BEN F. VICK, JR.
Isaiah 13:19-22; 14; Jeremiah 50-51.
The prophecies to be considered refer to the condition of Babylon since the close of the Old Testament history. Evidence from the fulfillment of prophecy is so abundant that only those about which there is no cavil need be selected.
1. It was to be entirely overthrown, as were Sodom and Gomorrah.
2. It should never be inhabited nor dwelt in from generation to generation.
3. The Arab should not pitch his tent there.
4. The shepherds should not make their folds there.
5. Wild beasts of the desert should lie there; owls and doleful creatures should infest it.
6. It should become the possession of the bittern and of pools of water.
7. It should be a target for the nations; it should be for a spoil, and all who plunder it should be satisfied.
8. Her walls and foundations should be overturned, and the debris of her palaces should be cast into heaps.
9. The sower and the harvester should be cut off.
10. Those who passed by should be astonished at her plagues.
Babylon was founded in 2234 B.C. It was the most splendid and permanent of ancient cities. Its walls, fifteen miles square, 350 feet high, and 87 feet thick; its hundred gates and towers; its hanging gardens and its palaces; the fertility of the valley of the Euphrates, yielding two hundred fold; and its military power, made it a remarkable city, and the capital of a remarkable empire. When these prophecies were written Babylon was in the height of its glory;* this was more than six hundred years before our era. It showed no signs of decay, and no human sagacity could have foretold its fate. And yet, there stand the prophecies, and many centuries have been looking down upon its ruins. Like Sodom, it is utterly destroyed. From age to age it has not been inhabited. The Arab and the shepherd fear to go there. The valley is no longer fertile, no one sows or reaps, and pools of water have gathered where once stood its pleasant palaces. For hundreds of years, there the hunters sought the wild beasts, and there found creatures. Its site is cast up in heaps. Volney and many since his day have expressed their astonishment at its wonderful desolation.
--Harvey W. Everest,
The Divine Demonstration, pp. 289-290.
(Harvey W. Everest wrote The Divine Demonstration when he was President of Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, from 1881-1886.)
*Barnes made these comments on Babylon:
At the time when this prophecy [Isaiah 13] was delivered, the Jews were in the secure possession of their own capital and country. They were harassed, indeed, by surrounding nations, but they were still free. They had no controversy with Babylon; nor had they reason to apprehend danger from that distant people. Their being borne to that land, was itself, in the time of Isaiah, a distant event, and one that then was not likely to occur. It is remarkable that Isaiah does not distinctly “foretell” that event here, but throws himself to a period of time “beyond” that, when they “would be” in captivity, and predicts their deliverance. His prophecy “supposes” that event to have occurred. It is a vision passing before his mind “after” that event had taken place; when they would be in Babylon; and when they would be sighing for deliverance (Isa. 14:1-2). The prophet, therefore, may be conceived in this vision as taking his “stand” beyond an event which had not yet occurred - the captivity of the Jews and their removal to Babylon - and predicting “another” event still more future, which would result in their deliverance - the complete overthrow of the city, and the consequent deliverance of the Jewish people. We are to conceive him standing, as it were, amidst the captive Jews, and directing his eye onward to the complete recovery of the nation by the destruction of Babylon itself. (Isa. 14:1-2.) See Introduction, Section 7, III. (4.)
This prophecy of the destruction of Babylon was delivered, we have seen, at least 174 years before the event occurred. At the time when it was delivered, nothing was more improbable than the ruin of that city as described by Isaiah (Isa. 13:19-22). It was one of the largest, most flourishing, and perhaps the most strongly fortified city of the world. The prediction that it should be like ‘Sodom and Gomorrah;’ that it should ‘never be inhabited;’ that the wild beast of the desert should lie there; and that dragons should be in their pleasant palaces, was wholly improbable; and could have been foreseen only by God. There were no natural causes that were leading to this which man could perceive, or of which a stranger and a foreigner, like Isaiah, could have any knowledge. This will appear evident by a brief description of the condition of this celebrated city. Babylon (derived from babel, and probably built on the same spot as the tower of Babel) was the capital of Babylonia, or Chaldea, and was probably built by Nimrod; but it was a long period before it obtained its subsequent size and splendor.
It was enlarged by Belus, and so greatly beautified and improved by Semiramis, that she might be called not improperly the foundress of it. It was subsequently greatly increased and embellished by Nebuchadnezzar. It stood in the midst of a large plain, and on a very deep and fertile soil. It was on both sides of the river Euphrates, and of course was divided by that river into two parts. The two parts were connected by a bridge near the center of the city; and there is also said to have been a tunnel, or subterranean passage, made from the palace on the east of the river to the palace on the west, made under the river. The old city was on the east, and the new city, built by Nebuchadnezzar, was on the west. Both these divisions were enclosed by one wall, and the whole formed a complete square, which Herodotus, who visited it, and who is the most ancient author who has written on it, says, was 480 furlongs in compass, or 120 furlongs on each side: that is, it was fifteen miles on each side, or sixty miles in compass.