Behold, the day of Jehovah cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the earth desolate; and he will destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
Isaiah 13 announces judgment on Babylon, yet this verse reaches far past one ancient city. Two questions follow: has that day already come, and who is left standing when it does?
The signs attached to this announcement — the darkened sun, the failing stars — never literally occurred when Babylon fell. Commentators refuse to solve that by calling the language poetic overstatement, because the cost to Scripture would be too high.
These things cannot fairly be said to have literally taken place; yet the Spirit of God does not hesitate to connect them with Babylon's fall. To call this overstatement or exaggeration shows an unbelieving ignorance of Scripture and of the power of God. If He makes an earthly judgment sound greater than the facts, how can we be sure He does not exaggerate grace and eternal redemption?
Babylon here is more than a city on a map.
In the prophet's eyes, Babylon — or more exactly its ruler — stands for the imperial throne of the world, set against the throne of God at Jerusalem. Its idol worship is only part of the picture. Babylon will be overthrown, and God will again bless Israel. This will be the judgment of this present age — of the world. The destruction of Babylon, then close at hand, pictures it. But this judgment will not be complete until the times of the Gentiles have ended and Israel is delivered.
The verse names a specific thing, and writers are careful to keep it distinct from the moment when Christ comes to gather His own.
The plain truth is this. The phrase "coming of the Lord" can mean His presence before every eye sees Him. "The day of Jehovah" means the side of His action that brings just vengeance on the world, and after that shows Him judging in righteousness. Here it is the day of Jehovah, and so a day of darkness and destruction for sinners. There is not a word about the raising of the righteous dead, and still less about the changing of the living.
The verse joins wrath and fierce anger to the ruin of the land. What ends here is far larger than one country.
The Spirit of God has in view Jehovah's judgment of the whole world. That is why it is called "the day of Jehovah." It will end all the room given to man's will and self-exaltation. It will display God's moral ways: everything high will be brought low, and Jehovah, with the lowly whom He loves, will be lifted up for ever.
How much of the chapter is already history? One writer splits it: verses 1–10 look to the last days, while verse 17 drops back to a nearer blow.
The destruction predicted here will come when "the day of the Lord" sets in, as verses 6 and 9 show. So the terrible overthrow described in verses 1–10 will be seen in the last days. It will fall on the proud Gentile power that Babylon led. But in verse 17 the prophecy does come down to a nearer judgment, which the Medes carried out, as the book of Daniel records.
The verse says sinners will be removed from the land. That sentence describes a coming order, not the present one, and the difference between the two is where the reader stands today.
The difference in character between Christianity and the kingdom is clear. Now God sends out His pleading message of reconciliation to all sinners without distinction. It is the day of His grace, and He waits to save everyone who comes to Him in the name of Christ. Grace reigns through righteousness; but when the Lord appears He will come to reign in righteousness. Justice and judgment will be the foundation of His throne, so sinners — those who refuse to bow to His royal rule — must be destroyed out of the land. For now He waits in patience, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
A day of such wrath raises an obvious fear. It will not overtake everyone — not because some are better, but because they belong elsewhere.
That day will not come like a thief on those who are the children of the day — the children of light; and that is because they are children of the day. They have been taught in advance about the judgments of God. They belong to Him who is to be the Judge, not to the world on which the judgments will fall. They wait for Him, from heaven, who has saved them by His grace, who delivers them from the wrath to come.
- The day begins near. Babylon's real, historical fall gives the prophecy its first, partial fulfilment.
- The day reaches far. The signs here are greater than anything that happened when Babylon fell, so the words point onward — and God does not exaggerate.
- The day is defined. "The day of the LORD" is His action of vengeance on the world. It is not the moment He comes to take His own.
- The day clears the ground. Sinners are removed because righteousness is about to reign there. Man's will and self-exaltation get no more room.
- The day is not yet. Today God pleads with sinners of every kind, and those who belong to the Judge will not be overtaken when it comes.
For the stars of the heavens and the constellations thereof shall not give their light; the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.
Isaiah 13 is a prophecy against Babylon, yet at verse 10 it outgrows any single city. Every light in the sky goes out at once. So how far does this reach — to an empire that fell long ago, or to something still ahead? And is the dark sky real astronomy, or a picture of something else?
The word behind "constellations" is the Hebrew word kesil. A dictionary of Bible words explains it:
kesil means 'strong.' It is thought to refer to the constellation that people in the East call 'the giant.' See Job 9:9; Job 38:31; Amos 5:8. In Isaiah 13:10 kesil is translated 'constellations.'
Nothing like this literally happened when Babylon fell. One writer warns where it leads if we say the Spirit of God overstated that judgment.
No one can honestly say these things have literally happened; yet the Spirit of God does not hesitate to link them with Babylon's fall. To call this overstatement or exaggeration shows an unbelieving ignorance of Scripture and of the power of God... The moment people allow that the Spirit of God deliberately exaggerates, the authority of the whole written word is shaken. If He overstates an earthly judgment beyond the facts, how can we be sure He does not overstate grace and eternal redemption? And then where is the ground for solid peace with God?
The chapter itself moves between two time frames. Verses 6 and 9 tie the opening section, including our verse, to "the day of the Lord." Only later does the chapter drop down to a nearer judgment.
The destruction predicted here will come when "the day of the Lord" begins, as verses 6 and 9 show. So the terrible overthrow set out in verses 1-10 will be seen in the last days. It will fall on the proud Gentile power that Babylon headed, as we see in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. Verse 11 speaks of punishing "the world" for its evil, and of upheavals in the heavens as well as on the earth — the same things the Lord predicted in His own prophecy of the last days. But at verse 17 the prophecy does come down to a nearer judgment, the one the Medes carried out.
Why sun, moon and stars? One writer reads them as a fixed picture of rank, and points to Joseph's dream.
The sun stands for supreme authority, the moon for authority that is passed down, and the stars for the authority under them. So in Joseph's dream, Jacob, the head of the family, his wife, and his eleven sons — heads of families themselves, yet still under their father — are pictured by "the sun, the moon, and eleven stars" (Genesis 37:9). What this points to, then, is a general collapse of government: all authority, high and low, supreme and lower, darkened, as it were.
Commentators differ on whether that picture rules out real darkness. Writing on the Lord's own prophecy of these signs, one keeps room for both, and points to what happened when Jesus died.
Still, this teaching of the Lord does not use symbols as freely as the book of Revelation does. So we should not rule out real upheavals among the heavenly bodies, since we know the sun really was darkened when Jesus died. The darkness of that day will only make the brightness of His appearing stand out more, when He comes in the clouds with great power and glory.
Verse 10 sits inside "the day of the Lord," and that phrase is not a loose label for everything still future. One writer marks it off from the Lord's coming — older translations call it "the day of Jehovah."
The plain truth is this. The phrase "coming of the Lord" can cover His presence before every eye sees Him. But "the day of Jehovah" belongs to the side of His action that brings just vengeance on the world, and after that shows Him judging in righteousness. Here it is the day of Jehovah, and therefore a day of darkness and destruction to sinners.
- Lights out. Stars, constellations, sun and moon fail together. The whole system of light goes out at once, down to the giant constellation the Hebrew word names.
- Lights as rulers. Sun, moon and stars stand for authority — highest, passed down, and lower. Their going dark pictures every level of government collapsing at once.
- Lights and history. The Medes fulfilled part of this chapter, but the sky never went dark then. The Spirit of God does not exaggerate, so the words reach further.
- Lights and the world. The judgment is not limited to one city. Verse 11 punishes "the world" for its evil, and the Gentile power Babylon headed falls in the last days.
- Lights and Christ. This is the day of the Lord: darkness and destruction for sinners. Against that black sky, the brightness of His appearing stands out.
And I will punish the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; and I will make the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will bring low the haughtiness of the violent.
This verse sits inside a prophecy against Babylon, yet its words widen from one city to the whole world. Who is God punishing here, when does it happen, and why does He single out pride?
One writer argues that limiting these words to the fall of ancient Babylon does damage to Scripture itself:
Limiting this scene to the past judgment of Babylon limits the word of God and makes the Spirit look unreliable. But that is only our own evil misunderstanding and irreverent mistake. … On the other hand, we are just as certain that the Holy Spirit did include a past fulfilment as we are that He was looking on to far more than that.
So the chapter holds two fulfilments together. Another writer shows where the prophecy turns back to the nearer event:
The destruction predicted here will come when "the day of the Lord" sets in, as verses 6 and 9 show. So the terrible overthrow described in verses 1-10 belongs to the last days. It will fall on the proud Gentile power that Babylon headed, as we see in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7. Verse 11 speaks of punishing "the world" for their iniquity, and of shaking in the heavens as well as the earth, which the Lord also predicted in His own prophecy. But in verse 17 the prophecy does come down to a nearer judgment, which the Medes carried out, as the book of Daniel records.
One writer takes "the world" to mean the inhabited earth and everything it glories in, and finds both ends of society in view:
One sees in the world either the arrogance of the man who has the upper hand, or the envy of the man who is below. God will cause the pride of man to cease in both ways; He will punish (as here) not the dead only, but the living, the inhabited earth, and everything the world draws its glory from. Its great chiefs, its victories, its wealth, ease, luxury, splendour — what is it but arrogance and self-exaltation? That day will be blessed for those who are poor in spirit, because they will enjoy peace.
So this is not a footnote to one nation's downfall. The judgments already fallen on single nations point to something larger:
The punishment is universal: "I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity." … Such statements tell of the general and grievous judgment God is about to pour out. The judgment each nation mentioned has already undergone is only its forerunner, and a solemn witness that the Creator has the right to act this way whenever He sees fit.
Babylon is named because it stands first in the very things this verse condemns. One writer links this with the fall of Jerusalem:
When Jerusalem fell, the witness to God's government went out. The prince of this world then planned to put Babylon at the head of the religious system, in place of Jerusalem. So Babylon is first in the iniquity of the world, and in pride and persecution in its representative. That is why Jehovah says this in the burden of Babylon (Isa. 13).
The same pride reappears in the next chapter and, according to one writer, in figures far beyond a single king:
The prophecy against ancient Babylon (Isa. 13:11) includes the judgment of the world. And though the pride and arrogance of its king are great, the prophet's language in Isaiah 14 goes beyond a simple description of that pagan king and his city. … The same terrible pride marks the "man of sin." He "opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God" (2 Thess. 2:4).
If everything the world glories in will be shaken, what a believer loves comes into question:
If the destruction of the whole world-system is not a promise to us, then we must be attached to what is on the earth. There is a kingdom which cannot be moved and which will move all others; and Christian simplicity waits for this.
- Babylon first. Babylon stands first in the world's pride and persecution, so judging it means judging what it stands for.
- Then the world. Commentators hold that the verse reaches past the conquest by the Medes to the whole inhabited earth, though it takes in that past event too.
- The living, not only the dead. The punishment falls on chiefs, victories, wealth and splendour — the things the world draws its glory from.
- Pride is the charge. God ends the arrogance of the strong and the envy of the weak. The same pride shows up again in later figures Scripture describes.
- Rest for the lowly. That day is blessed for the poor in spirit. Those who wait for a kingdom that cannot be moved hold everything else lightly.
I will make a man more precious than fine gold, even man than the gold of Ophir.
This verse sits inside Isaiah's "burden of Babylon." There Isaiah describes the fall of one city in words that stretch far past it: a darkened sun, a shaken earth, a world punished for its evil. What does it mean for a man to become as rare as the costliest gold on earth? And when has that ever happened?
Some translations read "more precious than fine gold." The ESV reads "more rare than fine gold." The difference matters. One writer asks how we can tell which prophecies are already history and which are still ahead. He uses this phrase as his test case:
Has the world ever yet been punished for its evil, so as to make a man more precious than gold — than the golden wedge of Ophir? Precious — not in his own worth, which of course is always true, but because he is scarce, as the passage clearly implies.
A person's own worth never changes. What changes is how few people are left alive.
Isaiah measures a man against the finest gold his readers knew. So where was Ophir?
The place from which Solomon imported gold, precious stones, and almug trees. These were brought by ships to the Gulf of Akaba. Possibly southern Arabia is meant; but India and Africa have also been suggested.
The older phrase "golden wedge" raises a question about the word behind it:
The word translated "in gold of Ophir" in Psalm 45:9, and "golden wedge" in Isaiah 13:12, occurs nine times, always meaning gold and nothing else.
The chapter did have a real fulfilment when the Medes took Babylon. But commentators insist the language reaches far past that. One writer warns what is at stake if we shrink the Spirit's words to past history:
If He overstates an earthly judgement beyond the facts, how can we be sure that He does not exaggerate grace and eternal redemption?… To restrict this scene to the past judgement of Babylon is to limit the word of God, and make the Spirit seem unreliable… On the other hand, we hold it just as certain that the Holy Spirit did speak inclusively of a past fulfilment as that He was looking on to far more than that.
Another writer marks where the chapter drops back to the nearer event:
The destruction foretold will arrive when "the day of the Lord" sets in, as verses 6 and 9 show… Verse 11 speaks of punishing "the world" for its iniquity, and of upheavals in the heavens as well as the earth. The Lord predicted the same things in His prophetic teaching. But in verse 17 the prophecy does come down to a nearer judgment, which the Medes carried out, as the book of Daniel records.
Verse 12 is not only about the city under attack. One writer reads the thinning of mankind as sweeping up the very forces God gathered to strike with:
First we have the army of "kingdoms of nations," with God's sanctified ones, His mighty men — the Lord's host altogether… The world is punished for its evil; pride and haughtiness are laid low. A man is made more precious than fine gold. This implies the terrible destruction of that army itself as well. The heavens are shaken and the earth removed — a known symbol of the final judgment of the last days.
Why are so few left? One writer answers by describing the purpose of this day:
It will be the end of all the room allowed to man's will and self-exaltation. It will show God's moral ways. All that is high will be brought low, and Jehovah and the lowly whom He loves will be exalted for ever.
Yet God sets a limit. One writer points to what the Lord says to His people on earth about the great tribulation:
He tells them the tribulation will be so terrible that He notes how many days it will last. He says, "For the sake of the elect those days will be shortened, or no one could be saved."
- The rarity. The gold comparison measures scarcity: so few people are left that a survivor is harder to find than gold from Ophir.
- The measure. Ophir supplied Solomon's gold. The "wedge" is just a word for gold: Isaiah names the costliest thing his readers knew.
- The reach. The Medes' conquest really happened. But a punished "world" and shaken heavens point on to the day of the Lord.
- The sweep. Even the army God gathered as His weapon falls. No side of the conflict escapes.
- The limit. This day ends man's self-exaltation — yet God shortens those days for the elect's sake, or no one would be left at all.
Therefore I will make the heavens to shake, and the earth shall be removed out of her place, at the wrath of Jehovah of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger.
Isaiah 13 opens as a message of doom against the city of Babylon. Yet at this verse the language grows far bigger than one city. The sky shakes, and the earth leaves its place. So is this an army that came and went long ago, or something still ahead? And what should a reader do with a threat this size?
One phrase governs the whole passage: "the day of the LORD." One writer reads verse 13 as the point where God stops making room for human self-importance.
This explains the language of Isaiah 13. The Spirit of God has in view the LORD's judgment of the whole world. That is why Scripture calls it "the day of the LORD." It will end all the room allowed to man's will and self-exaltation. It will show God's moral ways. God will bring down everything high, and the LORD, with the lowly whom He loves, will stand exalted for ever.
The chapter works on two levels at once, and both are real.
From this chapter we can gather two things clearly. It had a preparatory application to the prophet's own times, or near them. But its only adequate fulfilment waits for the great day which is still future.
The prophecy moves between those two levels. It drops from world-wide upheaval to one named invading nation.
Verse 11 speaks of punishing "the world" for its iniquity. It speaks of upheavals in the heavens as well as on the earth. The Lord predicted the same thing in His own prophetic discourse. But in verse 17 the prophecy does come down to a nearer judgment. The Medes carried that one out, as the book of Daniel records.
A tempting shortcut is to call the shaken heavens poetic overstatement. One writer argues that this shortcut costs more than it saves.
No one can honestly say that these things have literally happened. Yet the Spirit of God freely connects them with Babylon's fall. To call this overstatement or exaggeration shows an unbelieving ignorance of Scripture and of the power of God… Suppose He makes an earthly judgment sound bigger than the facts. How can we then be sure that He does not exaggerate grace and eternal redemption? … To confine this scene to the past judgment of Babylon is to limit the word of God, and to make the Spirit seem unreliable.
One writer runs through the scene in order: the world judged, pride flattened, then the sky itself moving.
The world punished for its evil — pride and haughtiness laid low. A man made more precious than fine gold… The heavens shaken, and the earth removed — a known symbol of the final judgment of the last days, as in the Lord's hand.
The New Testament letter to the Hebrews takes up this same shaking, and there it lands with a very different tone. That difference turns into a test of where a person's heart really lives.
All this is "a promise" to the Christian. (See Heb. 12:25-26.) If he is in his place, he stands apart from all the interests of the world. He belongs to heaven, to Jesus, and that cannot be shaken… Can we truly desire, as the fulfilment of a promise, that God should shake the heavens and the earth? Are our hearts attached to nothing at all that will be the object of that destruction? May God make us see the end of it, so that our hearts may be separated from everything that is going to be destroyed!
Readers often mix this day of anger up with the moment believers are waiting for. One writer separates the two.
The LORD here uses the strongest language to show that it runs on to His day… "The day of the Lord" is not the same thing as the Lord's "coming" to receive us. When He comes, He raises the dead saints and changes the living ones. That is not "the day of the Lord"; Scripture never calls it that… Scripture never pictures the Lord coming like a thief by night, except where it speaks clearly of judgment.
- Cause — pride. The shaking answers human arrogance. The day of the LORD ends the room God allowed for man's self-exaltation.
- Scope — the world. Babylon is the near target, but the prophecy names "the world," and only the future day fits the full wording.
- Weight — no exaggeration. If God overstates this judgment, why trust Him when He promises grace?
- Sign — the heavens. A shaken sky and a moved earth are a known sign of the final judgment. It stays in the Lord's hand.
- Result — a promise, not a dread. If you belong to heaven, this shaking is what you have been promised. It also shows what your heart still clings to here.