Isaiah 13

The oracle is a burden concerning Babylon—the city and empire which Wesley names as fallen by Cyrus. This title is commonly given to sad prophecies, grievous to them on whom they are laid. Isaiah sees an earnest word against an empire, not a cipher for a modern map.

The warning is a serious call. Babylon’s pomp is chosen arrogance under a judgment. The son of Amoz is; he is laying God’s burden on proud Babylon.

Calvin: there is nothing of which it is more difficult to convince men than that the providence of God governs this world. This word makes known to the godly that the Lord appoints all calamities and afflictions, that every one may suffer the punishment of his own sin. It was difficult to believe a monarchy so flourishing could be overturned.

The oracle is not fortune. Sovereignty here is; it is the Lord ruling while an empire boasts.

Wesley: a banner to gather soldiers together; a mountain whence it may be discerned at a considerable distance. He seems to intimate that their enemies should come from the mountainous country of Media. Shake—beckon to them with your hand, that they may go and fight against Babylon, and take it, and so enter in to the palaces of the king and his princes.

The signal is a public summons toward Media, not toward a modern superpower. Cry aloud is a call into gates. Babylon’s nobles are named because their pride is about to be entered.

Calvin: a private man here commands the Medes and Persians, assembles armies, orders a banner to be lifted up. This should lead us to consider the majesty of God, in whose name he spoke. They will be ready at the bidding of God, because they are moved by his secret influence.

The prophet’s cry is God’s. When God has spoken about what shall happen, we ought to entertain no doubt concerning it. The road into the gates of the nobles will be plain when he gives the signal.

Wesley: sanctified ones—the Medes and Persians, so called because they were set apart by God for this holy work of executing his just vengeance. Mighty ones—those whom I have made mighty for this work. Highness—in my glory, in the doing of that work which tends to the advancement of my glory. Tho’ the Medes had no regard to God, but only to their own ends.

God sets them apart for vengeance; their own ends are still theirs. They are not holy in motive; they are consecrated as instruments. Babylon’s judgment is just, and the warning still calls the proud to humble themselves before the anger they chose to provoke.

Calvin: he calls the Medes and Persians sanctified ones, those whom he has prepared. He does not throw down men at random on the earth; he regulates and controls the violent passions of the reprobate. They are set apart and prepared to execute his will, though they had no such intention. Though prompted by their own ambition, pride, and cruelty, God directed them, without knowing it, to execute his judgment.

“I have commanded” is the LORD’s decree. Even pagan mighty men serve as weapons of his indignation. The host is summoned; the anger is his.

Wesley: nations—the Medes and Persians and other nations which served under them in this war. The sound is of a host gathering against Babylon, not of a riddle about another continent.

God summons the host, and the uproar is meant to be heard. Kingdoms gather; the warning is an earnest call. Proud Babylon is told that the LORD of Armies is mustering—so the arrogant may still wail while there is time.

Calvin: the Lord of hosts mustereth the host of the battle; the various nations are moved by God’s direction, and they do nothing but according to his command, as if some earthly general were to draw up his forces.

The tumult on the mountains is mustered, not accidental. Even pagan instruments serve his decree. The LORD of Armies is not a spectator of the noise.

Wesley: they come from the ends of the earth under heaven, which is not to be understood strictly. The weapons—the Medes and Persians, who were but a rod in God’s hand, and the instruments of his anger. Land—of Babylon.

Distant land, end of the heavens: far, not everywhere, and not a modern map. The land to be destroyed is Babylon’s. The rod is authentic; so is the anger Babylon earned by chosen pomp.

Calvin: the operations of war do not spring up at random from the earth; God rules on high. Armed men are nothing else than the weapons of his indignation. They will come from a distant country to overturn the monarchy of Babylon. There is no reason why we should promise to ourselves a lasting and prosperous condition.

The LORD and the weapons of his indignation come together. Pagan armies remain vessels of anger in his hand, to destroy the whole land of that empire.

Wesley is silent on this verse; nearest: he calls the burden a sad prophecy laid on Babylon, and later heaps words “to signify the extremity of his anger.” Wail, for the LORD’s day is near—against that empire, as destruction from the Almighty.

Application: the warning is an earnest call to howl, not a license to decode modern headlines. The day of the LORD here is judgment on proud Babylon, and the pattern of God’s day whenever he arises against chosen arrogance.

Calvin: he calls it the day of the Lord, because when the Lord delays his judgment, he appears to cease from the discharge of his office. He has his own appointed time. The inhabitants of Babylon will have good reason not only to cry but to howl; they shall learn by their own destruction how appropriately God is called Shaddai, strong and powerful to destroy.

Delay is not absence. Destruction from the Almighty will come at his time against Babylon. The LORD of hosts musters the day as surely as he musters the host.

Wesley, on the panic of the taking: amazed—to see so impregnable a city as Babylon, so easily and unexpectedly taken. Hands go feeble and hearts melt because the burden has reached the body.

Pride that felt impregnable can still go slack. The melting is honest terror under an actual warning. Babylon’s chosen pomp does not keep a pulse steady when God is against it.

Calvin: the power of the Lord to destroy the inhabitants of Babylon will be so great that they shall have no means of withstanding his anger. It is in the power of God to soften hearts, and to crush, loosen, or enfeeble hands or arms. How vain is that confidence which we place in outward resources.

For the hearer: melting hearts are the Lord’s doing, not a mood. Fortifications cannot hold a people God has made faint. The day of the LORD unmakes courage on the spot.

Wesley (listed with the faint hands of v. 7): flames—Hebrew faces of flame, inflamed with rage and torment. Amazed—to see so impregnable a city so easily and unexpectedly taken. Pangs like labor are the body’s confession that the day has arrived.

For the hearer: terror is honest; it can still be a call to humble oneself. Do not make a spectacle of Babylon’s anguish. Faces aflame are the fruit of chosen arrogance under judgment, not a scene to enjoy or to aim at a modern people.

Calvin: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them. The comparison of a woman that travaileth denotes not only the intensity of the grief, but likewise the suddenness. Faces of flames: when we are in agony the face glows. This kind of terror, for which there was no apparent cause, the ancients called a panic; it proceeded from God.

The labor-pains are from God. Sudden, severe, and aimed at a city that thought itself safe. The LORD of hosts can unmake a warrior’s face without a visible blow.

Wesley: behold—divers words are heaped together, to signify the extremity of his anger. Cruel, wrath, fierce anger, desolation, sinners destroyed from the land: the heap is for Babylon’s day.

The day of the LORD here is judgment on Babylon’s sinners, not a chart for decoding headlines. The warning remains a serious call: put away chosen pomp before the land is made a desolation.

Calvin: the LORD’s day is at hand to terrify those who are at ease. Why is it called cruel? What could wicked men imagine to be in God but the utmost severity? He shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it—not all men without distinction, but the ungodly and wicked who inhabited Babylon.

“Cruel” is how the ungodly meet the Judge. The land made desolate is Babylon’s. God comes as a severe Judge to those at ease in their sin; the godly hear consolation that the oppressor will not sit unpunished.

Wesley: constellations—which consist of many stars, and therefore give a greater sight. Darkened—all things shall look darkly and dismally; men shall have no comfort or hope. Going forth—as soon as he rises. As soon as they have any appearance or hope of amendment, they shall be instantly disappointed.

Application: sun, moon, and stars fail as the empire’s lights go out. Follow Wesley: this is political night and lost hope. When God hides comfort from proud Babylon, amendment dies at sunrise.

Calvin: the prophets are accustomed to add to their threatenings extravagant modes of speaking, which place the anger of God before our eyes; yet the expressions do not go beyond the dreadful nature of what took place. When the sun and moon and stars shine, God may be said to cheer us; the darkness conveys that God, by hiding his face, cast those with whom he was angry into the darkness of sorrow.

Cosmic language is prophetic weight for a political overthrow under God’s hidden face. Follow Calvin: the figures are strong because the judgment is. They are, and they are.

Wesley: the world—the Babylonish empire, which is called the world, as the Roman empire afterwards was, because it was extended to a great part of the world. Evil, iniquity, pomp, pride: the world in view is that empire’s reach, not a twenty-first-century map.

The pomp of the arrogant is chosen arrogance under judgment. The warning is a call to put the pomp down. God lays low the ruthless; he does not hand us a slogan against a modern nation.

Calvin: he does not speak of the whole world; but as Babylon was the seat of the most powerful of all monarchies, he gives to it on that account the name of the world. I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease. God cannot endure any arrogancy. Chiefly by their pride was the wrath of God kindled.

For the hearer: the LORD lays humble the arrogance of the terrible. Pride is the match that kindles wrath; the decree will put an end to it. Even this “world” is Babylon’s world under his hand.

Wesley: more precious—the city and nation shall be so depopulated. People rarer than fine gold is the cost of Babylon’s chosen pride, spoken of that city and nation.

Depopulation is not a metaphor to weaponize. It is the grief of a judged empire. Hear the warning.

Calvin: he describes how cruel and savage will be the war carried on against Babylon. The enemies will be so eager to shed blood that it will be impossible to rescue a man out of their hands at any price; they will choose rather to kill than to accept a ransom.

Men priced above Ophir because so few remain. The LORD has said it of Babylon. Sovereignty here is judgment on a ruthless empire, not a permit to prize the slaughter.

Wesley: therefore—a poetical and prophetical description of great horrors and confusions, as if heaven and earth were about to meet together. Follow him: the sky-language is poetry for horror, not a chart of the sky.

The day of his fierce anger is Babylon’s day, and the pattern of every day when God arises against pride. The warning still calls the arrogant to wail rather than to decode the heavens.

Calvin: another figure, not only to terrify the wicked, but to afford consolation to the godly. Though heaven and earth be moved, that the ungodly may be shaken and destroyed, nevertheless this will take place. The Lord will move both heaven and earth rather than not cast them down headlong.For the hearer: under the wrath of the LORD of Armies the earth is not secure for tyrants. The shake is his, in the day of his fierce anger. Cosmic tremor here serves the overthrow.

Wesley: it—Babylon. A roe—fearful in itself, especially when it is pursued by the hunter. A sheep—in a most forlorn condition. Every man—those soldiers of other nations whom she had hired to assist her.

Hired troops flee to their own lands. Babylon cannot keep the flock she bought. Fear is an earnest summons; each turns away because the city they served is under the hunter.

Calvin: auxiliary troops will be of no avail to the Babylonians. They will all be like roes, which are timorous creatures, and like scattered sheep, so that they will neither repair to their standards nor preserve any order. The hearts of men are in the hand of God in such a manner that those who formerly boasted of being bold become effeminate.

God undoes courage as easily as he gives it. Foreign help scatters because he has mustered a different host. The gazelle runs on his decree, not on luck.

Wesley: found—in Babylon, at the taking of it. Whoever is found, whoever is caught: the sword is at the taking, not a parable aimed at a modern street.

Be honest—this is war-judgment. Do not sensationalize it. Do not copy it. Do not turn a Babylonian siege into a speech against a living people. The warning still calls the proud to repent of the pomp that brought the sword.

Calvin: none shall escape from Babylon; all who shall be there shall perish. Xenophon relates that, by the command of Cyrus, they slew every one that they met in the beginning of the night. The prediction extends farther; that slaughter was only the forerunner of others.

The thrust-through is the taking of the city under God’s judgment. The LORD of hosts mustered the host; he is not a spectator of the sword. Name the fall without relish, and without making the invaders’ cruelty a model.

Wesley is silent on this verse; nearest: found in Babylon at the taking of it, and later, they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb. The prophet tells the truth of ancient siege: infants dashed, houses plundered, wives ravished.

We do not defend copying the violence. We grieve, and we hear a warning against Babylon’s chosen pomp that brought this day. Honesty without sensationalism is the only pastoral tone this verse will bear.

Calvin: he draws a picture of extreme cruelty. It is the utmost pitch of ferocity exercised by an invading army, when no age is spared, and infants, whose age makes it impossible for them to defend themselves, are slain in the sight of their parents. To the same purpose is the plundering of houses and the ravishing of wives, when enemies have forgotten all humanity. The Lord, though he is not cruel, makes use of agents who are so cruel; he acts righteously even by the agency of wicked men, and is not stained with their wickedness.

Name the horror without relish. God judges Babylon; he is not stained by the invaders’ crimes. This is not a permit to imitate them. War-judgment is spoken so the godly would know the oppressor would not sit unpunished—not so we would learn their ferocity.