Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 13

The burden of Babylon ... —The title “burden,” repeated in Isaiah 15:1; Isaiah 17:1; Isaiah 19:1; Isaiah 21:1; Isaiah 22:1; and Isaiah 23:1, indicates that in this division we have a collection of prophetic utterances concerning the future of the surrounding nations, among which Babylon was naturally pre-eminent.

The authenticity of the first of these oracles has been questioned, partly on the ground of differences in style and partly because it seems to anticipate the future destruction of Babylon with a distinctness that implies a prophecy after the event.

The first of these objections rests, as will be seen from the numerous coincidences between these and other portions of Isaiah, on no sufficient evidence.

The second implies a view of prophecy that excludes the element of divinely given foreknowledge, a view the present writer does not accept.

Accepting the two chapters as Isaiah’s, we have to ask how Babylon, at that time, came within the prophet’s historical horizon, and what its political relations with Assyria were then.

1. It is obvious that the negotiations Ahaz had opened with Tiglath-pileser, the passage to and fro of armies and ambassadors, the journeys of prophets like Jonah and Nahum, and the commerce for which we have traces even in the days of Joshua (Joshua 7:21), must have made Babylon, as well as Nineveh, familiar to the leading men of Judah.

As a matter of fact, Babylon was probably more familiar. It was the older, more famous, more splendid city.

Nineveh (if we accept the conclusions of one school of historians) had been overpowered and destroyed by the Medes under Arbaces and the Babylonians under Belesis (B.C. 739). This Belesis is the Pul of Bible history, under whom Assyria was a dependency of Babylon (Lenormant, Anc. Hist., p. 38).

In Tiglath-pileser, the Assyrians found a ruler who restored their supremacy.

The Chaldeans, however, revolted under Merodach-baladan, and Sargon records with triumph how he had conquered him and plundered his palace. As the result of that victory, Sargon took the title of king of Babylon. Merodach-baladan, however, renewed his resistance early in Sennacherib’s reign and, though again defeated, we find him seeking Hezekiah’s alliance either before or after the destruction of that king’s army (Isaiah 39:0).

We can scarcely doubt that the idea of a Babylonian alliance, similar to an Egyptian one, had occurred to Judah’s statesmen as a way to stop the advance of Assyrian conquests. The chapters now before us, however, do not seem written with reference to such an alliance. In Isaiah 14:25, Babylon seems to be regarded mainly as representing Assyria’s power. It seems probable, accordingly, that the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14:4 is to be identified with Sargon, the Assyrian king, who took the title of “Vicar of the Gods in Babylon” (Records of the Past, vol. xi. 17).

The word “burden,” prefixed to this and the following prophecies, is a literal translation of the Hebrew. It seems to have acquired a semi-technical sense, signifying the doom that a nation or person was called to bear, and so it took on the meaning of an “oracle” or “prophecy.”

This meaning is first prominent in Isaiah. In Proverbs 30:1 and Proverbs 31:1, it is used for an ethical or didactic utterance considered inspired. This usage later appeared in the speeches of the false prophets (Lamentations 2:14).

In Jeremiah 23:33-40, we find a striking play on the primary and derived meanings of the word (See Note on Jeremiah 23:33).

It continued in use, however, despite Jeremiah’s protest, and appears in Zechariah 9:1; Zechariah 12:1; and Malachi 1:1. Oracle is perhaps the best English equivalent. We note as characteristic (Isaiah 2:1) that the “burden” is described as that which Isaiah saw.

Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain... — Strictly speaking, a bare mountain, where there were no trees to hide the standard around which the forces that the prophet sees were to rally. The word and thought are the same as in Isaiah 5:26; but there the summons is for the invaders of Israel, here for its avengers. The voice that summons is, as the next verse shows, that of Jehovah. The “shaking the hand” is, as in Isaiah 10:32, the act of the generals pointing with emphatic gesture to the city that is to be destroyed.

The gates of the nobles. — The word is used to heighten the contrast between the greatness of the city to be destroyed, with its gates that had witnessed for centuries the entrance of kings and princes, and the wild roughness of the barbarian destroyers.

I have commanded my sanctified ones ... —The word is applied even to the fierce tribes of the future destroyers, as being appointed, or consecrated, by Jehovah for that special work. The thought and the words (there translated “prepare”) appear in Jeremiah 6:4; Jeremiah 22:7; Jeremiah 51:27. So in the later prophecies Cyrus appears as “the anointed” of the Lord (Isaiah 45:1).

Even them that rejoice in my highness. —In Zephaniah 3:11 the same phrase occurs in a bad sense. Here, apparently, it denotes the proud consciousness of the invaders that they are doing God’s work.

The noise of a multitude ... — The prophet hears, as it were, the tramp of the armies gathering on the mountains north of Babylonia (possibly the Zagros range, or the plateau of Iran, or the mountains of Armenia; but the prophet’s geography was probably vague) before they descend to the plain and march against the haughty city. .

They come from a far country ... —The same phrase is used of Cyrus in Isaiah 46:11, and in Isaiah 39:3 of Babylon itself in relation to Jerusalem. The “end of heaven” represents the thoughts of Isaiah’s time: the earth as an extended plain, and the skies rising like a great vault above. The phrase represents (Deuteronomy 4:32; Psalms 19:6), so to speak, the ultima Thule of discovery. As for “the whole land,” the Hebrew noun hovers, as often elsewhere, between the meanings of “earth,” or “country.” The Septuagint favors the former meaning.