Scripture Daily

Context No. 2093 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 47:1-15: in context

1“Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you will no longer be called tender and delicate. 2Take the millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, uncover your legs, and wade through the rivers. 3Your nakedness will be uncovered. Yes, your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and will spare no one.” 4Our Redeemer, the LORD of Armies is his name, is the Holy One of Israel. 5“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. For you shall no longer be called the mistress of kingdoms. 6I was angry with my people. I profaned my inheritance and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy. You laid a very heavy yoke on the aged. 7You said, ‘I will be a princess forever,’ so that you didn’t lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the results. 8“Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me. I won’t sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children.’ 9But these two things will come to you in a moment in one day: the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in their full measure, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments. 10For you have trusted in your wickedness. You have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and your knowledge has perverted you. You have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ 11Therefore disaster will come on you. You won’t know when it dawns. Mischief will fall on you. You won’t be able to put it away. Desolation will come on you suddenly, which you don’t understand. 12“Stand now with your enchantments and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth, as if you might profit, as if you might prevail. 13You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels. Now let the astrologers, the stargazers, and the monthly prognosticators stand up and save you from the things that will happen to you. 14Behold, they are like stubble. The fire will burn them. They won’t deliver themselves from the power of the flame. It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by. 15The things that you labored in will be like this: those who have trafficked with you from your youth will each wander in his own way. There will be no one to save you.

Isaiah pronounces judgment on Babylon, the proud mistress of kingdoms, and exposes the false security at the heart of her pride. She had said in her heart, I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall be a mistress forever; I will not sit as a widow or know the loss of children. She had trusted in her own strength and wisdom, in her sorceries and counsels, saying, no one sees me. But disaster would come suddenly, in a single day, and all the things she trusted in, her enchantments, her counsels, her astrologers, would prove unable to save her.

Babylon's downfall traces to a false security rooted in pride. She presumed permanence: I shall be a mistress forever. She presumed self-sufficiency: I am, and there is none besides me. She presumed she was unseen and unaccountable: no one sees me. And she trusted in her own securities, her wisdom, her wealth, her sorceries and counsels, as if these could keep her safe forever. It was a proud self-sufficiency that imagined itself permanent, secure, and answerable to no one. And when disaster came suddenly, all those securities failed; the things she had trusted could not save her in the day of calamity. This exposes a folly we are all prone to, though in less dramatic forms. We can build a false security on our own resources, our wealth, our plans, our competence, and presume, as Babylon did, on permanence and safety, imagining that what we have secured will keep us, that we are answerable to no one, that disaster will not touch us. It is the folly Jesus named in the rich man who said, I have ample goods laid up for many years; take your ease, only to hear, this night your soul is required of you. The securities we trust, wealth, competence, plans, cannot save us in the day of calamity; and to presume on them, imagining ourselves permanent and safe apart from God, is Babylon's very folly. This searches where our security actually rests. Do we, like Babylon, build our confidence on our own resources and presume on permanence and safety, saying in our hearts that we are secure, that disaster will not touch us, that we answer to no one? Such securities fail when calamity comes suddenly; they cannot save. True security is not in the things we trust to keep us, which fail, but in God, who alone is permanent and who alone can keep us. Babylon trusted in her wealth and wisdom and sorceries, and they could not deliver her; and the proud self-sufficiency that presumes on permanence and safety apart from God is exposed, when calamity comes, as the false security it always was. The call is to rest our security not in our own resources, which fail, but in God, and to hold what we have with humility rather than the proud presumption that imagines itself secure and answerable to no one.

Do I build a false security on my own resources, my wealth, plans, or competence, presuming like Babylon on permanence and safety, imagining that what I have secured will keep me and that disaster will not touch me, and can Babylon's downfall, whose trusted securities could not save her in the day of calamity, move me to rest my security not in my own failing resources but in God alone, holding what I have with humility rather than proud presumption?

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