Isaiah — Chapter 13
Synopsis: Third great section of Isaiah's prophecies (chs.13-24), containing oracles against foreign nations — both to comfort Israel that its oppressors will be punished, and to warn them not to rely on these nations. Ch.13 prophesies the fall of Babylon through Cyrus and the Medes/Persians; it describes the terrible Day of the Lord both historically (538 BC) and eschatologically (the Last Day). Babylon will be like Sodom — permanently uninhabited.
Verse 1
The burden of Babylon, which Isaias the son of Amos saw. 'Onus' (burden/oracle) = a threatening prophecy, heavy as a burden for its hearers and painful for the prophet to deliver. Bernard's sermon on the eleven burdens of Isaiah interprets each burden allegorically: the burden of Babylon = the burden of worldly pleasure/concupiscence; of the Philistines = unclean spirits; of Moab = natural necessities; of Egypt = ignorance, etc.
Verse 2
Upon the dark mountain lift ye up a banner, exalt the voice, lift up the hand, and let the rulers go into the gates. God calls Cyrus and the Medo-Persian armies to assemble like a great army under His banner. The 'dark/misty mountain' = Media or Persia, a distant, obscure land from Judah's perspective.
Verse 4
The voice of a multitude in the mountains, as it were of many people, the voice of the sound of kings, of nations gathered together: the Lord of hosts hath given charge to the army of the war. The assembled Medo-Persian host, heard from afar in Isaiah's prophetic vision. Lapide: this anticipates the cosmic assembly at the Last Day, when all nations will be gathered for judgment.
Verse 6
Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is near: it shall come as a destruction from the Lord. The 'dies Domini' = primarily the sack of Babylon (538 BC under Cyrus); secondarily and more fully, the Last Judgment. Lapide analyzes the double sense: historical threat plus eschatological warning.
Verse 9
Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, cruel, and full of indignation, and of wrath and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. The Day of the Lord's characteristics: cruelty toward the wicked, indignation, wrath, fury. Applied to the Babylonian sack, then to the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, then to the Last Day — a graduated series of divine judgments.
Verse 10
For the stars of heaven, and their brightness shall not display their light: the sun shall be darkened in his rising, and the moon shall not shine with her light. Astronomical hyperbole describing the darkness of catastrophe — used by prophets to heighten the sense of universal terror. Matthew 24:29 applies similar language to the Last Day. Lapide: at Babylon's fall there were literal omens (eclipses reported by historians); at the Last Day there will be literal astronomical signs.
Verse 12
A man shall be more precious than gold, yea a man than the finest gold of Ophir. So great the slaughter that surviving men will be rarer than pure gold — the reverse of normal economic law.
Verse 19
And Babylon, that glorious kingdom, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha. Babylon's fate = Sodom's: permanently desolate, never rebuilt, never reinhabited. Lapide traces the historical fulfillment: Babylon was indeed abandoned and ruined, contrary to pagan expectations. The bestial and demonic inhabitants of its ruins (owls, dragons, satyrs) correspond to the desert spirits and demons that inhabit abandoned sacred spaces.