Isaiah 47

1. Isaiah 47

2. ISAIAH CH 47 690 BC

3. Isaiah 47 This is part of 8 consecutive chapters in Isaiah where God speaks in the First Person of His unique status as the One and Only God: the God of power and of creation we can never fathom the God of wisdom and good counsel the God Who can rightly ridicule all pretenders and goddies the God Who loves people and vows to protect Israel the God Who sets kings up and brings them down the God Who uses kings, people, nature and history for purposes of His own the God of the NT Gospel of redemption and restoration, through Christ, His Anointed One (Good News) the God of judgment (Bad News)

4. Isaiah 47 1. Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. “Virgin daughter of Babylon…” is a phrase that evokes a lot of historical context. Starting with Babel (the tower, etc.), codified religion that opposes the REAL God began. Mystery religion. Occultism. Priestcraft. Spiritual enslavement of the “ordinary” people. Great, elaborate temples and rituals. Sacrifice (even human). Astrology, and the ascribing to heavenly bodies and motions inordinate powers and influences. Altered states of consciousness through drugs, dance and chanting. Among the goddies of Babylon was Babalon, a female goddie of sensuality and fertility – expressed elsewhere as Ishtar, Astarte, Venus and Diana. Babalon, the goddess of all pleasure, known as the Virgin Whore.[54] and Therion, the beast that Babalon rides, who represents the wild animal within man, a force of nature. This goes back to ancient Egypt, and is incorporated in the modern New Age stuff.

5. Isaiah 47 1. Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. “Virgin daughter of Babylon…” is also a phrase which refers to the fact that Nebuchadnezzar’s empire, circa 590 BC, is a renewal of an older Babylon that goes back to circa 2000 BC (the famous Hammurabi, etc.). In between, we have the Assyrian Empire, ruled mostly from Nineveh, starting about 1000 BC after they acquired the secrets of iron weapons and chariots from the Hittites. This “neo-Babylon”, presided over by Nebuchadnezzar, brought the capital back to Babylon itself, and was quite spectacular (the famous Hanging Gardens, etc.) In that sense, this neo-Babylon could truly be said to be a daughter of the original one. There is about a 400-year separation. As you can see from this artist’s rendition, history records Nebuchadnezzar’s Babylon as a city and empire more splendid and wealthy than anything before it.

6. Isaiah 47 1. Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon, sit on the ground: there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called tender and delicate. “Virgin daughter of Babylon…” is told to “sit on the ground”. No longer lofty nor proud; “in the dust”, like a dead dog that will turn to dust. Remember, this prophecy is given circa 690 BC, while Assyria was still in its heyday, and neo-Babylon wasn’t even thought of yet! But here God is, talking about a recrudescent, resurrected Babylon, and telling it that its glory days are already over. That is God’s foreknowledge powerfully at work. It is both a warning (beforehand) and an “I told-you-so” (afterward). “…tender and delicate…” is a way of characterizing a people who have become so wealthy they lose their edge, their toughness, their survivability, their wariness and caution – their conservatism. Gone. Sound familiar? It has happened to numerous empires over history. “…no throne…” the empire is over, almost before it starts.

7. Isaiah 47 2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers. 3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: From that time on, you’ll become very ordinary (that is, if you survive). Your weakness will be exposed. You’ll be slaves. You’ll be hired out like whores. You’ll be refugees. What you’ve done to other countries is about to be done to you. 3b. …I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man. Vengeance? For what? For (in the future) taking Judah and looting the Temple. But God told them to! Yeah, but they didn’t have to gloat; they didn’t have to misuse the holy vessels in their revelry. “…and I will not meet thee as a man.” That’s right. If God were a man, Babylon might have a chance. But He’s not, so they don’t. He is God, and that’s Who they will encounter. “Prepare to meet thy God.” (as God spoke to Israel in Amos 4:12). That’s a message for us all, too.

8. Isaiah 47 4 As for our redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Here, Isaiah is privileged to mention yet another time, the Son of God, the ONE Who can and always will stand up for Israel. The great mention here of “redeemer” is yet another OT reference to His intention, and His ability, to buy us back from darkness and to translate us into His own Kingdom. Notice, too, that Christ our Lord is the Lord of Hosts, the One often mentioned in the OT as the Lord of all Heaven, that is, GOD Himself! 5 Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for thou shalt no more be called, The lady of kingdoms. So don’t just sit down in the dust; you must also shut up. Your day of influence is over. You will be obscure; no one will see you anymore. You’ll be irrelevant. Chaldeans is mentioned for the second time. It is both geographical and religious – Chaldeans is another name for “mystery priests”.

9. Isaiah 47 6 I was wroth with my people, I have polluted mine inheritance, and given them into thine hand: thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke. Yes, I (God) used you (Babylon) to put Israel through some refining paces. But do you know what it cost Me (God)? Do you know what pollution I put up with to use the likes of you, you satan-worshippers? But I did, while I held My nose. I handed them over to you. But you didn’t have to mistreat them. You didn’t have to mistreat the old people, either, overworking them. And you failed to recognize who you were working with; these are my people, and they and I go back a long way. You could’ve and should’ve shown some respect. Now you’re gonna get yours. 7 And thou saidst, I shall be a lady for ever: so that thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it. Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, Byzantium, HRE, Britain, Nazis, Communists, ……….America………, take note. You never learn.

10. Isaiah 47 8 Therefore hear now this, thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children: 9 But these two things shall come to thee in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood: they shall come upon thee in their perfection for the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments. 10 For thou hast trusted in thy wickedness: thou hast said, None seeth me. Thy wisdom and thy knowledge, it hath perverted thee; and thou hast said in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me. Compare this with other scriptures: To the church at Laodicea, Rev. 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: God does not like that attitude. Of the whore in Revelation 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities. 6 Reward her even as she rewarded you, and double unto her double according to her works: in the cup which she hath filled fill to her double. 7 How much she hath glorified herself, and lived deliciously, so much torment and sorrow give her: for she saith in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow. 8 Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire: for strong is the Lord God who judgeth her. Sound familiar? It’s almost too much to take in. Read all of Rev. 17-18 for context.

11. Isaiah 47 11 Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth: and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off: and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know. God is forecasting the demise of neo-Babylon, even how it will happen, in the middle of the night, immediately after the handwriting was seen on the wall. Sometimes, if you wait until you see the handwriting on the wall, it’s already too late. And you won’t know where it ‘s coming from. In the account of the night the Medes and Persians took over Babylon, it came all of a sudden. It was over almost before it started. They were caught in a drunken stupor.

12. Isaiah 47 12 Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail. 13 Thou art wearied in the multitude of thy counsels. Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up, and save thee from these things that shall come upon thee. 14 Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: there shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it. As God said in Chapters 44-46, He taunts the goddies with their own ineptitude. He is saying that all their works will just be burned up and turn to ashes. The major implication for us is that some of the aspects of old Babylon are now being visited upon the earth again: tyranny, anti-God false religion, new-age mysticism, and guess what – the Roman Catholic Church hijacked Christianity and turned it into a priestcraft religion a lot like that of the Chaldeans. It is for this reason that the prophecy concerning old Babylon in this chapter, and the prophecies about future Babylon in Revelation, are so similar (the whore, drunken, naked, abandoned). So similar.``