The Great Escape Text: Isaiah 48:20-22
Introduction: The Geography of Salvation
Every man lives somewhere. You have a physical address, a location on a map. But more importantly, you have a spiritual address. You are either a citizen of Jerusalem or a resident of Babylon. There is no third option, no neutral territory, no Switzerland in this great war. The Bible is a book of geography, a book of places. It tells us where we are from, sin, and where we are going, glory. And it is constantly telling us to get up and move. Abram was told to leave Ur of the Chaldees. Lot was told to flee Sodom. Israel was commanded to come out of Egypt. And here, in our text, the people of God are commanded to go forth from Babylon.
Our modern, therapeutic age despises this kind of sharp distinction. It prefers the gray mush of compromise. It wants to build a summer home in Babylon while maintaining a post office box in Jerusalem. It wants the security of God's promises without the scandal of separation from the world. But God is a God of sharp lines and clear commands. He creates by separation, light from darkness, land from sea. And He saves by separation, calling His people out from among the nations, out from the world, out from the corrupt city of man.
Isaiah is prophesying at a time when the first exodus from Egypt is a distant memory, and the coming exile to Babylon is a looming certainty. God, through His prophet, is not just predicting a future historical event, the return under Cyrus. He is establishing a permanent, spiritual pattern. Babylon is more than just a Mesopotamian superpower; it is a spiritual reality. It is the glittering, godless city of man, full of pride, idolatry, and rebellion. In the New Testament, it becomes the great harlot, drunk on the blood of the saints, the archetype of the apostate religious and political system. And the command to "Go forth from Babylon" echoes down through the centuries, from Isaiah to Jeremiah to the Apostle John in Revelation. It is a command for every generation of the church.
This passage, then, is not just a historical travel advisory for ancient Jews. It is a gospel command for us. It is the great escape plan, outlining the departure, the declaration, the provision, and the final, stark destination for those who refuse the call.
The Text
Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans!
Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, cause this to be heard,
Bring it forth to the end of the earth;
Say, "Yahweh has redeemed His servant Jacob."
And they did not thirst when He led them through the waste places.
He made the water flow out of the rock for them;
He split the rock, and the water gushed forth.
"There is no peace for the wicked," says Yahweh.
(Isaiah 48:20-22 LSB)
The Emphatic Command and the Exuberant Declaration (v. 20)
We begin with the urgent, twofold command in verse 20:
"Go forth from Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare with the sound of joyful shouting, cause this to be heard, Bring it forth to the end of the earth; Say, 'Yahweh has redeemed His servant Jacob.'" (Isaiah 48:20)
The command is not a polite suggestion. It is not "consider relocating when market conditions are favorable." It is "Go forth! Flee!" This is the language of urgent escape. It implies that to remain in Babylon is to be in mortal danger. To linger is to risk partaking in her sins and therefore her plagues. The Chaldeans were the ruling elite of Babylon, the architects of its worldview. To flee the Chaldeans is to flee their way of thinking, their idolatrous assumptions, their entire cultural project.
But this is not a covert, nighttime escape. This is not a band of refugees slinking away in shame. This is a triumphant exodus. They are to leave with a "sound of joyful shouting." This is not the whimper of the oppressed, but the victory cry of the redeemed. Why? Because their departure is itself a testimony. It is a public declaration that the God of Israel is the true God, and the gods of Babylon are nothing. Their exodus is a sermon preached with their feet.
And what is the content of this sermon? "Yahweh has redeemed His servant Jacob." Redemption is the key. To redeem means to buy back, to set free by the payment of a price. Israel did not break out of Babylon by their own cleverness or might. Yahweh redeemed them. This is a declaration of sovereign grace. God did it all. This is the central message that must be brought "to the end of the earth." The particular deliverance from a historical city becomes the paradigm for God's universal salvation. This is a missionary command embedded in an exodus command. As you are leaving, tell everyone why you are leaving. Tell them who set you free. Our testimony is never about how we found God, but always about how He found us. He redeemed His servant Jacob.
The Miraculous Provision (v. 21)
Verse 21 looks back to the first exodus to promise provision for this new one. Leaving Babylon means entering the "waste places," the wilderness. But God's people are never to fear the wilderness when they are walking in obedience.
"And they did not thirst when He led them through the waste places. He made the water flow out of the rock for them; He split the rock, and the water gushed forth." (Isaiah 48:21 LSB)
The logic is simple and profound: what God did before, He will do again. The God who provided for Israel in the desert of Sinai is the same God who will provide for them in the deserts between Babylon and Judah. When you obey God's command to "flee," you are not fleeing to nothing, you are fleeing to Him. And He is the provision.
The imagery here is potent. Water in the desert is life itself. And this is not just any water. It is water from a rock. It is a miracle, a supernatural provision where no natural provision exists. The Apostle Paul picks up this very event and tells us exactly what it means. "For they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ" (1 Cor. 10:4). Isaiah is not just giving a history lesson; he is preaching Christ.
The rock was split, it was struck, and the water gushed forth. On the cross, the true Rock of our salvation was struck by the rod of God's justice. He was pierced. And from His side flowed water and blood, the gushing fountain of our redemption. When we obey the call to leave the Babylon of our sin, our self-reliance, and our idolatry, we are cast into a world that is a spiritual waste place. It has nothing to offer our thirsty souls. But we do not thirst, because God has provided the living water of Christ. He is our sustenance in the wilderness.
The Divine Verdict (v. 22)
The chapter concludes with a solemn, unbending declaration from Yahweh Himself. It is the other side of the coin of redemption. It is the terrible fate of those who remain in Babylon.
"'There is no peace for the wicked,' says Yahweh." (Isaiah 48:22 LSB)
This is a foundational principle of God's moral universe. The word for peace here is shalom. It does not mean a simple absence of conflict, like a ceasefire. Shalom means wholeness, completeness, soundness, welfare, covenantal well-being. It is the state of things when everything is in its right place, functioning according to the Creator's design, in right relationship with Him.
For the wicked, for those who remain in rebellion against God, there can be no shalom. They may have temporary ceasefires. They may achieve moments of pleasure, or accumulate vast amounts of wealth and power. They may build magnificent, glittering cities like Babylon. But they cannot have peace. Why? Because they are at war with the God who defines peace. To be at war with Reality itself is to be in a permanent state of disintegration. Their souls are a civil war. Their relationships are a tangle of manipulation and strife. Their societies are built on a foundation of sand, destined for collapse.
Notice who says this: "says Yahweh." This is not a philosophical observation; it is a divine verdict. It is not that the wicked are having a hard time finding peace. It is that God has decreed that they will not find it. Peace is a fruit that grows only in the soil of righteousness, watered by the grace of God. The wicked have rejected the soil and poisoned the water. Therefore, they will have no fruit. This is the great antithesis. For the redeemed servant Jacob, there is joyful shouting and water from the rock. For the wicked, there is no peace.
Conclusion: Your Personal Exodus
So the command comes to us today with the same urgency. Go forth from Babylon. Flee the assumptions of the Chaldeans who rule our age. Flee the idolatry of the self, the worship of the state, the seductions of materialism. Flee the corruptions of a compromised church that has made her peace with Babylon.
This is the call of the gospel. The gospel is a declaration that Yahweh has redeemed His people, His new covenant servant, the Church, through the blood of His Son. And because He has redeemed us, we are commanded to leave our old country. We are to repent, which means to turn around and walk in a new direction. We are to leave the city of destruction and make our way toward the celestial city.
And as we go, we are to do two things. First, we are to shout for joy. Our salvation is a loud salvation. We are to declare to the ends of the earth what God has done. This is the Great Commission. We are the heralds of the great escape. And second, we are to drink from the Rock. We are to depend entirely on Christ for our sustenance. We are not to pack supplies from Babylon. We are to trust His provision in the wilderness. He is our living water.
The choice set before every one of us is the choice between these two destinies. A joyful, loud, and sustained march out of bondage into the promised land, or a restless, peaceless existence inside the doomed walls of Babylon. There is no middle ground. For those who belong to Jacob, there is redemption. For the wicked, there is no peace. Flee to the Rock that was split for you. Flee to Christ.