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Isaiah 13 · a question people ask

What reason does the chapter give for what it says will come?

In the text

The chapter gives it in 13:11: "I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will humble the arrogance of the terrible" (13:11). The day comes "to destroy its sinners out of it" (13:9). Babylon is called "the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride" (13:19), and pride there is the word of 13:11's arrogance of the proud; Brown-Driver-Briggs gives the word both "exaltation, majesty, excellence" and "pride (bad sense)", and the chapter doesn't say which it means in 13:19 (tap pride). In 13:11 will humble is shafel, the verb of chapter 2's "it shall be brought low" (Isaiah 2:12); chapter 2's notes set it out. The next chapter goes on with a parable "against the king of Babylon": "How the oppressor has ceased!" (Isaiah 14:4). And in chapter 47, in the words to the "daughter of the Chaldeans" (Isaiah 47:5), the one who speaks says, "I was angry with my people … and gave them into your hand. You showed them no mercy" (Isaiah 47:6). Chapter 13 itself names no other sin of Babylon's, and these notes add none.

The verses

“Behold, the day of the LORD comes, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy its sinners out of it.”
Isaiah 13:9 · World English Bible
“I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity. I will cause the arrogance of the proud to cease, and will humble the arrogance of the terrible.”
Isaiah 13:11 · World English Bible
“Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, will be like when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.”
Isaiah 13:19 · World English Bible
“For there will be a day of the LORD of Armies for all that is proud and arrogant, and for all that is lifted up, and it shall be brought low—”
Isaiah 2:12 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Isaiah 13

Isaiah 13: The burden of Babylon

The burden of 13:1 is massa', which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives here as "utterance, oracle". "It will come as destruction from the Almighty" (13:6) is word for word in Joel 1:15. And the chapter's gazelle (13:14) and Babylon's glory (13:19) are one Hebrew spelling, tsevi.

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions