Take millstones and grind flour; remove your veil; strip off your skirt, bare your thigh, and wade through the streams. Sermons
I. BABYLON AS TYPICAL OF LUXURY. The city in ancient fancy is ever thought of as a woman - in all her beauty and glory, or in all her shame. The great city here appears as the haughty and luxurious courtesan. The just judgment has fallen upon her impurity. She is violently torn away from her life of softness and refinement, and reduced to the status of a common slave - has to ply the hard labour of grinding meal (Exodus 11:5, 12; Job 31:10). Or, like a captive stripped of all her finery, she has to wade barefoot through streams. Every hidden shame will be exposed to the light of day. Only in Israel - as Isaiah 42-46, have repeatedly proclaimed - is salvation to be found. These calamities of the proud city are in retribution for her sins - the just vengeance of an offended God. II. BABYLON AS TYPICAL OF PRIDE AND AMBITION. This "daughter of the Chaldeans" is no longer to be termed "lady, or mistress, of kingdoms." When Jehovah was wroth with his people, and desecrated his heritage, giving them into her hands, she showed no pity, but laid a heavy yoke upon the aged, thinking in her heart, "1 shall be mistress for ever." She did not consider the end, which has now come upon her. While Israel enjoys freedom, she must pass into the darkness of the prison-house (Isaiah 42:7, 22). III. AS TYPICAL OF SUPERSTITION. In her carelessness and pride she has exalted herself above Jehovah (Zephaniah 2:15). She thinks she will never lose her protector, the Chaldean king; and her children, the stout burghers of the city. But sudden conquest will deprive her of both, and she will be as a widow, forlorn. Her third and inexcusable sin is superstition. Her wisdom and science have led her astray to a point of blinding self-conceit. But now an evil has come upon her which no incantations and spells can charm away - a mischief for which none of her rites can atone. Her false confidence has blinded her to the true faith in the eternal God (with vers. 10, 11, cf. Isaiah 45:18; Isaiah 19:11, etc.). And tile result must be sudden and crushing ruin. IV. BABYLON'S FALL AS TYPICAL OF THE WISDOM THAT IS BROUGHT TO NOUGHT. What can all her learned astrologers and magicians do for her now - they whose guidance has so long been followed (cf. Isaiah 46:6, 7; Isaiah 44:12; Isaiah 43:23)? Let them stand by her in her need, those star-gazers and moon-gazers. But all are dumb, and, so far from helping, flee for their own safety from the fire - no gently warming hearth-fire (Isaiah 44:16), but one most horrible and devouring, from which there is no escape (Isaiah 1:11; Isaiah 33:11-14; Isaiah 5:24). V. LESSONS. All the great sins are connected together as links in a chain. They are drawn as with a cart-rope. Sensuality and luxury bring pride and contempt in their train; and these, again, blindness and bewilderment of mind. And where no affliction nor humiliation have been known, there will be no sympathy nor pity towards others. Yet religion is ever a necessity to man; and, if the true religion be rejected, some counterfeit must take its place. The most foolish and the darkest superstitions flourish in such times. So it was again when Christianity was making its way in the decaying Roman world. True religion, rooted in humanity and the fear of God, and in light-loving intelligence, alone can deliver the nation and the individual. - J.
Behold, they shall be as stubble. : — The flame is no comfortable fire for warmth, no hearth-fire (Isaiah 44:16) to sit in front of; but, on the contrary, consuming, eternal, i.e. annihilating flames (Isaiah 33:14).(F. Delitzsch, D. D.) I. With reference to the FIRST SENTENCE. 1. One of the most striking thoughts which it conveys to the mind is this, that the punishment of the wicked will be easily inflicted. "They shall be as stubble." Nothing can be more easy than to kindle stubble when it is fully dry. Oh, ungodly and impenitent man, there is that in thyself to-day which, let alone and permitted to ripen, will bring a hell upon thee. Thou hast in thyself the power of memory, and that power shall become a vehicle of sorrow to thee. Thou hast, beside thy memory, a conscience; a con. science which thou hast striven to silence; but, even drugged and gagged as it is, it sometimes makes thee feel unhappy. You will then find that you cannot palliate the guilt of sin. Thy memory and thy conscience shall be as two great millstones grinding thee to powder. Then, added to thy memory and to thy conscience, there shall come thy increased knowledge. Thou knowest enough now to leave thee without excuse, but then thy knowledge shall increase so as to leave thee without pretence of apology. Thou shalt then perceive the craft of the tempter who deluded thee. Thou shalt then see the blackness and the filthiness of sin as thou dost not see it now. Then shalt thou understand the greatness and the goodness of the God whom thou hast despised; thou shalt then discern the glory of the heaven which thou hast lost; thou shalt then begin to get an idea of that eternity which shall roll over thy head for ever. Beside, think of thy companions. Shut up fifty drunkards and profane men together, and would they not soon make a hell for themselves without any interposition of Divine power? What will it be when they are bound up in bundles; when the tens of thousands of those who obey not Christ shall find themselves in their own place? 2. This punishment shall be most searching and terrible. The metaphor of fire is used in Scripture because it is that which of all things causeth the most pain, and is the most searching and trying. As fire consumes, and so reaches to the very essence of things, so shall the wrath to come reach to the very essence and subsistence of the soul. 3. This destruction will be most inevitable. "They shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame." There is hope now; there shall be no hope then. The Lord Jesus, though the most loving of spirits, was the most awful of preachers; and in His sermons, while there is everything that could melt and woo, there is no lack of the great and terrible thunderbolt, and the sounding forth of wrath to come, and the judgment which must await the impenitent. II. BUT OUR TEXT NOW CHANGES ITS FIGURE. "Thus saith the Lord, There shall not be a coal to warm at, nor fire to sit before it"; by which is meant that there shall be nothing in hell that can give the sinner a moment's comfort; nothing. III. And now our text bids us "BEHOLD," therefore I pray ye turn not away your eyes from this meditation. 1. Children of God, behold it; it will make you grateful. Does not the thought of the misery from which you have escaped make you love your Saviour? And oh, will it not make you love poor sinners too? 2. But specially, you that are unconverted, the text says, "Behold." It is a gloomy subject for you to think upon, but better to think of it now than to think of it for ever. ( C. H. Spurgeon.) People Babylonians, IsaiahPlaces BabylonTopics Bare, Cross, Crushed, Crushing-stones, Draw, Floods, Flour, Grind, Leg, Legs, Lift, Locks, Meal, Millstones, Pass, Remove, Rivers, Robe, Skirt, Skirts, Streams, Strip, Thigh, Train, Uncover, Uncovered, Veil, WadeOutline 1. God's judgment upon Babylon and Chaldea6. For their unmercifulness 7. Pride 10. And over-boldness 11. Shall be irresistible Dictionary of Bible Themes Isaiah 47:2 4462 grinding Library Humility is the Root of Charity, and Meekness the Fruit of Both. ...Humility is the root of charity, and meekness the fruit of both. There is no solid and pure ground of love to others, except the rubbish of self-love be first cast out of the soul; and when that superfluity of naughtiness is cast out, then charity hath a solid and deep foundation: "The end of the command is charity out of a pure heart," 1 Tim. i. 5. It is only such a purified heart, cleansed from that poison and contagion of pride and self-estimation, that can send out such a sweet and wholesome … Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning The Iranian Conquest How Christ is the Way in General, "I am the Way. 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