare at one another, their faces burning red.

8And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames.

NoteThe Hebrew says literally that their faces are "faces of flame", flushed dark red with terror, not lit up.

9Look, the day of the LORD is coming, cruel, full of fury and burning anger. It will leave the land empty and wipe out the sinners in it.

9Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it.

10The stars in the sky and their groupings will not shine. The sun will go dark as it rises, and the moon will give no light.

10For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.

NoteThe Hebrew word for "groupings" is the plural of Kesil, the name of a particular constellation, probably Orion; it came to mean the bright star-groups in general. The point is a sky that goes dark at the moment it should be brightest.

11I will punish the world for its evil and the wicked for the wrong they do. I will put an end to the bragging of the proud and bring down the arrogance of cruel men.

11And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible.

12I will make people harder to find than pure gold, human beings rarer than the gold of Ophir.

12I will make a man more precious than fine gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir.

NoteOphir was a distant place famous for exporting gold of exceptional quality; its location was already unclear in antiquity, and has been guessed at in southern Arabia, East Africa, and India. "Gold of Ophir" worked as a byword for the finest gold obtainable, the way one might say Swiss watch.

13So I will make the heavens shake, and the earth will be jolted out of its place, because of the fury of the LORD who commands armies, on the day of his burning anger.

13Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.

14Like a gazelle being hunted, like sheep with no one to gather them, each person will turn back to his own people, each will run home to his own country.

14And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land.

NoteThe people running home are the foreigners resident in Babylon (traders, mercenaries, subject peoples brought there) who scatter to their own countries when the city falls. A hunted gazelle and a scattered flock were standard images for a crowd breaking apart in panic.

15Anyone who is found will be run through. Anyone who is rounded up with them will die by the sword.

15Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword.

16Their little children will be smashed to pieces while they watch. Their houses will be looted and their wives raped.

16Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished.

17Look, I am stirring up the Medes against them. They do not care about silver, and gold gives them no pleasure.

17Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it.

NoteThe Medes were an Iranian people from the highlands east and north of Mesopotamia; they joined the Babylonians in destroying Assyria, and were later absorbed into the Persian empire that took Babylon in 539 BC. Saying they have no interest in silver or gold does not mean they are honest: it means they cannot be bought off with tribute, and will not stop killing to collect plunder.

18Their bows will cut down the young men. They will show no mercy to babies and no pity to children.

18Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children.

19And Babylon, the finest of kingdoms, the splendid pride of the Chaldeans, will be overthrown by God the way Sodom and Gomorrah were.

19And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

NoteThe Chaldeans were a people of southern Mesopotamia whose dynasty ruled the Babylonian empire, so "Chaldean" and "Babylonian" are often used interchangeably. Sodom and Gomorrah were the cities destroyed by fire in Genesis 19; by Isaiah's day they functioned as a byword for annihilation so complete that the site is never resettled, which is the specific point being made here.

20No one will ever live there again, from one generation to the next. No wandering herdsman will pitch his tent there, and no shepherd will bed his flock there.

20It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.

NoteThe King James "Arabian" means a tent-dwelling nomad of the desert margins, not a nationality in the modern sense. The image is of a place so ruined that even people who camp anywhere will not stop there overnight, and even a shepherd looking for a night's shelter passes it by.

21Instead, desert animals will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will live there, and wild goats will leap about.

21But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there.

NoteThe Hebrew names for these creatures are uncertain, and translations differ widely. The King James "satyrs" renders a word meaning "hairy ones," used elsewhere both for wild goats and for goat-shaped spirits thought to haunt ruins; "owls" renders a term that may instead mean ostriches. The overall picture is clear even where the zoology is not: the site is given over to whatever howls and haunts a wasteland.

22Hyenas will howl in her strongholds, and jackals in her fine palaces. Her time is almost here, and her days will not be stretched out any longer.

22And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.

Note"Hyenas" and "jackals" again render disputed animal names, the King James guessed "wild beasts of the islands" and "dragons." The closing line uses an idiom of appointed time: the date set for the city has nearly arrived, and it will not be postponed.