Isaiah 47 Bible study: Come down and sit in the dust

The chapter opens with an order: "Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon. Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans" (47:1) (tap Babylon). She "will no longer be called tender and delicate" (47:1). Here is what almost everyone misses: sit is the chapter's word. In Hebrew it is yashav six times, and the WEB has sit each time (tap sit). She is to sit in the dust and on the ground (47:1), and to "Sit in silence, and go into darkness" (47:5). She is spoken to as one "who sit securely", and she says, "I won’t sit as a widow" (47:8). And the chapter's last sit is of a fire: "It won’t be a coal to warm at or a fire to sit by" (47:14). The one told to sit without a throne had said, "I will be a princess forever" (47:7) (tap mistress). The chapter names Babylon and the Chaldeans as the text has them, and these notes apply none of it to any people, city, nation or power today.

יָשַׁבyashavsay ya-SHAV

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "sit, remain, dwell". Strong's: "properly, to sit down". The chapter has it six times, and the WEB has sit each time: "Come down and sit in the dust" and "Sit on the ground without a throne" (47:1), "Sit in silence" (47:5), "who sit securely" and "I won’t sit as a widow" (47:8), and "a fire to sit by" (47:14). In Hebrew sit on the ground is this verb with la'arets, on the ground, as in chapter 3's "She shall be desolate and sit on the ground" (Isaiah 3:26). And in chapter 52 Jerusalem hears, "Shake yourself from the dust! Arise, sit up, Jerusalem!" (Isaiah 52:2), where dust is the word of 47:1's dust and sit up is this verb; the chapter on Isaiah 3 sets out 3:26 beside 52:2. Isaiah has the verb 69 times in Hebrew.