Isaiah 5.7 47-48

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Isaiah 47 ESV

1 Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate. 2 Take the millstones and grind flour, put off your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers. 3 Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your disgrace shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one. 4 Our Redeemer—the Lord of hosts is his name— is the Holy One of Israel. 5 Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. 6 I was angry with my people; I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand; you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy. 7 You said, “I shall be mistress forever,” so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their end.

Here we see the vengeance of YHWH—Babylon is humbled and brought low, deprived of her former glory (without a throne).

The theological foundation for this vengeance emerges in verses 5–7. Babylon believed she conquered Judah through her own military power, but she failed to recognize that God was angry with his people and used Babylon as an instrument of his judgment.1 Though God allowed Babylon to execute this role, Babylon exceeded her mandate by showing no mercy to God’s people—a cruelty that exceeded what divine discipline required.

Isaiah 47 ESV

8 Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children”: 9 These two things shall come to you in a moment, in one day; the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the great power of your enchantments. 10 You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees me”; your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.” 11 But evil shall come upon you, which you will not know how to charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, for which you will not be able to atone; and ruin shall come upon you suddenly, of which you know nothing.

Here is the pride of Babylon—

Babylon’s pride manifests in her self-exaltation as “mistress of kingdoms” and her arrogant declaration “I am, and there is no one besides me”—a claim that appropriates divine uniqueness for herself.1 This represents a nation regarding itself as the Supreme Power1, a posture that directly contradicts God’s own identity throughout Isaiah.

The passage exposes multiple dimensions of Babylon’s overconfidence. Babylon believed she could treat Israel’s elderly however she wished because she thought she would remain untouched forever, a conviction that made her unwilling to change her ways.

She prided herself in sorcerers who supposedly told the future through demonic forces, but such supposed knowledge proved unreliable—the sorcerers could not foresee Babylon’s forthcoming calamity and could not conjure it away.3

The theological irony cuts deep: Though Babylon claimed “I am, and there is none besides me,” God alone is the One who is unique, as Isaiah had stated repeatedly throughout the preceding chapters.3 Her pride blinds her to the reality that all her apparent security—military might, wealth, magical knowledge—cannot withstand divine judgment.

Isaiah 47 ESV

12 Stand fast in your enchantments and your many sorceries, with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you may be able to succeed; perhaps you may inspire terror. 13 You are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens, who gaze at the stars, who at the new moons make known what shall come upon you. 14 Behold, they are like stubble; the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before! 15 Such to you are those with whom you have labored, who have done business with you from your youth; they wander about, each in his own direction; there is no one to save you.

Here the impotence of their false religion. All their religion, their sorcerers, their false religion. None of this could save them.

Look at the language: your enchantments and sorcery— “with which you have labored from your youth….you are wearied with your many counsels; let them stand forth and save you, those who divide the heavens and gaze at stars.” Isaiah is saying: you have been laboring unto your idols all your life! And what have they done for you? They have only tired you out.

This is for us: we spend our lives chasing after lesser things, comforts of this world, things we think will give us safety and security. These are not bad things in and of themselves, but we must see everything we have as a gift from the LORD, they are NOT worthy of our worship.

Think about financial provision. We say this every week at Giving Back, we’re giving back to God what He has first given to us. He is the one who has given us good gifts, let’s worship the giver of our gifts, not the gifts themselves.

If we worship the gifts, we become slaves to those things. And they cannot save us. Money cannot save us, material things cannot save us. We cannot take them with us into death. Only God can rescue us.

Look at how the Lord frames it: they can’t even save themselves! We need to hear this message again and again lest we begin to trust in these lesser things again.

*Seminary class, professor wanted to give me a B just to see what I would do.*

Again and again: the uselessness of idols.

Isaiah 48:1–11 ESV

1 Hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called by the name of Israel, and who came from the waters of Judah, who swear by the name of the Lord and confess the God of Israel, but not in truth or right. 2 For they call themselves after the holy city, and stay themselves on the God of Israel; the Lord of hosts is his name. 3 “The former things I declared of old; they went out from my mouth, and I announced them; then suddenly I did them, and they came to pass. 4 Because I know that you are obstinate, and your neck is an iron sinew and your forehead brass, 5 I declared them to you from of old, before they came to pass I announced them to you, lest you should say, ‘My idol did them, my carved image and my metal image commanded them.’ 6 “You have heard; now see all this; and will you not declare it? From this time forth I announce to you new things, hidden things that you have not known. 7 They are created now, not long ago; before today you have never heard of them, lest you should say, ‘Behold, I knew them.’ 8 You have never heard, you have never known, from of old your ear has not been opened. For I knew that you would surely deal treacherously, and that from before birth you were called a rebel. 9 “For my name’s sake I defer my anger; for the sake of my praise I restrain it for you, that I may not cut you off. 10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction. 11 For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.

It starts with an important naming of God’s people: notice the stacking of names “House of jacob; called by name of Israel, waters of Judah…” It is a reminder of the former things, of their past, it is a reminder that they are a people because of what God did for their ancestors and how He called them to be His own.

Then there’s the present identification: hear this you people (with the heritage we just discussed) who now swear by the name of the Lord, confess—it’s identifying them, but the key is the interjection at the end of v. 1: BUT not in truth or right.

Their confession of God, it turns out is a lie, their faith is not reliable (that’s the word true) nor it is correct (that’s righteousness). Isaiah is contrasting what one might call the people of Israel with the fact that this isn’t true of them.

It reminds me of what Jesus says about the Pharisees in Matt. 23:25-26

Matthew 23:25–26 ESV

25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

This is a people, those in exile, who are hypocritical. They invoke the name of the Lord but lack true faith and righteousness, they lack obedience. We’ve seen this previously in Isaiah, there will be a faithful remnant, but not everyone among this people will be found faithful or to be the genuine people of the Lord.

Look at v. 3-5, God is saying: I announced the former things (that which has happened to Israel, including their exile). He is showing them his power above and beyond those false gods who had no power to predict the future nor influence its events, and to show Israel’s stubbornness. I told you what would happen (Persia overthrowing Babylon) specifically so that you couldn’t give the credit for that to someone else.

I think about this in our own lives: have you ever prayed for something, then it happened, and instead of giving God the credit and glory you gave credit to chance, good luck, or yourself or to someone else?

God’s revelation through the prophet was for the faith of the people, and it points out their stubbornness.

Then in v. 9-11 we see God’s refining purpose for his people. It is His mercy that restrains His anger that they will not be cut off, but it is also His mercy that has given them such a consequence like exile that it would have do a refining work among the people.

God does this for His glory.

Isaiah 48:12–22 ESV

12 “Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last. 13 My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. 14 “Assemble, all of you, and listen! Who among them has declared these things? The Lord loves him; he shall perform his purpose on Babylon, and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans. 15 I, even I, have spoken and called him; I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way. 16 Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit. 17 Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: “I am the Lord your God, who teaches you to profit, who leads you in the way you should go. 18 Oh that you had paid attention to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea; 19 your offspring would have been like the sand, and your descendants like its grains; their name would never be cut off or destroyed from before me.” 20 Go out from Babylon, flee from Chaldea, declare this with a shout of joy, proclaim it, send it out to the end of the earth; say, “The Lord has redeemed his servant Jacob!” 21 They did not thirst when he led them through the deserts; he made water flow for them from the rock; he split the rock and the water gushed out. 22 “There is no peace,” says the Lord, “for the wicked.”

The Lord is calling Israel to embrace God’s redemption from Babylon, trusting His sovereign hand to deliver them from exile even if that means using a nation like Persia to do so.

Now look at v. 16 Isaiah 48:16 “16 Draw near to me, hear this: from the beginning I have not spoken in secret, from the time it came to be I have been there.” And now the Lord God has sent me, and his Spirit.”

This is about the servant of the Lord and His mission: this verse introduces a divine agent who will finish what Cyrus starts, what god starts through Persia by rescuing Israel from Babylon. Rescue from Babylon will not be enough: they need a messiah who will redeem them and rescue them for eternity.

We need this!