All Glory to God our Father
Let us start out with a bit of Thanksgiving.
Philippians 4:6-7
6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
Now turn to Isaiah 47, where we find God focusing on Babylon. Babylon today is just a ruin, as prophesied in Jeremiah 51. Jeremiah was a fellow prophet with Isaiah at about the same time and lived in the small village of Anathoth which today is called Anata. It is located 3 miles NE of Jerusalem. This prophet lived through the invasion and exile of his people to Babylon and had this prophecy about the fall of Babylon.
Jeremiah 51:1-4
Thus says the Lord:
1 “Behold, I am going to arouse against Babylon
And against the inhabitants of Leb-kamai
The spirit of a destroyer.
Leb-kamai is a cryptic name for Chaldea; or the heart of those who rise up against Me.
2 “I will dispatch foreigners to Babylon that they may winnow her
And may devastate her land;
For on every side they will be opposed to her
In the day of her calamity.
3 “Let not him who bends his bow bend it,
Nor let him rise up in his scale-armor;
So do not spare her young men;
Devote all her army to destruction.
4 “They will fall down slain in the land of the Chaldeans,
And pierced through in their streets.”
Babylon was a very ancient city. Mentioned first in Genesis 10. Founded by Nimrod, the grandson of Ham, who we know was a son of Noah. So Babylon was founded not too long after Noah’s boys got off the boat.
It seems probable that the name given to the city actually supplanted the original name at this time, and this incident contributes to the long history of Babylon as a center of religious significance, and as a source of false religion and rebellion against the true God.
Genesis 10:10
10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech and Accad and Calneh, in the land of Shinar.
And from here we can turn to Genesis 11 and find out why it was called Babel.
Genesis 11
Now the whole earth used the same language and the same words.
2 It came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.
3 They said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar for mortar.
4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”
5 The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built.
6 The Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.
7 Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not understand one another’s speech.”
8 So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the city.
9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the whole earth.
This city was known far and wide for its splendor and wonders. I have read, in doing research for this chapter, current day writers wistfully stating that Babylon was a great city, as great as San Francisco or New York. And I thought to myself, truly, nothing is new under the sun and that can be found in:
Ecclesiastes 1:9
That which has been is that which will be,
And that which has been done is that which will be done.
So there is nothing new under the sun.
Whoever wrote that really nailed it. And in looking into that, because I couldn’t resist chasing down another interesting factoid in the Bible, it turns out that they, the people who translate, interpret and ponder such things in the Bible, think that Solomon wrote it. Figures. Smartest guy ever, blessed good and hard by God and he writes something that turns out to be an eternal truth.
Now, I will carefully step back out of the rhubarb and continue my original point. You have a modern unbeliever, pining for an ancient city, destroyed by the Judgement of God, comparing it favorably to a couple of modern and equally godless cities. And none of them sees the irony.
Babylon back then was a wondrous jewel of the desert, now currently in a permanent state of ruin and inhabited only by jackals and owls, about 700 miles from Jerusalem with a prime slice of desert separating the 2 cities.
We round out our Biblical smack down of Babylon by turning to
Revelation 18:1-10
1 After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illumined with his glory.
2 And he cried out with a mighty voice, saying, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great! She has become a dwelling place of demons and a prison of every unclean spirit, and a prison of every unclean and hateful bird.
3 For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the passion of her immorality, and the kings of the earth have committed acts of immorality with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich by the wealth of her sensuality.”
4 I heard another voice from heaven, saying, “Come out of her, my people, so that you will not participate in her sins and receive of her plagues;
5 for her sins have piled up as high as heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities.
6 Pay her back even as she has paid, and give back to her double according to her deeds; in the cup which she has mixed, mix twice as much for her.
7 To the degree that she glorified herself and lived sensuously, to the same degree give her torment and mourning; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as a queen and I am not a widow, and will never see mourning.’
8 For this reason in one day her plagues will come, pestilence and mourning and famine, and she will be burned up with fire; for the Lord God who judges her is strong.
Lament for Babylon
9 “And the kings of the earth, who committed acts of immorality and lived sensuously with her, will weep and lament over her when they see the smoke of her burning,
10 standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying, ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city! For in one hour your judgment has come.’
I am spending a bit of time with Babylon because it is a major theme and subject in the Bible and the life of the Jews. There are 113 verses in the Bible that refer to Babylon. That in itself is quite amazing. And in those 113 verses, it is mentioned in the beginning, in Genesis, in the middle, the exile, which is a major topic of Jewish writing and where we are at right now, and the end of the Bible in Revelation. I think perhaps that in Revelation, the city’s name is being used symbolically, because the place is just a ruin now. Saddam Hussein tried to rebuild the city in 1983, building on top of the ruins with bricks with this inscription: “This was built by Saddam Hussein, son of Nebuchadnezzar, to glorify Iraq.” It didn’t work out though, I think he was hung in or near Babylon and there is quite a bit of Jewish online talk of having old texts that predicted this event, but there is a code that only certain Jews understand. That’s nice and all but if God wants the place to stay rubble, it will stay rubble.
Let us turn back to Isaiah 47 and read that.
Lament for Babylon
1 “Come down and sit in the dust,
O virgin daughter of Babylon;
Sit on the ground without a throne,
O daughter of the Chaldeans!
For you shall no longer be called tender and delicate.
2 “Take the millstones and grind meal.
Remove your veil, strip off the skirt,
Uncover the leg, cross the rivers.
3 “Your nakedness will be uncovered,
Your shame also will be exposed;
I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.”
4 Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name,
The Holy One of Israel.
5 “Sit silently, and go into darkness,
O daughter of the Chaldeans,
For you will no longer be called
The queen of kingdoms.
6 “I was angry with My people,
I profaned My heritage
And gave them into your hand.
You did not show mercy to them,
On the aged you made your yoke very heavy.
7 “Yet you said, ‘I will be a queen forever.’
These things you did not consider
Nor remember the outcome of them.
8 “Now, then, hear this, you sensual one,
Who dwells securely,
Who says in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one besides me.
I will not sit as a widow,
Nor know loss of children.’
9 “But these two things will come on you suddenly in one day:
Loss of children and widowhood.
They will come on you in full measure
In spite of your many sorceries,
In spite of the great power of your spells.
10 “You felt secure in your wickedness and said,
‘No one sees me,’
Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you;
For you have said in your heart,
‘I am, and there is no one besides me.’
11 “But evil will come on you
Which you will not know how to charm away;
And disaster will fall on you
For which you cannot atone;
And destruction about which you do not know
Will come on you suddenly.
12 “Stand fast now in your spells
And in your many sorceries
With which you have labored from your youth;
Perhaps you will be able to profit,
Perhaps you may cause trembling.
13 “You are wearied with your many counsels;
Let now the astrologers,
Those who prophesy by the stars,
Those who predict by the new moons,
Stand up and save you from what will come upon you.
14 “Behold, they have become like stubble,
Fire burns them;
They cannot deliver themselves from the power of the flame;
There will be no coal to warm by
Nor a fire to sit before!
15 “So have those become to you with whom you have labored,
Who have trafficked with you from your youth;
Each has wandered in his own way;
There is none to save you.
Some verses that stood out to me.
Verse 4 – I will take vengeance and will not spare a man.
Verse 6 – “I was angry with My people, I profaned My heritage
And gave them into your hand. You did not show mercy to them.
Verse 10 – “You felt secure in your wickedness and said, ‘No one sees me,’ Your wisdom and your knowledge, they have deluded you.
Let’s talk about this. Our society is rife with this very thing. Have you ever done something and thought “Nobody knows or has seen this, so it’s OK.”
Think about it and how we can change our lives to what our Lord Jesus wants them to be. To be righteous, or as righteous as we can be.
Verse 11 – “But evil will come on you which you will not know how to charm away.
Let us now turn to 1 Kings 11 and see what’s up with our boy Solomon.
It was bound to happen. So much wealth, wisdom and women. The first verse in chapter 11 tells the story.
1 Now King Solomon loved many foreign women along with the daughter of Pharaoh: Moabite, Ammonite, Edomite, Sidonian, and Hittite women,
The Old Testament allowed polygamy, but did not encourage it. Then the Romans took over and said it was disgusting and immoral. They allowed the Jews to continue practicing polygamy in Palestine, but everywhere else, the practice was prohibited. Rome is quite a few hundred years off into the future, so in Solomon’s day many people did have more than one wife. And it is not always a bad thing. Women that could not be married for whatever reason would be added as wife and now another widow is not begging on the streets.
I am not sure anyone could have told Solomon to restrain himself when it came to wives. Let’s read on and find out how this plays out.
2 from the nations concerning which the Lord had said to the sons of Israel, “You shall not associate with them, nor shall they associate with you, for they will surely turn your heart away after their gods.” Solomon held fast to these in love.
3 He had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines, and his wives turned his heart away.
4 For when Solomon was old, his wives turned his heart away after other gods; and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God, as the heart of David his father had been.
5 For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of the Sidonians and after Milcom the detestable idol of the Ammonites.
6 Solomon did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and did not follow the Lord fully, as David his father had done.
7 Then Solomon built a high place for Chemosh the detestable idol of Moab, on the mountain which is east of Jerusalem, and for Molech the detestable idol of the sons of Ammon.
8 Thus also he did for all his foreign wives, who burned incense and sacrificed to their gods.
9 Now the Lord was angry with Solomon because his heart was turned away from the Lord, the God of Israel, who had appeared to him twice, 10 and had commanded him concerning this thing, that he should not go after other gods; but he did not observe what the Lord had commanded.
11 So the Lord said to Solomon, “Because you have done this, and you have not kept My covenant and My statutes, which I have commanded you, I will surely tear the kingdom from you, and will give it to your servant.
12 Nevertheless I will not do it in your days for the sake of your father David, but I will tear it out of the hand of your son.
13 However, I will not tear away all the kingdom, but I will give one tribe to your son for the sake of My servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem which I have chosen.”
God then raises adversaries against Solomon. You have to remember that during Solomon’s reign, things were unusually calm, within his government and without. An Edomite named Hadad, who was in the royal line of Edom, had a long time grudge with David, Solomon’s Father. Actually, it was Joab the Commander of David’s army, well let’s just read it in Verse 14:
14 Then the Lord raised up an adversary to Solomon, Hadad the Edomite; he was of the royal line in Edom.
15 For it came about, when David was in Edom, and Joab the commander of the army had gone up to bury the slain, and had struck down every male in Edom
16 (for Joab and all Israel stayed there six months, until he had cut off every male in Edom),
17 that Hadad fled to Egypt, he and certain Edomites of his father’s servants with him, while Hadad was a young boy.
18 They arose from Midian and came to Paran; and they took men with them from Paran and came to Egypt, to Pharaoh king of Egypt, who gave him a house and assigned him food and gave him land.
19 Now Hadad found great favor before Pharaoh, so that he gave him in marriage the sister of his own wife, the sister of Tahpenes the queen.
20 The sister of Tahpenes bore his son Genubath, whom Tahpenes weaned in Pharaoh’s house; and Genubath was in Pharaoh’s house among the sons of Pharaoh.
21 But when Hadad heard in Egypt that David slept with his fathers and that Joab the commander of the army was dead, Hadad said to Pharaoh, “Send me away, that I may go to my own country.”
22 Then Pharaoh said to him, “But what have you lacked with me, that behold, you are seeking to go to your own country?” And he answered, “Nothing; nevertheless you must surely let me go.”
And so it went. More adversaries, more problems to deal with and most importantly, God was angry with him.
God then uses a prophet named Ahijah that happened to have a new cloak when he met Jeroboam, the soon to be new king of Israel. They were walking down the road together and suddenly Ahijah tears his new cloak into 12 pieces. He hands Jeroboam 10 pieces of cloak and tells him this represents the 10 tribes he would rule over. As God had said, He would tear the kingdom out of Solomon’s hands but let Solomon have 2 tribes, (Judah and Benjamin) for the sake of my servant David and for the sake of Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen from all the tribes of Israel. God would allow Solomon to rule his pieces of the cloak all the days of his life. Which was pretty generous considering how Solomon had been acting.
Look at Verses 39 and 40;
39 Thus I will afflict the descendants of David for this, but not always.’” 40 Solomon sought therefore to put Jeroboam to death; but Jeroboam arose and fled to Egypt to Shishak king of Egypt, and he was in Egypt until the death of Solomon.
I guess Solomon was not feeling real grateful for God letting him keep his much diminished kingdom and his life.
Let’s finish this out and read verses 41 to 43;
The Death of Solomon
41 Now the rest of the acts of Solomon and whatever he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon? 42 Thus the time that Solomon reigned in Jerusalem over all Israel was forty years. 43 And Solomon slept with his fathers and was buried in the city of his father David, and his son Rehoboam reigned in his place.