Prophecies of Isaiah, Pt 7

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective

There are so many sections of Scripture within the Old Testament that highlight future events, many of which are closely connected to the nation of Israel, that it behooves us to consider the overall force of all Scripture when discussing these subjects. In our quest to learn more about specific prophecies found within Isaiah, we have gone from a basic introduction leading up to Isaiah 7, where we learn of the specific sign that God Himself would provide; the birth of Messiah, to more specifics about the Son that was to be born in Isaiah 9. From there, we moved onto Isaiah 11, which speaks of the peaceful, righteous future rule of Jesus over all the earth.

Our fourth installment of Isaiah brought us back to Isaiah 2, which also speaks to the fact of Messiah Jesus’ rule over the earth in the coming Millennial Kingdom. Part five of this series focused in not necessarily on specific prophecies, but on the way Isaiah felt about himself after realizing how filthy he was in God’s Presence. It was only after He was made ceremonially clean through the touching of a hot coal to his lips by one of the seraphim was Isaiah able to move on with a far greater understanding of God’s grace over Creation.

Part Six brought our focus on God’s plan for Babylon’s complete and total destruction, which may yet be future. That article was followed up with the one titled “Babylon’s Future Demise.” I’d like to use this article to focus even more on the future Babylon because between Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Revelation alone, God focuses on His plans to destroy Babylon.

What is interesting of course, is that Babylon was not destroyed when the Medes-Persians conquered that city. They essentially incorporated Babylon into their growing kingdom so in that sense, their conquering of Babylon did not fulfill prophetic discourse related to the absolute and total annihilation of Babylon.

Even with the kingdom following the Medo-Persian Empire – the Grecian Empire – Babylon wasn’t completely destroyed. In fact, Dr. Charles Dyer points out in his book, Future Babylon: The Biblical Arguments for the Rebuilding of Babylon – that when Cyrus the Mede went into conquer Babylon, which was under Belshazzar at that time, people were not slaughtered en masse. In fact, historical records point to the fact that Cyrus deliberately told his soldiers to treat the people with kindness.

Yet, reading Isaiah 13-14, Jeremiah 50-51, and Revelation 16-18 tells us that many will die and there will be terrible destruction when Babylon is finally and ultimately destroyed. Does this mean that Babylon, the city, will rise again from its own ruins? God promised that once He destroyed Babylon, nothing would live there except scorpions, snakes, and a few other things. It would be as Sodom and Gomorrah and we know that these cities of the plains, once destroyed by God never rose again.

Theology and Politics from a Conservative, Biblical Perspective