The Signs of the Times, vol. 14

January 27, 1888

“The Fall of Babylon. (Continued.)” The Signs of the Times 14, 4, pp. 54, 55.

(Continued.)

JEREMIAH had said sixty years before: “And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the Lord of Hosts.” “In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord.” Jeremiah 51:57, 39. SITI January 27, 1888, page 54.1

The following is the statement of Rawlinson as to what was going on outside of the king’s palace, as well as in it:— SITI January 27, 1888, page 54.2

“Elsewhere the rest of the population was occupied in feasting and dancing. Drunken riot and mad excitement held possession of the town; the siege was forgotten; ordinary precautions were neglected. Following the example of their king, the Babylonians gave themselves up for the night to orgies in which religious frenzy and drunken excess formed a strange and revolting medley.” SITI January 27, 1888, page 54.3

As all this was being so wildly carried on in the city, outside of it the Medes and Persians were waiting for the waters to run low enough to allow them to wade in the bed of the river, even as Jeremiah had said long before, “Set up the watchmen, prepare the liars in wait.” Chap. 51:12, margin. And thus says the history:— SITI January 27, 1888, page 54.4

“Meanwhile, outside the city, in silence and darkness, the Persians watched at the two points where the Euphrates entered and left the walls. Anxiously they noted the gradual sinking of the water in the river bed; still more anxiously they watched to see if those within the walls would observe the suspicious circumstance and sound an alarm through the town. Should such an alarm be given, all their labors would be lost. If, when they entered the river bed, they found the river walls manned and the river gates fast-locked, they would be indeed ‘caught in a trap.’ Enfiladed on both sides by the enemy whom they could neither see nor reach, they would be overwhelmed and destroyed by his missiles before they could succeed in making their escape. But, as they watched, no sounds of alarm reached the—only a confused noise of revel and riot, which showed that the unhappy townsmen were quite unconscious of the approach of danger.” SITI January 27, 1888, page 54.5

That the Babylonians should be taken, entirely unconscious of their danger, was just what Isaiah had said away back in his day: “Therefore shall evil come upon thee; thou shalt not know from whence it riseth; and mischief shall fall upon thee; thou shalt not be able to put it off; and desolation shall come upon thee suddenly, which thou shalt not know.” Isaiah 47:11. And Jeremiah had said: “I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon, and thou wast not aware; thou art found, and also caught.” Chap. 50:24. And that the river gates would not be fast-locked Isaiah had promised one hundred and seventy-four years before: “Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” Chap. 45:1. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.1

Jeremiah had also said, “The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men, as with caterpillars; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.” Chap. 51:14. And the history says:— SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.2

“At last shadowy forms began to emerge from the obscurity of the deep river bed, and on the landing-places opposite the river gates scattered clusters of men grew into solid columns. The undefended gateways were seized; a war-shout was raised; the alarm was taken and spread, and swift runners started off to ‘show the king of Babylon that his city was taken at one end.’” SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.3

“In the darkness and confusion of the night a terrible massacre ensued. The drunken revelers could make no resistance. The king, paralyzed with fear at the awful handwriting upon the wall, which too late had warned him of his peril, could do nothing even to check the progress of the assailants, who carried all before them everywhere. Bursting into the palace, a band of Persians made their way to the presence of the monarch, and slew him on the scene of his impious revelry. Other bands carried fire and sword through the town.” SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.4

Jeremiah had said that fire and sword should be carried through the town: “A sword is upon the Chaldeans, saith the Lord, and upon the inhabitants of Babylon, and upon her princes, and upon her wise men. A sword is upon the liars; and they shall dote; a sword is upon her mighty men; and they shall be dismayed. A sword is upon their horses, and upon their chariots, and upon all the mingled people that are in the midst of her; and they shall become as women.” “Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The broad walls of Babylon shall be utterly broken, and her high gates shall be burned with fire; and the people shall labor in vain, and the folk in the fire, and they shall be weary.” Jeremiah 50:35-37; 51:58. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.5

Thus fell Babylon, and all the graven images of her gods were broken unto the ground. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.6

But this was not all. The prophets also spoke of the utter ruin of Babylon as well as of her fall. Isaiah wrote thus: “And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation; neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the island shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces; and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.” Isaiah 13:19-22. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.7

The city continued to be a place of considerable importance throughout the Persian dominion, although it was injured a good deal by some sieges brought on by the revolt of its inhabitants, and it also suffered damage from the effect of the waters of the river that were turned aside by Cyrus, and never fully turned back. Alexander the Great made Babylon an important point in his expedition. There he held the “states-general of the world,” and decided to re-establish it in its old importance, and make it the grand capital of his empire. He set ten thousand men at work to repair the Euphrates, and planned other restorations, but his death put a stop to it all. Soon afterward Seleucus built Seleucia, forty-five miles up the river, which in a comparatively short time became a city of 600,000 inhabitants, governed by a senate of three hundred nobles. On the building of Seleucia, Babylon was wholly deserted, and the great temples, the pleasant palaces, and the grand houses were all left desolate, only to be filled with doleful creatures, and to echo with the dismal cries of owls. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.8

The prophet said not only that wild beasts of the deserts should lie there, but that wild beasts of the islands should cry in the desolate houses; yet Babylon was an inland city, more than a hundred miles from the nearest point of the Persian Gulf, and many hundreds from the nearest islands. But the Macedonian kings of the East made Babylon a hunting-park, and kept the wild animals in the desolate houses, letting them out for a chase as occasion required. And for this purpose wild beasts from the far-off islands were brought away inland there and put in the desolate houses and pleasant palaces that had witnessed the pomp and the glory of the greatest kings of the earth. The prophecy was literally fulfilled. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.9

Again, Isaiah said: “I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of hosts.” Chap. 14:23. Mr. Layard, who visited it about 1845, says:— SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.10

“Besides the great mound, other shapeless heaps of rubbish cover for many an acre the face of the land. The lofty banks of ancient canals fret the country like natural ridges of hills. Some have been long choked with sand; others still carry the waters of the river to distant villages and palm groves. On all sides, fragments of glass, marble, pottery, and inscribed brick, are mingled with that peculiar nitrous and blanched soil, which, bred from the remains of ancient habitations, checks or destroys vegetation, and renders the site of Babylon a naked and a hideous waste. Owls (which are of a large gray kind, and often found in flocks of nearly a hundred) start from the scanty thickets, and the foul jackal skulks through the furrows.” SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.11

The prophecy says, “Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.” The natives regard the whole place as actually haunted, and will not pitch their tents there, nor will the shepherds make their fold there. And so is accomplished in perfect faithfulness the word of the Lord concerning Babylon, that “it shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation.” And Babylon has “become heaps, a dwelling-place for dragons, an astonishment, and a hissing, without an inhabitant.” Jeremiah 51:37. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.12

And “this is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?” Isaiah 14:26, 27. J. SITI January 27, 1888, page 55.13