What does Isaias Chapter 13 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Babylon’s burden includes summoned forces, darkened lights and flight. Violence and the Medes retain their exact admitted scope. Desolation imagery remains distinct from invented ecology and guarantees.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 13 announces a burden against Babylon. A banner, raised voice and hand summon rulers and the Lord's appointed forces. Gathered nations and distant troops come as instruments of wrath against the land. Faint hands, melting hearts, birthlike pain and burned faces accompany the cruel day. Darkened stars, sun and moon frame judgment against evil and pride; people are made precious like fine gold, and heaven and earth are troubled.

People flee toward their own nations like scattered animals. Those found and those coming to help meet the sword; infants are dashed, houses spoiled and wives ravished. The Medes neither seek silver nor desire gold, and show no pity to children. This does not establish that they reject every possible ransom. Babylon is compared with overthrown Sodom and Gomorrha, without future habitation by Arabian or shepherd. Wild beasts, serpents, ostriches, hairy creatures, owls and sirens populate its desolation. Goats and jackals are not substituted for the admitted imagery, nor is venom specified.

The story inside

Opening: Babylon’s burden includes summoned forces, darkened lights and flight. Development: Violence and the Medes retain their exact admitted scope. Conclusion: Desolation imagery remains distinct from invented ecology and guarantees.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Babylon’s burden includes summoned forces, darkened lights and flight.
2
Violence and the Medes retain their exact admitted scope.
3
Desolation imagery remains distinct from invented ecology and guarantees.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 79566–79568
13:1. The burden of Babylon which Isaias the son of Amos saw. The burden of Babylon.... That is, a prophecy against Babylon.
Lines 79594–79596
13:9. Behold, the day of the Lord shall come, a cruel day, and full of indignation, and of wrath, and fury, to lay the land desolate, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it.
Lines 79623–79625
13:17. Behold I will stir up the Medes against them, who shall not seek silver, nor desire gold:
Lines 79630–79635
13:19. And that Babylon, glorious among kingdoms, the famous pride of the Chaldeans, shall be even as the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha. 13:20. It shall no more be inhabited for ever, and it shall not be founded unto generation and generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch his tents there, nor shall shepherds rest there.