Isaiah 13:5
They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land.
The verse declares that the Lord Himself comes from a far country, from the end of heaven, with forces mustered from afar as the weapons of His indignation to destroy the whole land. It belongs to the burden against literal Babylon on the Euphrates, and the invading force is identified as the Medes, with the Medes and Persians serving as God's instruments to humble her. It foretells the destruction, doom and lasting utter desolation of Babylon as God's judgment for incorrigible wickedness and arrogance, a desolation afterward fulfilled to the letter until no living soul abides on her site. The overthrow of literal Babylon figures and illustrates the greater and more fearful destruction of mystical Babylon at the last day, reaching to the final overthrow of Babylon and the ruin of the nations and the world. That final fulfillment is the great day of the Lord and of His wrath, a day of tumult and fierce anger with the shaking of the earth and the powers of heaven in immediate connection with the coming of the Lord, when the angry nations arming to the teeth in the last days come as the weapons of His indignation and the approach of that destruction from the Almighty must be heralded by warning through the people of God.
Setting and Plain Sense
Isaiah 13:5 stands in chapters 13-23, a series of burdens against Babylon, Philistia, Moab and other foreign nations, belonging to the first main division of Isaiah, chapters 1-39. That first division consists of single distinct prophecies and historical accounts published at different times and on different occasions and afterward gathered into one collection. Isaiah prophesied between 760 and 698 B.C., beginning as a young man in the reign of Uzziah and continuing through Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah, in crucial times in Judah typical of the great days to come. That early work was done during his active public work as God's messenger to rulers and people in national affairs. It is part of Isaiah's own prediction of the approaching Babylonish captivity, whose promised deliverance is announced in the second part, chapters 40-66, written in his later years apart from active exertion with contemplation fixed wholly on the future. That second part names the monarch Jehovah will send to punish the insolence of the oppressors and lead the people home, and joins that freedom from Babylonish exile to deliverance from sin and error through the Messiah and the glory of the spiritual kingdom of God and its exalted Founder.
The prophecy concerns the literal city of Babylon on the Euphrates, whose name is connected with the confusion of languages at Babel. Much of it applies to that city, which existed and later suffered its doom. The prophecy of Babylon's destruction was given before the city reached the height of its glory. It was given before Babylon fell.
The verse means the Lord comes from a far country, from the end of heaven, with a host mustered from far away as the weapons of His indignation to destroy the whole land. Those coming from far away are forces sent as the Lord's instruments of indignation to bring destruction upon the land. The following verses identify the invading force as the Medes stirred up against Babylon. The Medes and Persians served as instruments to humble ancient Babylon in its fall.
Babylon's Ruin Accomplished
The verse belongs to a prophecy foretelling the destruction, doom and lasting utter desolation of Babylon as God's judgment. That prophecy was given before the city reached the height of its glory, and it points not merely to its overthrow but to its eventual ruin. The destruction was not completed when the Persians overthrew Babylon, for Babylon declined gradually and became desolate, fulfilling the prophecy literally.
The prophecy has been fulfilled to the letter, for the site of ancient Babylon is overturned and empty with no living soul abiding on it. The Arabian will not pitch tent there, avoiding the place as under a curse. Even the Arabs stopping there temporarily, chiefly helpers in the excavation work at the ruins, built their mud huts half a mile farther west in the bed of the ancient river, which has now shifted.
The Lord coming from a far country with the weapons of His indignation to destroy the whole land is the complete and everlasting overthrow of Babylon. Old Babylon with its sun-worship and idolatrous practices was the great mother of evils. Its overthrow was caused by incorrigible wickedness and arrogance.
Final Judgment and Warning
The prophecy passes from the ruin of literal Babylon on the Euphrates to the greater and more fearful ruin of mystical Babylon at the last day, for a local judgment figures and illustrates the greater destruction that ushers in the great day of the Lord. The literal city and its punishment serve as a fitting figure of those final judgments, so the language spans both the historical judgment and the end-time destruction.
The complete and everlasting overthrow described here reaches beyond the ancient city to the final overthrow of Babylon and the ruin of the nations and the world. Old Babylon with its sun-worship and idolatrous practices was the great mother of evils, and Babylon stands in Scripture as a symbol of the evils of succeeding ages to the end of time. Its overthrow for incorrigible wickedness and arrogance is set forth as a type of the everlasting overthrow of the whole world for its evils at the day of the Lord, when the world will again be going almost wholly to evil. The prophecy reaches beyond the earthly king to Lucifer, Babylon's highest king and the source of its wickedness, while also holding forth God's refuge from that doom.
The verse belongs to the description of the great day of the Lord, emphatically the great day of His wrath, a day of tumult, wrath and fierce anger. It involves the shaking of the earth and of the powers of the heavens in immediate connection with the coming of the Lord, not as a sign beforehand. It brings dismay upon the inhabitants of the earth, so that for fear of the majesty of the Lord they seek shelter and a hiding place in the rocks. The evils to come in that day exceed all evils God has ever brought upon men, and because God always warns before bringing great evil and has promised to reveal what He will do, its approach must be heralded by a warning given through the people of God living when the day is near at hand.
The prophecy shifts from the fall of ancient Babylon by the Medes and Persians as instruments to humble it, to the day of the Lord and the punishment of sinners in modern Babylon. The fall of Babylon is used as a type of the end of the world, coupled with the return to Zion as a picture of the Gospel dispensation. The Lord of hosts mustering the host of battle, coming from a far country from the end of heaven with weapons of indignation to destroy the whole land, are the angry, greedy, jealous nations arming to the teeth in the last days to settle old scores and gain advantage. Their gathering appears in the strengthening of national and racial feeling and in the tumultuous noise of kingdoms of nations gathered together, in tremendous sustained preparation for war as a fiery trial of peoples greater than any since ancient times, and this conflict is the day of the Lord at hand coming as destruction from the Almighty.
The same gathering is a threatening war-cloud of immense armies and weapons of destruction, as signs of the final crisis and the outpouring of God's wrath. It is now fulfilled in the anger of all nations and their preparations for war, when the proclamation of saving truth has ripened the tares for the sickle and the battle commenced is between the beast or Antichristian power and the Lamb. From that day of wrath men must escape by hearing the last warning message and refusing the worship, mark and number of the beast. In the setting of Christ's second advent the verse applies to the final overthrow of all nations, connected with the earth's desolation after the wicked are destroyed and the saints are taken to heaven, before the earth is renewed and the wicked are raised after the thousand years.
Not all beasts and birds are destroyed at the second coming but live on as at present, propagating their kind amid the ruins of earth and increasing enormously during the thousand years between the second coming and the resurrection of the wicked, providing sustenance for the hosts then called forth. God's judgments against Babylon teach lessons for cities and people that forget and defy God, including New York, Chicago and San Francisco. Babylon's unheeded warning ended in doom, showing warnings may go unheeded until judgment comes. Warnings of judgment should lead not merely to an impulse to improve but to a settled principle of doing right.