Isaiah 47

The Fall of the Lady of Kingdoms

Proud Babylon, who said “I am, and none else beside me,” is ordered off her throne into the dust, and her astrologers cannot save her.

Addressed to the exiles, shortly before Babylon’s fall in 539 BC Read with footnotes in Gospel Library

Background

Chapter 46 showed Babylon’s gods carried off like baggage. Chapter 47 turns to the city herself.

Chapter 46 showed Babylon’s gods carried off like baggage. Chapter 47 turns to the city herself. It is a taunt song, a mocking lament over a fallen enemy, a genre Isaiah used earlier against the king of Babylon (Isa. 14:4–21). The city is personified as a pampered queen who is suddenly stripped of her throne and put to work as a slave.

In the sixth century BC Babylon was the greatest city on earth. Nebuchadnezzar had rebuilt it on a colossal scale: double walls, the Ishtar Gate with its blue-glazed bricks and processional way, the great ziggurat Etemenanki (“house of the foundation of heaven and earth”) that many associate with the tower of Babel, and the temple of Marduk, Esagila. Its priests and scholars were famous across the ancient world for their astronomy and divination.

The poem predicts a sudden and total fall. What happened in history was more complicated, and worth knowing. Cyrus took Babylon in 539 BC without a battle, and the city remained important for centuries under the Persians and Alexander the Great. It declined gradually after the Seleucid kings founded a new capital nearby around 300 BC, and by the first centuries AD it was largely abandoned. The empire fell in a day. The city faded over centuries. And Babylon as a symbol, in Revelation and in latter-day revelation, outlasted both.

The thread through the chapter

Isaiah 47 is about pride that imitates God, and how it falls. The poem opens with a reversal.

Isaiah 47 is about pride that imitates God, and how it falls.

The poem opens with a reversal. The “virgin daughter of Babylon,” once “tender and delicate,” is ordered off her throne to sit in the dust. She has to grind grain at the millstone, the lowest work of a slave woman, strip off her veil, and wade across rivers into exile (verses 1–3). Babylon had done this to others. Now it is done to her.

Why? The Lord admits that He handed Israel over to Babylon as punishment (verse 6). But Babylon went too far: “thou didst shew them no mercy; upon the ancient hast thou very heavily laid thy yoke.” And Babylon’s arrogance grew beyond cruelty into blasphemy. Twice she says, “I am, and none else beside me” (verses 8, 10), the very words the Lord has been using of Himself throughout these chapters (Isa. 45:5–6, Isa. 45:18, Isa. 45:21–22). Babylon has claimed to be God.

The punishment fits the claim. The one who said “I shall not sit as a widow” loses husband and children “in one day” (verses 8–9). The one who trusted in “wisdom and… knowledge” (verse 10) finds that her astrologers and stargazers, who charted the heavens every month, can’t even warm themselves by their own fire (verses 13–14). Everyone she relied on wanders off, and “none shall save thee” (verse 15).

Babylon never became a real “lady for ever.” That title belongs to no human power. The chapter warns every age that the proud city always says the same thing, and always falls the same way.

Tap any highlighted phrase to open a note beneath its versein the margin.

Verses 1–4

Off the throne and into the dust

In plain words

Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans. You will no longer be called soft and delicate. Take millstones and grind flour. Remove your veil, lift up your skirt, bare your legs, and wade through the rivers. Your nakedness will be exposed, and your shame will be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one. Our Redeemer, whose name is the Lord of hosts, is the Holy One of Israel.

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.

Imagery & Symbol #

The virgin daughter of Babylon

Hebrew poetry often personifies cities as women: “the daughter of Zion” (Isa. 1:8), “the virgin, the daughter of Zion” (Isa. 37:22).

Hebrew poetry often personifies cities as women: “the daughter of Zion” (Isa. 1:8), “the virgin, the daughter of Zion” (Isa. 37:22). “Virgin daughter” (bĕtûlat bat) suggests a city that has never been conquered. Babylon had never fallen to a foreign army in the Neo-Babylonian period, and she thought she never would.

Now she is ordered down from her throne to sit in the dust, the posture of mourning (Job 2:8; Lam. 2:10). The reversal is precise. In Isa. 52:2 the Lord will tell captive Zion to do the opposite: “Shake thyself from the dust; arise, and sit down, O Jerusalem.” The two cities trade places. That exchange is at the center of Isaiah’s vision. The proud city comes down; the humbled city is raised up.

2 Take the millstones, and grind meal: uncover thy locks, make bare the leg, uncover the thigh, pass over the rivers.

History & Setting #

At the millstone

Grinding grain with a hand mill was the hardest and lowest household work, done by slave women and captives.

Grinding grain with a hand mill was the hardest and lowest household work, done by slave women and captives. The plague on the firstborn in Egypt reached from Pharaoh’s son “unto the firstborn of the maidservant that is behind the mill” (Ex. 11:5). The Philistines humiliated the captured Samson by making him grind in the prison house (Judg. 16:21).

The rest of the verse describes a woman being marched into exile: the veil removed, skirts lifted to wade across rivers. Babylonian armies had driven captives across the rivers of Mesopotamia, including the people of Judah. Now the queen herself will go the same way. Verse 3 carries the humiliation further, and Isaiah uses the language of exposure frankly; the point is total disgrace.

The words “I will not meet thee as a man” at the end of verse 3 are obscure. The most likely meaning is “I will spare no one” or “no one will intercede.” The Hebrew verb pāgaʿ can mean “to meet” or “to intercede” (Isa. 53:12, “made intercession”).

Sources: Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.

3 Thy nakedness shall be uncovered, yea, thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a man.

4 As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel.

Verses 5–7

No mercy for the elderly

In plain words

Sit in silence and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans. You will no longer be called the queen of kingdoms. I was angry with My people. I profaned My inheritance and handed them over to you. You showed them no mercy. Even on the elderly you laid a very heavy yoke. You said, “I will be the queen forever.” You didn’t take these things to heart or think about how it would all end.

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.

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.

Word & Language #

The instrument that went too far

The Lord is candid: He was angry with Israel and gave them into Babylon’s hand.

The Lord is candid: He was angry with Israel and gave them into Babylon’s hand. Babylon was His instrument of judgment, as Assyria had been earlier (Isa. 10:5–7). But being an instrument didn’t license cruelty. Babylon “didst shew them no mercy,” and even laid a crushing yoke on the elderly.

The book of Lamentations remembers exactly that: “Princes are hanged up by their hand: the faces of elders were not honoured” (Lam. 5:12). Zechariah states the principle: “I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction” (Zech. 1:15). God may permit judgment, but those who carry it out are still accountable for how they do it.

The same principle runs through the Book of Mormon, where the Lord repeatedly uses the Lamanites to “stir up” the Nephites to remembrance (2 Ne. 5:25), yet holds everyone responsible for their own violence.

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.

Word & Language #

“A lady for ever”

“Lady” is gĕberet, “mistress” or “queen,” the feminine of gĕbîr, “master.”

“Lady” is gĕberet, “mistress” or “queen,” the feminine of gĕbîr, “master.” It is the title of a queen mother or the mistress of a household (Gen. 16:4, where Sarai is Hagar’s “mistress”). In verse 5 Babylon is “the lady of kingdoms.”

Babylon’s mistake was not just pride. It was a failure of imagination: “thou didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end of it.” She never considered that her position might end. Empires, companies, reputations, and people all make this mistake. What has always been seems as if it always will be. Moses prayed for the opposite wisdom: “So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

Verses 8–11

“I am, and none else beside me”

In plain words

So now listen, you lover of luxury, who sit securely and say to yourself, “I am, and there is no one else. I will never be a widow or lose my children.” Both of these things will come on you suddenly, in a single day: the loss of children and widowhood. They will come on you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your powerful spells. You felt secure in your wickedness. You said, “No one sees me.” Your wisdom and knowledge led you astray, and you said to yourself, “I am, and there is no one else.” But disaster will come on you, and you won’t know how to charm it away. Calamity will fall on you, and you won’t be able to buy it off. Ruin you don’t expect will come on you suddenly.

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:

Restoration Insight #

Babylon claims the divine name

“I am, and none else beside me” (ʾănî wĕʾapsî ʿôd) is almost exactly what the Lord says of Himself in the preceding chapters: “I am the LORD, and there is none else” (Isa. 45:5,…

“I am, and none else beside me” (ʾănî wĕʾapsî ʿôd) is almost exactly what the Lord says of Himself in the preceding chapters: “I am the LORD, and there is none else” (Isa. 45:5, Isa. 45:6, Isa. 45:18; compare Isa. 46:9). Babylon repeats it twice (verses 8, 10). She has claimed the place of God. Zephaniah records Nineveh saying the same words before its fall: “I am, and there is none beside me” (Zeph. 2:15).

The book of Revelation takes up the whole passage in its vision of the fall of “Babylon the great.” She says in her heart, “I sit a queen, and am no widow, and shall see no sorrow,” and therefore “shall her plagues come in one day” (Rev. 18:7–8). Isaiah’s Babylon has become the type of every proud, worldly power that sets itself up in God’s place.

Latter-day revelation uses the same symbol. The Lord describes a world in which “every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world,” and He calls it “Babylon the great, which shall fall” (D&C 1:16). He commands His people, “Go ye out from Babylon” (D&C 133:5, D&C 133:14). In these passages Babylon isn’t a place on a map. It’s a way of living.

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.

Liken It #

Knowledge that misleads

Babylon was the intellectual capital of the ancient world. Its scholars kept astronomical records for centuries, developed mathematics in base sixty (the reason we still divide…

Babylon was the intellectual capital of the ancient world. Its scholars kept astronomical records for centuries, developed mathematics in base sixty (the reason we still divide hours into sixty minutes), and compiled vast libraries of omen literature. Isaiah doesn’t sneer at learning as such. His point is that Babylon’s wisdom “perverted” her, literally “turned her aside,” because it fed her conviction that “none seeth me.”

Jacob, Nephi’s brother, made the same point about his own people: “When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God… But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2 Ne. 9:28–29). The problem is never knowledge. It is knowledge that forgets it is accountable.

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.

Verses 12–15

Let the astrologers save you

In plain words

So keep at your spells and your many sorceries, which you have practiced since your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will strike terror. You are worn out by all your advisers. Let your astrologers come forward and save you, those who study the heavens and gaze at the stars and make predictions month by month about what will happen to you. Look, they are like straw; fire will burn them up. They can’t even save themselves from the flames. This is no fire of coals to keep warm by, no hearth to sit beside. That is all they will be to you, those you have worked with and traded with since your youth. Each of them will wander off his own way. There will be no one to save you.

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.

History & Setting #

The stargazers of Babylon

The three terms describe real Babylonian specialists. “Astrologers” is literally “those who divide the heavens” (hōbĕrê šāmayim), probably astronomers who mapped the sky into sections.

The three terms describe real Babylonian specialists. “Astrologers” is literally “those who divide the heavens” (hōbĕrê šāmayim), probably astronomers who mapped the sky into sections. “Stargazers” (haḥōzîm bakkôkābîm) watched the stars for omens. The “monthly prognosticators” (môdîʿim leḥŏdāšîm, “those who make known at the new moons”) issued predictions each month, when the new crescent appeared.

Babylonian scholars really did this. The great omen series Enūma Anu Enlil catalogued thousands of celestial signs and what they portended for the king and the land. The Astronomical Diaries, a continuous series of observations recorded in Babylon from at least the seventh century BC into the first century BC, are among the longest scientific records from the ancient world. Babylonian astronomy was genuinely sophisticated, and the Greeks learned from it.

Isaiah’s challenge is not to their accuracy but to their power: “stand up, and save thee.” The Lord, who calls every star by name (Isa. 40:26), is the one who actually rules the heavens they watched.

Sources: Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah, Anchor Bible, 3 vols. New York: Doubleday, 2000–2003.

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.

15 Thus shall they be unto thee with whom thou hast laboured, even thy merchants, from thy youth: they shall wander every one to his quarter; none shall save thee.

Liken It #

Everyone goes home

The chapter ends with Babylon’s business partners, the merchants who had traded with her “from thy youth,” simply wandering away, each to his own place.

The chapter ends with Babylon’s business partners, the merchants who had traded with her “from thy youth,” simply wandering away, each to his own place. No one fights for her. No one mourns. When the market closes, the traders leave.

Revelation expands this into a whole lament of the merchants who stand far off, weeping over Babylon because “no man buyeth their merchandise any more” (Rev. 18:11). The relationships Babylon built were transactional, and transactional relationships end when the transaction does.

The contrast with Israel could hardly be stronger. The Lord promises to carry His people to old age (Isa. 46:4) and never to forget them (Isa. 49:15). The final words of chapter 47 are “none shall save thee.” The Lord has already said of Himself, “beside me there is no saviour” (Isa. 43:11).

Seeing Christ in Isaiah 47

In the middle of the taunt song comes a single line of worship: “As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel” (verse 4). Babylon says “I am, and none else beside me.” Israel’s Redeemer is the only one who can truly say that, and He uses His power not to crush but to redeem. The proud city is brought down to the dust; the Redeemer raises the humble from it (Isa. 52:2).

Jesus Christ is that Redeemer. He is the opposite of Babylon in every way. She exalted herself and was humbled; He “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death… Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him” (Philip. 2:8–9). She showed no mercy to the aged; He is “the Lord Omnipotent” who came down “among the children of men… healing the sick” (Mosiah 3:5).

Liken it to yourself

Where in my life am I tempted to say, in effect, “I am, and none else beside me”?
Babylon “didst not lay these things to thy heart, neither didst remember the latter end.” What in my life do I assume will always be the way it is?
Are my relationships more like Babylon’s merchants, or like the Lord’s covenant with Israel?
Has my learning ever made me feel that “none seeth me”? How can I keep knowledge humble?
The Lord says, “Go ye out from Babylon.” What would that mean for me this year?

Worth exploring next

Babylon as a symbol. Read Isa. 13–14, Isa. 47, Jer. 50–51, Rev. 17–18, D&C 1:16, and D&C 133:5–14.
Proud cities. Compare Babylon’s boast with Nineveh’s in Zeph. 2:13–15 and Tyre’s in Ezek. 28:1–10.
Learning and humility. Read 2 Ne. 9:28–29, 2 Ne. 28:4–15, and D&C 88:118.
The two daughters. Read Isa. 47:1–3 and Isa. 52:1–2 side by side.

This chapter elsewhere in scripture

Rev. 18:7–8 — Babylon the great says “I sit a queen, and am no widow,” and falls in one day.
Zeph. 2:15 — Nineveh says “I am, and there is none beside me.”
D&C 1:16 — Babylon the great, the world that walks after its own gods, shall fall.

Sources & further reading

Shalom M. Paul, Isaiah 40–66: Translation and Commentary, Eerdmans Critical Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2012.
Claus Westermann, Isaiah 40–66: A Commentary, Old Testament Library. Philadelphia: Westminster, 1969.
Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah, Anchor Bible, 3 vols. New York: Doubleday, 2000–2003.
Brevard S. Childs, Isaiah, Old Testament Library. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2001.
“Babylon or Babel”, Bible Dictionary.
James B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament, 3rd ed. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.
Chapter 16: The God of Israel and the Nations (Isaiah 36–47), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003).

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