Song of Solomon in Isaiah 13:19-22

The barrenness of Babylon is depicted through an inversion of Solomon’s Canticle. Instead of pasture there is wilderness; instead of the merry songs of men and women there are the doleful cries of birds and beasts.

This passage is the Maturity step in what would be a sevenfold sequence if it had not been denied its Sabbath rest. For the introduction to this section (Isaiah 13:1-14:2), see Isaiah’s Kill List – Part 2.

CYCLE 2A5
Transformation/Maturity:
The Barrenness of Babylon

The Maturity Cycle strips the bridal glory from Babylon in kingly terms, just as the bridal glory was stripped from Zion in priestly terms (see the notes on 1B3, Isaiah 3:16-4:1). Imagery from both texts is reprised in the Book of Revelation to describe the desolation of harlot Jerusalem, the spiritual Babylon.

The barrenness of Babylon is depicted through an inversion of the Song of Solomon. In the Canticle, Jerusalem is the bride of the king, and she swears by the gazelles and does. Her beloved bounds like a stag, and their house is a forest of cedars (1 Kings 7:1-5). She is compared to a mare among Solomon’s Egyptian chariots, and is as awesome as an army with banners. Her hair is a flock of goats, and her neck is the tower of David. Their garden of love filled with the choicest fruits is a better Garden of Eden, a Sanctuary where, blessed by God, nature is glorified by the faithful Man as beauteous culture. But Isaiah 13:19-20 parodies such blessedness in dark relief. Instead of pasture there is wilderness; instead of the merry songs of men and women there are the doleful cries of birds and beasts.

The overall structure is an inverse forming and filling. Babel is divided in Days 1 to 3 to provide a demonic temple-citadel for the creatures of the night to haunt in Days 4 to 6.

• (13:19a) The combination of the beauty of the “lady of kingdoms” (Isaiah 47:5) with the wisdom of the Chaldeans depicts once again the commercial and cultural powers of this enduring city-and-tower “Babelic” complex. The word translated “gazelle” in Isaiah 13:14 (picturing those attracted by the wealth of the city) is the bridal “glory” or “ornament” of all the kingdoms in Isaiah 13:19. Abram’s origin in Ur of the Chaldeans is significant, since God chose him to found a kingdom of “stars,” Solomonic rulers whose rise, wisdom, and glory would be renowned worldwide.
• (13:19b) The overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah by God became proverbial for a sudden fall (Deuteronomy 29:23; Isaiah 1:9; Jeremiah 50:40). Babylon did eventually become a naked and hideous waste, but only very slowly and by degrees. So the image refers to its sudden political demise—that described in Daniel 5. But the reference to the cities of plain in the biblical context also uses the physical barrenness of the scorched earth and Lot’s wife—the Edenic/Abrahamic land and womb—to symbolize the end of Babylon’s cultural and political supremacy.
• (13:20a) The two Stanzas of verse 20 correspond to the Altar (the Land) and its sacrifices (the fruits). Once again, natural language describes a spiritual sense. Babylon was still populated under the empires of Persia and Greece but as a subordinate city. The word “inhabited” carries the idea of sitting down, dwelling, and even of marriage. Bereft of its kings, Babylon would be a widow dependent upon those whom it once dominated. “Settled” is the word from which shekinah is derived. The political and spiritual glory which once tabernacled in Babylon as a place of heavenly mediation would depart forever. The city was made “common.”
• (13:20b) Solomon used the tents of Kedar to picture the humility of an Abrahamic bride for Isaac, but Babylon will be so desolate that even the Arabian nomads cannot pasture their flocks.
• (13:21a) Beasts appear again in the Kingdom step. The desert dwellers were superstitious and refused to spend the night in ruins, perceiving them to be haunted. Instead, the sites became shelter for beasts of prey, an Edenic symbol for the forfeiture of the dominion of Man (Genesis 1:28; Leviticus 26:21-22). “Howling creatures” derives from a Hebrew root for “breathe,” combining the lonesome, nocturnal mourning of unclean birds of prey with possession by evil spirits after the glory of God has departed. Jesus predicted this fate for first-century Jerusalem under the curses of the Law (Matthew 12:43-45).
• (13:21b) The “bridal” Stanza sees Babylon “settled” not by her daughters and sons, but by “daughter owls” and “wild goats.” The perfect dove and leaping stag of Solomon’s Canticle have fled.
  The goat, being long-haired, is a “bridal” animal on the Day of Atonement, picturing the corporate people of God. It is a kingly beast in contrast to its priestly brother, the sheep. But without spiritual guidance, it is the natural heir left to his own devices, an uncultured, hairy man like Esau. Thus, similar language is used of Edom in 34:11-15, the brother who sided with Babylon against Jacob (Psalm 137:7-9; Isaiah 21). This betrayal culminates in the Edomite conspiracy of the Herods as the spiritual Babylon that slaughtered Jesus’ sheep, the spiritual sons of Jacob.
• (13:22a) In the Day 6 Stanza, the towers of Adam and the palaces of Eve are roamed by dogs (foxes, hyenas, and/or jackals), the biblical symbol for human scavengers within a walled city.
• (13:22b) She who studied the stars would not perceive that the appointed end of her days had been fixed by God.

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