Commentary - Isaiah 47:5-7

Bird's-eye view

In this passage, the prophet Isaiah delivers God's sentence against Babylon. Having been used by God as a rod of discipline against His covenant people, Babylon grew arrogant, cruel, and presumptuous. She mistook her delegated authority for inherent supremacy. Consequently, God, who raised her up, now commands her to descend from her throne into silence, darkness, and disgrace. These verses lay out the indictment: God is sovereign, and He judges nations not only for their idolatry, but for their pride. Babylon's sin was not that she conquered Judah, for God gave Judah into her hand. Her sin was the cruel and prideful way she did it, forgetting that she was a tool in the hand of the living God, and ascribing her success to her own glory.

Outline

Isaiah 47:5

"Sit silently, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans, For you will no longer be called The queen of kingdoms."

The Lord begins with a command that completely reverses Babylon's entire identity. She was the center of the world, loud with commerce and decrees, bright with wealth and power. God tells her to shut up and sit down. "Sit silently, and go into darkness." This is the language of deposition. A king on a throne is visible and vocal; a deposed king is thrown into a dungeon where he is neither seen nor heard. The title "daughter of the Chaldeans" identifies her by her lineage, the very source of her pride, which is now the object of God's judgment.

The reason for this judgment is stated plainly: "For you will no longer be called The queen of kingdoms." Her reputation, her title, her brand is being stripped from her. God gave her that prominence, and now He is taking it away. Pride is always a contest with God over who gets the glory, and it is a contest God always wins. Babylon's identity was wrapped up in her status and power, and God shows her that both were on loan. The loan has been called.

Isaiah 47:6

"I was furious with My people; I profaned My inheritance And gave them into your hand. You did not show compassion to them, On the aged you made your yoke very heavy."

Here is the heart of the matter, and it is a master class in divine sovereignty and human responsibility. God Himself speaks and takes full responsibility for Judah's calamity. "I was furious with My people." Babylon's invasion was not a geopolitical accident; it was the holy and just wrath of God against the sin of His own children. He says, "I profaned My inheritance." This is a staggering statement. God allowed His holy things, His temple, His city, His people, to be trampled by Gentiles as a form of severe discipline. He makes it clear: "I...gave them into your hand." Babylon was God's hammer.

But a hammer does not have a will of its own. Babylon did. And right here, God pivots from His sovereign purpose to Babylon's culpable sin. "You did not show compassion to them." God handed His people over for discipline, but Babylon carried it out with sadistic glee. They were cruel beyond the requirements of their commission. The specific charge, "On the aged you made your yoke very heavy," reveals their character. To crush the elderly, who pose no military threat and deserve honor, is to display a profound wickedness. God judges the hammer not for hitting the nail, but for glorying in its own destructive power and for smashing everything else in sight out of sheer malice.

Isaiah 47:7

"Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’ These things you did not put on your heart Nor remember the outcome of them."

This verse exposes the root of Babylon's cruelty: blasphemous pride. "Yet you said, 'I will be a queen forever.'" She ascribed to herself an attribute that belongs to God alone: eternality. This is the ancient sin of Babel, the desire to make a name for oneself and to secure one's own permanence apart from God. She saw herself not as an instrument in God's hand, but as the ultimate reality. She believed her own press.

The diagnosis for this pride is a willful, deliberate foolishness. "These things you did not put on your heart Nor remember the outcome of them." She refused to think. She saw God's people delivered into her hand and drew the wrong conclusion. Instead of saying, "The God of Israel is mighty in His wrath," she said, "Our gods are mighty, and we are supreme." She had no thought for the end of the matter, no thought for the final accounting. This is practical atheism. She acted as though there were no God in heaven to whom she must give an account. She forgot that the one who raises empires up is also the one who brings them down. She did not consider the consequences, and now she must live in them.

Application

The principles laid down here are not confined to ancient Mesopotamia. They are as current as this morning's headlines. First, God is absolutely sovereign over the affairs of nations. He raises them up and He casts them down for His own holy purposes. He will use even wicked nations as His instruments of judgment or discipline.

Second, being an instrument of God does not absolve anyone of responsibility for their own sin. God uses the wicked choices of men to accomplish His righteous will, and then He judges them for their wicked choices. Babylon was judged for its cruelty and pride. This should be a sobering thought for any nation or person who finds themselves in a position of power. Power is a stewardship, and God will call for an accounting.

Finally, the root of all rebellion against God is pride, which manifests as a kind of strategic stupidity. It is the refusal to "remember the outcome," to think things through to their final conclusion before the judgment seat of God. The proud man, the proud nation, the proud institution, says "I will be a queen forever," and refuses to consider the God who gives and takes away. The Christian response is humility, to recognize that all we have is a gift, and to walk in the fear of the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom. The fall of Babylon is a preview of the fall of that great city Babylon in the book of Revelation. All earthly kingdoms built on pride will come to nothing. Only the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ will endure forever.