NOTES for Isa 47:1-15
1 Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. |
2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. |
3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. |
4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. |
5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. |
6 I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. |
7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. |
8 Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: |
9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. |
10 For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. |
11 Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. |
12 Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. |
13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. |
14 Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. |
15 Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee. |
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The image of perishing Babylon at the end of the exile was very relevant. Indeed, the fall of Babylonia and its capital was unexpected and very impressive. It was all the more unexpected because Babylon was a first-class fortress prepared for a long siege. Historians still debate the reasons for so rapid an end to this city, suggesting betrayal among its defenders. But in the postexilic period Babylon became a symbol of opposition to God, and it appears in precisely this sense both in the prophecies of Babylonian Isaiah and in the New Testament books, in particular in the Book of Revelation.
Of course, the Babylonian captivity contributed greatly to this reinterpretation of the image of Babylon. But the matter is not only that. It is also the imperial spirit that permeated the life of the Neo-Babylonian Kingdom. And it is the spirit of modern civilization as such. Of course, Babylonian civilization is hard for us today to consider modern; for us it is antiquity. But it already bore within itself that spirit of self-assertion that is equally characteristic of all civilizations, ancient and modern. The point here is not even awareness of technical power or a sense of security, but the feeling of self-sufficiency. A person saturated with the spirit of civilization is convinced that he is protected from surprises and has the situation under control.
Of course, any technologies in any age can fail, but such a failure is perceived as an anomaly, as an emergency that can and must be eliminated, removed, and, as far as possible, prevented in the future. A person of civilization usually has no experience of his own dependence on higher powers. And if such an experience appears, it means the person has ceased to be a bearer of its spirit. This is why, and not because of any depravity or maliciousness of technologies in themselves, all great civilizations are doomed. God does not abandon the person, and sooner or later a moment inevitably comes when that person grows weary of civilization.
Historians have long noticed the phenomenon of a kind of fatigue of civilizations, psychological and social fatigue that accumulates in them over time, in much the same way that fatigue can accumulate in metal structures over time. But almost none of them has considered the spiritual causes of this fatigue of civilizations. Yet spiritual fatigue turns out to be the main cause of their fall: resistance to God, attempts to wall oneself off from Him, never end in anything good. This is always a road to nowhere. To historical nonbeing.
Readings for 23 September 2025
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