Commentary - Isaiah 13:17-22

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Isaiah's oracle against Babylon, the Lord moves from the general announcement of judgment to the specific instrument He will use to accomplish it. The prophecy is stark, brutal, and absolute. God declares He is stirring up the Medes, a people from the mountainous regions to the northeast of Babylon, to be His battle-axe. Their motivation will not be the typical lust for plunder, but a divinely-implanted, cold-blooded ferocity. The destruction they bring will be total, showing no mercy to any age group, from the young men to the infants in the womb. The result for Babylon, that magnificent jewel of the ancient world, will be a permanent and catastrophic desolation, comparable only to the supernatural obliteration of Sodom and Gomorrah. The passage concludes with a series of images that paint a picture of utter and final abandonment, a place fit only for wild beasts and demonic spirits, never again to be a dwelling for man. This is not just a historical prediction; it is a theological statement about the ultimate end of all proud, God-defying civilizations.

The central theme is the absolute sovereignty of God over the affairs of nations. He is the one who awakens the Medes. He is the one who sets the terms of the conflict. And He is the one who pronounces the final, irrevocable sentence. Babylon stands as a symbol of worldly glory, humanistic pride, and imperial might. But God here demonstrates that all such glory is a fading flower. When a nation or a culture sets itself against the Lord and His anointed, its end is not reform or gentle decline, but utter ruin. This is a covenantal lawsuit, and the verdict is death, followed by a perpetual curse upon the land itself.

Outline

Context In Isaiah

This passage is part of a larger section of Isaiah (chapters 13-23) that contains a series of "burdens" or oracles against various gentile nations. It is significant that the very first oracle is against Babylon. At the time of Isaiah's prophecy, Babylon was not yet the dominant world power it would become; Assyria held that position. But God, who declares the end from the beginning, looks ahead to the peak of Babylon's arrogance and pronounces its doom. This sets the theological tone for all the subsequent judgments. God is not merely the God of Israel; He is the judge of all the earth. The fall of this historical Babylon, which occurred in 539 B.C. at the hands of the Medes and Persians, serves as a historical anchor for a much larger biblical theme. Babylon becomes the archetypal city of man, the great enemy of God's people, a theme that runs all the way to the book of Revelation, where "Babylon the Great" is finally and forever destroyed at the coming of Christ.

Key Issues

The Divine Summons

We must read this passage with a clear head. This is not a description of a geopolitical squabble that God merely observes. The text says, "Behold, I am going to awaken the Medes against them." God is the primary actor here. He is the one rattling the cage, stirring up this fierce nation to accomplish His purposes. The Medes may have their own reasons for marching on Babylon, but behind their political and military ambitions is the sovereign decree of the Almighty. God governs the nations, and He frequently uses one wicked nation to punish another. The Assyrians were the "rod of His anger" against Israel (Isa 10:5), and here the Medes are His chosen instrument for the destruction of Babylon. This is a hard doctrine for our sentimental age, but it is a biblical bedrock. History is not a random series of events; it is the unfolding of God's righteous plan, and that plan includes the rise and the catastrophic fall of empires.

Verse by Verse Commentary

17 Behold, I am going to awaken the Medes against them, Who will not think about silver or take pleasure in gold.

The Lord identifies His weapon: the Medes. And He immediately describes their chief characteristic for this particular task. They are not primarily motivated by plunder. This is highly unusual for an ancient army. Typically, the prospect of sacking a wealthy city like Babylon, with its legendary riches, would be the main incentive. But God says He will stir up a people who, in this instance, are driven by something other than greed. This serves two purposes. First, it ensures that Babylon will not be able to buy them off. No amount of tribute or ransom will turn them aside. The judgment is not negotiable. Second, it highlights that their motivation is not natural but supernatural. God has put a spirit of relentless destruction into them. They are on a divine mission, whether they know it or not, and their contempt for silver and gold makes them an incorruptible and terrifying instrument of God's wrath.

18 And their bows will dash the young men to pieces, They will not even have compassion on the fruit of the womb, Nor will their eye pity children.

The prophecy now turns to the sheer brutality of the conquest. The language is graphic and unsparing. Their bows, a primary weapon of the Medes, will not just kill but will shatter the young men, the fighting strength of the nation. But the violence will not be limited to combatants. The Medes will have no compassion on the "fruit of the womb," a Hebrew phrase that encompasses both pregnant women and the infants they carry. Their eye will not "pity children." This is total warfare, aimed at the complete annihilation of the Babylonian people. This is a terrifying picture of God's judgment. When God gives a nation over to destruction, He withdraws His restraining hand and allows the full measure of human depravity to be unleashed. This is the outworking of the curse. It is a hard thing to read, but it is meant to be. It is meant to instill in us a holy fear of the God who judges nations for their pride and wickedness.

19 And it will be that Babylon, the beauty of kingdoms, the honor of the Chaldeans’ pride, Will be as when God overwrote Sodom and Gomorrah.

Here is the formal verdict. Babylon is described in all its glory. It was the beauty of kingdoms, the pinnacle of Chaldean achievement and the object of their immense pride. This is not some backwater village; this is the New York or London of its day. But its glory will not save it. Its fate is compared to the most absolute and divine destruction in all of Scripture: the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah. That was not a normal military defeat. It was a direct, fiery de-creation from heaven. By invoking this comparison, Isaiah is saying that the fall of Babylon will be so complete, so final, that it will be as though God Himself scraped it from the face of the earth. The Medes are the instrument, but the power and the finality of the judgment are entirely God's. This is what happens when the pride of man reaches its zenith; it meets the judgment of God.

20 It will never be inhabited or dwelt in from generation to generation; Nor will the Arab pitch his tent there, Nor will shepherds make their flocks lie down there.

The curse of desolation is now spelled out in detail. The destruction will be permanent. It will never be inhabited again. This is a remarkable prophecy. Many great cities of the ancient world were conquered, destroyed, and then rebuilt, often multiple times. But Isaiah says this will not be the case for Babylon. Its ruin will be perpetual. To emphasize the point, he uses two illustrations from common life. Even the nomadic Arab will not pitch his tent there for a night. Even the shepherds, who lead their flocks through desolate places, will avoid it. The place will be considered so thoroughly cursed and haunted that even those who live on the margins of civilization will want nothing to do with it. It will be utterly cut off from all human society.

21 But desert creatures will lie down there, And their houses will be full of owls; Ostriches also will dwell there, and shaggy goats will leap there.

Human society will be replaced by the society of the wild and the unclean. The once-great houses and palaces will be filled with owls, creatures of the night. Ostriches will dwell in the ruins. And "shaggy goats" will leap about. This term for shaggy goats is often associated in the Old Testament with demons or satyrs (Lev 17:7). The point is that the city will become a desolate wasteland, a haunt for creatures that thrive in abandoned places, and a place given over to the demonic. It is a complete reversal of the created order. God made the world for man to dwell in, but here, because of sin, a great center of human civilization is handed back over to chaos and the beasts of the field, becoming a kind of anti-Eden.

22 And hyenas will howl in their fortified towers And jackals in their luxurious palaces. Her fateful time also will soon come And her days will not be prolonged.

The final image contrasts the former glory with the future desolation. The howling of hyenas will replace the commands of captains in the fortified towers. The cry of jackals will echo in the luxurious palaces where kings once feasted. The sounds of civilization will be replaced by the eerie sounds of the wilderness. The prophecy concludes with a statement of certainty and imminence. Babylon's "fateful time" is near. Her days are numbered and will not be extended. Though her judgment may seem to tarry from a human perspective, from God's perspective, the sentence is passed and the execution is certain. History will not be delayed.

Application

It is tempting for modern Christians to read a passage like this and relegate it to the dusty past, a harsh word for a harsh time. But that is a grave mistake. Babylon is more than a historical city; it is a spiritual principle. Babylon is any human system, culture, or government built on the pride of man and in defiance of the living God. It is the spirit of the age that says, "We will build a tower to the heavens; we will make a name for ourselves."

This passage is a warning to us. Our Western civilization, for all its technological marvels and cultural achievements, is shot through with the pride of the Chaldeans. We have defied God's law, mocked His Word, and built our luxurious palaces on foundations of sand. The oracle against Babylon is an oracle against us, to the extent that we have become Babylon. God is not mocked. He still awakens nations and brings down empires. His judgments are righteous and they are certain.

The application is not to despair, but to repent. The only safe place to be when God judges the world is in the ark of Christ. We are called to be citizens of a different city, the New Jerusalem, whose builder and maker is God. We must live in this present Babylon as exiles and sojourners, refusing to love its fleeting pleasures or fear its temporary power. And we must call others out of her, saying, "Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues" (Rev 18:4). The ruins of ancient Babylon stand as a silent, stark monument to the truth of God's Word. Every proud tower built by man will one day be a haunt for jackals, but the kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ will endure forever.