Isaiah 47: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The LORD speaks to Babylon, pictured as a proud queen, and tells her to come down from her throne, sit in the dust, and do the work of a slave. He says he was angry with his own people and handed them over to her, but she showed them no mercy and told herself she would rule forever and never lose husband or children. Both losses will come in a single day, and the sorceries, spells, and astrologers she has relied on since her youth will burn like straw and save no one.

Claim by Claim

1. 47:1
   • Babylon's virgin daughter is commanded to come down and sit in the dust.
   • The daughter of the Chaldeans is commanded to sit on the ground.
   • There is no throne for her.
   • She will no longer be called tender and delicate.
2. 47:2
   • She is commanded to take millstones and grind meal.
   • She is commanded to uncover her veil.
   • She is commanded to strip off her skirt.
   • She is commanded to bare her thigh.
   • She is commanded to cross over rivers.
3. 47:3
   • Her nakedness will be uncovered.
   • Her shame will be seen.
   • The speaker will take vengeance.
   • The speaker says he will not meet any man, which may mean he will spare no one or that he will let no one intervene.
4. 47:4
   • Our redeemer's name is the LORD of hosts.
   • Our redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.
5. 47:5
   • The daughter of the Chaldeans is commanded to sit silent.
   • She is commanded to go into darkness.
   • She will no longer be called the lady of kingdoms.
6. 47:6
   • The speaker was angry with his people.
   • The speaker profaned his inheritance.
   • The speaker gave his people into her hand.
   • She showed them no mercy.
   • She laid her yoke very heavily upon the aged.
7. 47:7
   • She said she would be a lady forever.
   • She did not lay these things to her heart.
   • She did not remember the outcome of it.
8. 47:8
   • She is commanded to hear this now.
   • She is given to pleasures.
   • She dwells securely.
   • She says in her heart that she is, and there is none besides her.
   • She says she will not sit as a widow.
   • She says she will not know the loss of children.
9. 47:9
   • Two things will come to her in a moment, in one day: loss of children and widowhood.
   • They will come upon her in full measure.
   • They come because of the multitude of her sorceries.
   • They come because of the great abundance of her enchantments.
10. 47:10
    • She trusted in her wickedness.
    • She said no one sees her.
    • Her wisdom and her knowledge turned her aside.
    • She said in her heart that she is, and there is none besides her.
11. 47:11
    • Evil will come upon her.
    • She will not know from where it rises.
    • Mischief will fall upon her.
    • She will not be able to put it off.
    • Desolation will come upon her suddenly.
    • She will not know it.
12. 47:12
    • She is commanded to stand with her enchantments and with the multitude of her sorceries.
    • She has labored at them from her youth.
    • Perhaps she will be able to profit.
    • Perhaps she will inspire terror.
13. 47:13
    • She is wearied by the multitude of her counsels.
    • Those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who make known at the new moons what will come upon her, are called to stand up and save her.
14. 47:14
    • They will be like stubble.
    • The fire will burn them.
    • They will not deliver themselves from the power of the flame.
    • There will be no coal to warm at.
    • There will be no fire to sit before.
15. 47:15
    • So they will be to her, those with whom she has labored.
    • They are her merchants from her youth.
    • Each one will wander off in his own direction.
    • There will be none to save her.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

47:1

Babylon is addressed throughout the chapter as a woman, the city and its empire spoken of as a queen about to be stripped and enslaved. "Virgin" here does not describe her morals; a city was called a virgin when no enemy army had ever broken into it. "Daughter of the Chaldeans" means the same city again: the Chaldeans were the people whose dynasty ruled the Babylonian empire, which had captured Jerusalem and carried its population into exile. Sitting down in the dust was what mourners and the defeated did; a queen sat on a throne, a captive sat on the ground.

47:2

Grinding grain at a hand mill was the daily labor of the lowest household slaves, so the picture is of a queen put to a slave's work. The rest of the verse is a captive being marched away: a respectable woman went out veiled and covered to the ankles, and pulling up the skirt to wade a river was a public humiliation. "Uncover thy locks" in the King James means uncover the hair by removing the veil.

47:3

"I will not meet thee as a man" is obscure in the King James because the Hebrew is disputed. The words can mean "I will spare no one," "I will meet no one who can resist," or "I will accept no plea from anyone." Older readings also took it as "I will not treat you as a human being would."

47:4

"Redeemer" translates a Hebrew legal word, go'el: the nearest male relative who had the duty of buying a family member out of slavery, buying back land the family had lost, or avenging a killing. The point of the word is family obligation, not sentiment. "LORD of hosts" means commander of armies. Printed in small capitals, LORD stands for the personal name of Israel's God, which Jewish readers did not pronounce aloud.

47:5

"The lady of kingdoms" means the mistress or ruling queen over other kingdoms, the empire that all the other nations answered to.

47:6

"I have polluted mine inheritance" means treated as ordinary and unprotected what had been set apart as his own. "Inheritance" is the standard term for Israel as the portion belonging to God, the way a piece of family land belonged to a household. A yoke was the wooden bar strapped across the necks of oxen so they could be driven; it was the ordinary image for being ruled, taxed and put to forced labor by a conqueror.

47:8

"I am, and there is no one but me" is the kind of claim made elsewhere in Isaiah by God alone; here Babylon says it about herself. In the picture of the city as a woman, widowhood means losing her king and childlessness means losing her population.

47:9

Babylon was famous across the ancient world for professional divination, reading omens, exorcism, protective spells. These were not fringe practices but a state-supported profession with its own written manuals.

47:11

The Hebrew behind "put it off" is the word normally used for warding something off by ritual, buying it off, or charming it away with a spell. The line is that Babylon's usual method of dealing with an approaching disaster will not work on this one.

47:12

The last words are ambiguous in Hebrew: they can mean "perhaps you will succeed" or "perhaps you will frighten it off." The tone is a challenge, not advice.

47:13

These are three named branches of Babylonian sky-watching. The King James "monthly prognosticators" means specialists who issued a forecast at each new moon of what the coming month held. "Astrologers" translates a phrase about dividing up the heavens into sections for reading omens.

47:14

Stubble is the short dry stalks left standing in a field after the harvest, burned off before replanting. It flares and is gone at once. The closing line turns the image around: this is not the useful fire of a hearth you can warm yourself at.

47:15

"Thy merchants" are the foreign traders and dealers who did business in Babylon; "his quarter" in the King James means his own direction, that is, each heads back to his own country and none of them stays to help.