In Isaiah's day (latter 8th Century BC), Assyria yet reigned supreme, her center of power in the northern reaches of the Mesopotamian Valley. Half way down that valley toward the swampy delta laid Babylon, struggling to break free of the Assyrian yoke. A century later, they would succeed and would then rule over Palestine. At some point, she would carry away most of what was left of Israel, holding the nation captive. Isaiah sees past all this, to the day the Medo-Persian Empire would rise to take God's revenge on her.
To the east of Babylon were the Zagros Mountains, the only real mountains within sight of the ancient capital. God calls for some unnamed messenger to climb up the highest peak of that range. The messenger is to wave a banner to the nations scattered on the other side, to the East. At that time, they were disorganized warring tribes. The messenger waves to them, calling them to come to Babylon, to enter the gates of the city. The Lord refers to these mixed Persian tribes as His anointed instruments of wrath. Some day, they would be united under a visionary leader who would carry the banner of a religion -- Zoroastrianism -- that made room for recognizing Jehovah as the God of Heaven.
This mixed multitude would be welded into a single nation, forming a massive army that would overrun Mesopotamia. They would subdue all nations before them. Their battle savvy and relentless conquest would strike fear in the hearts of Babylon's mighty warriors and rulers. They will be stunned at the victories won against Babylon and come to fear the Medo-Persians.
Isaiah offers us a symbolic vision of the world turned upside down. The overwhelming power of the Medo-Persian military will be God's doing. In their unique ways and customs, they will be utterly foreign. What the world once took for granted as a common Semitic cultural basis would be plowed under the sandy plains of central Mesopotamia. It will be as disconcerting as if the stars fell from the sky. Indeed, the sky would become dark and luminaries would hide. Even the sun would become dark. The world would change forever, and the supremacy of Semitic nations, ascendant in civilization since the ancient Babel of Nimrod, would never again return.
God speaks of His ways. By no means will any nation escape His wrath for rejecting His commands under the Covenant of Noah. A particular sin is arrogance, in which Babylon excelled. Her ancient creed: Everything has a price and nothing else matters. Whatever she needed she bought or stole from others. What good is gold if there is no one left alive to spend it? Reaffirming His plan to shatter the ancient order of things, God warns that Babylon has provoked His anger as no other nation. No man would be left alive. The splendor of Babylon's courts, with servants from all over the world, would find them all fleeing to their homelands. The Medo-Persians would spare no one and nothing of the Babylonian people.
With all her wealth, she could not, however, buy off the Medo-Persian conquerors. We have records of the Medes joining forces under Cyrus as true believers, not moved by the prospect of plunder. They served from motives the Babylonians could not comprehend. While Persians were at this time unknown, the Medes had already distinguished themselves a archers with trademark long bows, sometimes made of metal. This allowed them to double as close combat weapons, rather like staves. When Babylon was rising against the Assyrians, they hired the Medes as allies, but then betrayed them. So it was the Medo-Persian Empire conquered with an insatiable lust for destruction. While preserving cultural treasures such as the ancient libraries of clay tablets, they spared no life.
Babylon did bake many bricks for building, but the vast majority of her structures were lesser sun-dried bricks, rather like those of Egypt, mud with straw packed hard into very large blocks. There were places where this was the filler under baked bricks. Remove the outer cover and the first good rain would begin melting the interior fill. The Medo-Persian troops wasted no time pulling down the harder brickworks. In just a few generations, Babylon melted back into the swampy flats from which it was built. The fading structures would become the haunts of beasts of prey, something encouraged by the Medo-Persian rulers, so great was their hatred for Babylon.
Today we are hard put to find much of the ancient capital. Babylon is forgotten in the dust. Sadly, her spirit lives on. The Apostle John quotes freely the images and symbols Isaiah left. Babylon would rise again and again until that final day when the Lord returns to wipe her clean from human memory.
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By Ed Hurst
20 August 2008, revised 01 February 2013
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