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Context No. 750 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 13:17-22: in context

17Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, who will not value silver, and as for gold, they will not delight in it. 18Their bows will dash the young men in pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. Their eyes will not spare children. 19Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20It will never be inhabited, neither will it be lived in from generation to generation. The Arabian will not pitch a tent there, neither will shepherds make their flocks lie down there. 21But wild animals of the desert will lie there, and their houses will be full of jackals. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will frolic there. 22Hyenas will cry in their fortresses, and jackals in the pleasant palaces. Her time is near to come, and her days will not be prolonged.

Isaiah's oracle against Babylon reaches its climax here, and the target is not a weak city but the strongest one there is. God says he will stir up the Medes against it, and he notes one thing about them: they do not value silver and take no delight in gold. They cannot be bought. There will be no buying your way out of this reckoning, no tribute large enough to turn them aside. And what they come to bring down is Babylon, which the prophet calls the glory of kingdoms, the beauty and pride of the Chaldeans, the summit of everything human power had built.

Its end, Isaiah says, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah. It will never be inhabited again, from generation to generation; no wandering Arab will so much as pitch a tent there for a night, no shepherd will rest his flock in it. Instead the desert creatures will move in, jackals in the fortresses, ostriches and wild goats in the ruins, hyenas crying in the pleasant palaces. The glory of kingdoms becomes a place too desolate to camp in. And the destroyer coming for it cannot be bribed. Whatever looks most permanent and most secure, the peak of all human building, is closer to the jackals than it knows.

Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, was headed for the jackals, and its coming judges could not be bought off. What do I treat as too big and secure to fall, and do I imagine I could pay my way out of any reckoning?

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