Isaiah 13:4, commentary and pictures

The verse pictures a loud tumult of many kingdoms assembled together in the mountains as a great army which the Lord of hosts himself gathers and commands for battle. It was spoken beforehand against Babylon before the city reached its glory, and was fulfilled when the Medes and Persians humbled it and it sank by degrees into desolate uninhabited ruins. What befell literal Babylon is a figure of a greater and everlasting overthrow, for the vision reaches forward to mystical Babylon and to the ruin of the nations at the end of time. It therefore directs thought to the great day of the Lord in fierce anger just before his coming, when the nations are angry and gather beneath a threatening cloud of rivalry, military preparation and war as part of his judgment. Yet the same mustering assures that he goes before his people in the struggle unto victory, and warns every proud city and people who forget and defy him that wickedness brings ruin.

Context and Ancient Fulfillment

Isaiah, whose name means Jehovah is salvation, prophesied between 760 and 698 B.C., beginning in the reign of Uzziah and continuing through Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah in crucial times in Judah typical of the great days to come. It stands in the first part of the book, chapters 1-39, in the third section, a series of burdens on Babylon, Philistia, Moab and other nations covering chapters 13-23. It belongs to a section of predictions concerning Babylon.

Those first thirty-nine chapters were given during Isaiah's active public work mingling in the concerns of rulers and people as God's messenger to the nation, put forth as single distinct prophecies at different times and on different occasions and afterward gathered into one collection. It does not belong to the wholly future second part in chapters 40 to 66, written in his later years apart from active work with contemplation turned to coming deliverance from Babylonian captivity, to the named monarch sent to punish oppressors and bring the people home, and to deliverance from sin and error through the Messiah and the glory of God's spiritual kingdom. Its position cannot be fixed by dividing the book chronologically under Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, because several chapters are transposed and inserted out of chronological order.

It belongs to a prophecy about Babylon and its downfall, spoken before the city reached the height of its glory and before Babylon fell. The prophecy of Babylon's destruction was beyond human foresight. It foretells Babylon's destruction. In its chapter context it belongs to a prophecy directed against foreign nations.

The prophecy in the thirteenth of Isaiah against ancient Babylon has been fulfilled to the letter. Ancient Babylon was humbled by the Medes and Persians, but the destruction was not completed when the Persians overthrew Babylon; the prophecy pointed to its eventual ruin, which came as the city gradually declined, decayed and became desolate. The excavated ruins and uninhabited site are presented as evidence that the prophecies of Isaiah 13 have been fulfilled. The ruins are overturned, called Mudjelibe, "the Overturned," and lie under a curse with no one living on the site of ancient Babylon. Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, for the Arabs avoid the place even for the temporary pitching of their tents, and the Arabs employed at the site have built their mud huts in the bed of the ancient river half a mile farther west.

Words and Mustered Host

The verse portrays a vast noisy crowd assembled in mountain country, sounding like a great people, a roaring tumult of kingdoms and nations gathered together for war, assembled under the command of the Lord of hosts who musters the battle host. That mustering is his own act of gathering peoples and kingdoms into one army for the overthrow at hand.

A nation can be pictured as a great towering mountain, so the multitude in the mountains and the tumult of kingdoms belong to Babylon. The comparison is one of likeness, the gathering noise being like the noise of a great people. Literal Babylon has a real history and judgment, its very name recalling Babel where languages were confused when the tower aimed at heaven was thwarted, and that history guides the mystical use of the name. The burden against Babylon rises from its earthly king to Lucifer, the power behind its wickedness and its highest king, from whose doom refuge is provided.

The forces so gathered are the Lord's mighty men and chiefs, awakened and recounted by him for the day of his preparation, stumbling and falling as the nations are broken, for the mustering is the Lord's work and not a mere human counting like a railway conductor counting passengers. The verse also shows the prophetic way of calling God's law by his name, so that what the gospel calls God's name is his law, and the Father's name on the foreheads of the 144,000 means profession of God's law.

End-Time Prophecy and Application

Much of the prophecy applied to the literal city of Babylon, while its vision reaches forward to judgments on mystical Babylon, moving from the destruction of literal Babylon to the greater and more fearful destruction of mystical Babylon at the last day. This is the common prophetic pattern of passing from a local judgment to the judgments that usher in the great day of the Lord, with the literal city and its punishment serving as a figure of those greater judgments. The fall of Babylon is thus presented as a bold type of the end of the world.

The burden of Babylon presents more than the old Babylonish kingdom with its sun-worship and idolatrous practices, for Babylon is used as a symbol of the evils of succeeding ages to the end of time. The verse therefore does not describe only things that took place in the time of old Babylon but directs thought to things to take place at the close of time immediately before the day of the Lord. The complete and everlasting overthrow of Babylon set forth in the chapter is a type of the everlasting overthrow of the whole world, because at the day of the Lord the world will again be going almost wholly to evil through incorrigible wickedness and arrogance. In the setting of Babylon's overthrow, the tumultuous gathering of nations for battle with the Lord of hosts mustering the army points beyond the fall of ancient Babylon to the final overthrow of Babylon the Great and the ruin of the nations.

The prophecy concerns ancient Babylon, which the Medes and Persians humbled, and moves from that historical judgment to the day of the Lord, when modern Babylon and all sinners will be punished. It applies to the final overthrow of all nations at the second coming of Christ. Not all the beasts and birds are destroyed at the second coming but live on as at present and propagate their kind amid the ruins of the earth, and during the thousand years between the second coming of Christ and the resurrection of the wicked their numbers are increased enormously. They form a fitting diet and provision for the sustenance of the hosts mustered for battle when the wicked are called forth.

The verse shows the great day of the Lord, emphatically the great day of His wrath and fierce anger, the day of tumult when evils greater than any ever brought upon men are to come. Its approach will be heralded by a warning sounded through His people living when that day is nigh at hand. The shaking of the powers of heaven stands in immediate connection with the coming of the Lord, not as a preliminary sign that His coming draws near, when the voice of God from heaven shakes both earth and heaven. Then probation has ended and vengeance is taken into His hands, the inhabitants of the earth are dismayed, and they seek a hiding place in the rocks for fear of the majesty of the Lord.

The gathering in tumult as an army for the battle explains why the nations are preparing for war, for this gathering is part of God's judgment. The verse is applied to the last days when the nations are angry, to intense national rivalries, military preparations, and looming conflict. Warlike nations, armed with destructive weapons and driven by rivalry and hatred, gather beneath a threatening war cloud as part of the world's movement toward the great day of God and the outpouring of His wrath.

The LORD of hosts mustering kingdoms of nations for battle against Babylon is a warning given many times and laughed at until left unheeded until doom was written weighed and wanting. The vast tumultuous gathering of nations in the mountains as the Lord musters an army for battle belongs to a warning of judgment against Babylon and serves as a lesson for cities and people who forget and defy God. Its lesson applies beyond Babylon to the cities and people of the nation, to proud cities whose open defiance and wickedness bring ruin. The same warning comes not to San Francisco alone but to New York, to Chicago, and to every other place forgetting and defying God, calling for principle to do right and not mere impulse to do better.

The Lord of hosts gathering and commanding the forces for battle supports the assurance that He goes before His people in their struggle and that the battle will end in victory. The verse serves as a daily watchword of encouragement, for that army can begin as only two poor men with a far from promising prospect. When the first two Moravian missionaries anchored at St. Thomas at midday on Saturday December 13, 1732 and felt downcast at the harbor, the gathered battle force was just the two of them with small numbers, lack of means, and a gloomy outlook, so the word about a great gathered host seemed almost a mockery, yet they trusted in the Lord and did not falter.