July 17 - Isaiah 47:1-15

July 17 – Isaiah 47:1-15

“Go down, sit in the dust, Virgin Daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, Daughter of the Babylonians. No more will you be called tender or delicate. Take millstones and grind flour; take off your veil. Lift up your skirts, bare your legs, and wade through the streams. Your nakedness will be exposed and your shame uncovered. I will take vengeance; I will spare no one.”

Our Redeemer—the LORD Almighty is his name— is the Holy One of Israel.

“Sit in silence, go into darkness, Daughter of the Babylonians; no more will you be called queen of kingdoms. I was angry with my people and desecrated my inheritance; I gave them into your hand, and you showed them no mercy. Even on the aged you laid a very heavy yoke. You said, ‘I will continue forever— the eternal queen!’ But you did not consider these things or reflect on what might happen.

“Now then, listen, you wanton creature, lounging in your security and saying to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me. I will never be a widow or suffer the loss of children.’ Both of these will overtake you in a moment, on a single day: loss of children and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and all your potent spells. You have trusted in your wickedness and have said, ‘No one sees me.’ Your wisdom and knowledge mislead you when you say to yourself, ‘I am, and there is none besides me.’ Disaster will come upon you, and you will not know how to conjure it away. A calamity will fall upon you that you cannot ward off with a ransom; a catastrophe you cannot foresee will suddenly come upon you.

“Keep on, then, with your magic spells and with your many sorceries, which you have labored at since childhood. Perhaps you will succeed, perhaps you will cause terror. All the counsel you have received has only worn you out! Let your astrologers come forward, those stargazers who make predictions month by month, let them save you from what is coming upon you. Surely they are like stubble; the fire will burn them up. They cannot even save themselves from the power of the flame. Here are no coals to warm anyone; here is no fire to sit by. That is all they can do for you— these you have labored with and trafficked with since childhood. Each of them goes on in his error; there is not one that can save you.

Babylon will face doom.  She began as an innocent girl, seated on a throne, delicate and tender, but would end up tossed from that throne sitting on the ground and forced to do menial work. 

Just as Isaiah is getting revved up in his description of her downfall, he inserts those words that should strike terror into the Babylonians:  “Our Redeemer – the Lord Almighty is his name – is the Holy One of Israel.” 

Then he goes on as the Lord describes how He allowed Babylon to take His people as punishment, but Babylon showed no mercy and believed herself to be timeless.  I love the next sentence.  “But you did not consider these things or reflect on what might happen.” (Isaiah 47:7)

The Lord has had enough.  Babylon thinks that she will exist forever, never be a widow or suffer the loss of children, but He says that in a single day her children would be gone and so would the men.  Babylon has said “I am, and there is none besides me.” (Isaiah 47:10b)

Disaster, calamity, catastrophe.  None of these things can be averted by spells and sorceries – things that Babylon has known since the beginning of her reign.  No one can save her because she has relied on herself.  Those she counts on to bring relief will not be able to save themselves.  There is no one that can save her.

The Old Testament is filled with God’s power and sovereign rule.  He will not be usurped by anyone, even those whom He has given short-term power.  Do we see this in our own lives?  God gives us a small amount and we believe that we have it all!  We can’t be trusted to continue to rely on Him and Him alone for everything.

He doesn’t want the blessings that He gives to us to be enough.  We aren’t to be content with asking, receiving and stopping.  It is only on Him that we should stand.  He is sovereign.  He is all-powerful. He is everything.

The moment that we believe ourselves to be rulers of our own kingdom, He can no longer work through us. 

“Each of us goes on in his error – and no one can save us.” (Isaiah 47:15b)

Let us not continue to believe in our own errors.