Inspired by Isaiah 12 & 13, two friends grab their usual booth at Redbird Coffee to dig into these two chapters of scripture—a weird jump from future worship songs to God absolutely wrecking Babylon. With lukewarm coffee and no pretense, Marcus and Jenna try to make sense of the whiplash between praise and judgment, wondering how a loving God uses brutal empires, why kids get caught in the crossfire, and whether we’re all just living in Babylon anyway.
Corner booth at Redbird Coffee, middle of the afternoon. Lunch crowd’s gone. Marcus’s Bible is open between him and Jenna, pages covered in highlighter and coffee stains. Jenna’s on her second cup; lukewarm and not going anywhere. Rain is falling softly and faintly hitting the window. Some folk music nobody’s really listening to plays in the background.
Marcus: “So after all that heavy stuff in the earlier chapters, Isaiah 12 is just… singing?”
Jenna: “Yeah, it’s weird, right? Like two verses of ‘God, you were mad, but now you’re not, thanks for saving me,’ and then four more of ‘everybody shout about it.’ Seems almost too simple.”
Marcus: “I mean, I get thanksgiving, but it feels like there should be more to it. What are they even thankful for at that point?”
Jenna: “I think it’s future. Like, this is what they’ll sing when everything actually gets fixed. When they’re back home, when the Messiah’s ruling, when it’s all good finally.”
Marcus: “So it hasn’t happened yet?”
Jenna: “Not the way this describes it, no. It’s millennial—kingdom stuff. That’s why it sounds so… I don’t know, uncomplicated? There’s no more wrestling with God, no more exile, just relief.”
Marcus: “Must be nice.”
Jenna: “Right?”
Marcus: “And then chapter 13 just goes completely dark.”
Jenna: “Oh yeah. Babylon. Which wasn’t even the main problem when Isaiah was writing.”
Marcus: “That’s what I don’t get. Wasn’t Assyria the one breathing down their necks?”
Jenna: “Exactly. But God’s already looking past Assyria to the next empire, the one that’s going to destroy Jerusalem later and haul everybody off. And He’s saying, ‘Yeah, that empire? I’m going to flatten it.’”
Marcus: “The Medes thing happened, though, right?”
Jenna: “Historically, yes. Persia took Babylon. But the way Isaiah describes it—stars going dark, earth shaking, total annihilation—that didn’t all happen in 539 B.C.”
Marcus: “So what, it’s symbolic?”
Jenna: “Or it’s dual. Like, there was a real defeat of Babylon, but there’s also something bigger coming. Babylon becomes the symbol for everything that opposes God. The final Day of the Lord kind of thing.”
Marcus: “That’s pretty heavy for one city.”
Jenna: “I guess when you’re the empire that destroys the temple and takes God’s people captive, you earn it.”
Marcus: “Still, the events are brutal. Never inhabited again, like Sodom.”
Jenna: “And it really wasn’t. Babylon’s ruins, not a city anymore.”
Marcus: “Doesn’t that bother you a little? The violence of it?”
Jenna: “Of course it does. I mean, verse 16 talks about infants being dashed to pieces. That’s horrifying.”
Marcus: “So how do you square that with a good God?”
Jenna: “I don’t know if I square it. I think… I think there’s something about the absolute wickedness of Babylon that we don’t fully grasp. And about God’s holiness. When pride and rebellion reach a certain point, judgment is the only response left.”
Marcus: “But kids?”
Jenna: “I know. That’s the part I struggle with. God’s word indicates that those who have not reached the age of accountability belong to Him. I think it’s describing the totality of war, the horror of it, not prescribing it. The Medes weren’t exactly gentle conquerors.”
Marcus: “And God used them anyway.”
Jenna: “He uses all kinds of things and people. He allows it but doesn’t endorse everything they do.”
Marcus: “That feels like a cop-out.”
Jenna: “Maybe. Or maybe it’s just honest about how messy history is. God’s working out His purposes, and sometimes that involves empires rising and falling and a lot of people getting hurt in between.”
Marcus: “And we’re supposed to sing about it like in chapter 12?”
Jenna: “Eventually. When the dust settles. When the kingdoms that oppose Him are gone, and His kingdom is here.”
Marcus: “I don’t know if I can wait that long.”
Jenna: “Yeah, me neither.”
Marcus: “Do you think we’re living in Babylon?”
Jenna: “What, like America?”
Marcus: “Or just… the system. The whole thing. The pride, the self-worship, the ignoring God.”
Jenna: “Probably. I mean, Babylon shows up again in Revelation as this symbol of everything wrong with the world. So in some sense, yeah, we’re always living in Babylon until we’re not.”
Marcus: “Comforting.”
Jenna: “Not really meant to be.”
Marcus: “So what do we do with that?”
Jenna: “I guess we remember that it doesn’t last. That God’s not ignoring it. That there’s a Day of the Lord coming, and Babylon—whatever form it takes—doesn’t get the last word.”
Marcus: “And we’re supposed to be okay with the violence that comes with that?”
Jenna: “I don’t think we have to be okay with it. I think we trust that God’s justice is actually just, even when we can’t see how. And that the same God who brings down Babylon is the one who turns away His anger in chapter 12. Both are true.”
Marcus: “That’s difficult to balance.”
Jenna: “It really is.”
Marcus: “You think the Medes knew they were being used for God’s purposes?”
Jenna: “Probably not. They just wanted to conquer. But God redirected it.”
Marcus: “That’s kind of terrifying, too. Being used and not even knowing it.”
Jenna: “Better than being Babylon, though.”
Marcus: “Fair point.”
Jenna: “I keep coming back to verse 11. ‘I will punish the world for its evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will halt the arrogance of the proud.’ Like, that’s the thing, isn’t it? The arrogance. Babylon thought it was unstoppable.”
Marcus: “Most empires do.”
Jenna: “Most people do, if we’re honest.”
Marcus: “You think that’s why this is in here? To remind us we’re not God?”
Jenna: “Probably. And that God’s not going to let rebellion go on forever. There’s a reckoning.”
Marcus: “And after the reckoning, there’s singing.”
Jenna: “If we’re on the right side of it, yeah.”
Marcus: “How do we know if we are?”
Jenna: “I think that’s the question, isn’t it?”
Marcus shuts the Bible, and they just sit there for a minute, staring at the rain running down the glass, both of them knowing some questions don’t get tied up neat in one afternoon.
Created by Steve
God’s Word…
Holman Christian Standard Bible
Isaiah 12 and 13
A Song of Praise
12 On that day you will say:
“I will praise You, Lord,
although You were angry with me.
Your anger has turned away,
and You have had compassion on me.
2 Indeed, God is my salvation;
I will trust Him and not be afraid,
for Yah, the Lord,
is my strength and my song.
He has become my salvation.”
3 You will joyfully draw water
from the springs of salvation,
4 and on that day you will say:
“Give thanks to Yahweh; proclaim His name!
Celebrate His works among the peoples.
Declare that His name is exalted.
5 Sing to Yahweh, for He has done glorious things.
Let this be known throughout the earth.
6 Cry out and sing, citizen of Zion,
for the Holy One of Israel is among you
in His greatness.”
An Oracle against Babylon
13 An oracle against Babylon that Isaiah son of Amoz saw:
2 Lift up a banner on a barren mountain.
Call out to them.
Wave your hand, and they will go
through the gates of the nobles.
3 I have commanded My chosen ones;
I have also called My warriors,
who exult in My triumph,
to execute My wrath.
4 Listen, a tumult on the mountains,
like that of a mighty people!
Listen, an uproar among the kingdoms,
like nations being gathered together!
The Lord of Hosts is mobilizing an army for war.
5 They are coming from a far land,
from the distant horizon—
the Lord and the weapons of His wrath—
to destroy the whole country.[a]
6 Wail! For the day of the Lord is near.
It will come like destruction from the Almighty.
7 Therefore everyone’s hands will become weak,
and every man’s heart will melt.
8 They will be horrified;
pain and agony will seize them;
they will be in anguish like a woman in labor.
They will look at each other,
their faces flushed with fear.
9 Look, the day of the Lord is coming—
cruel, with rage and burning anger—
to make the earth a desolation
and to destroy the sinners on it.
10 Indeed, the stars of the sky and its constellations[b]
will not give their light.
The sun will be dark when it rises,
and the moon will not shine.
11 I will bring disaster on the world,
and their own iniquity, on the wicked.
I will put an end to the pride of the arrogant
and humiliate the insolence of tyrants.
12 I will make man scarcer than gold,
and mankind more rare than the gold of Ophir.
13 Therefore I will make the heavens tremble,
and the earth will shake from its foundations
at the wrath of the Lord of Hosts,
on the day of His burning anger.
14 Like wandering gazelles
and like sheep without a shepherd,
each one will turn to his own people,
each one will flee to his own land.
15 Whoever is found will be stabbed,
and whoever is caught will die by the sword.
16 Their children will be smashed to death before their eyes;
their houses will be looted,
and their wives raped.
17 Look! I am stirring up the Medes against them,
who cannot be bought off with[c] silver
and who have no desire for gold.
18 Their bows will cut young men to pieces.
They will have no compassion on little ones;
they will not look with pity on children.
19 And Babylon, the jewel of the kingdoms,
the glory of the pride of the Chaldeans,
will be like Sodom and Gomorrah
when God overthrew them.
20 It will never be inhabited
or lived in from generation to generation;
a nomad will not pitch his tent there,
and shepherds will not let their flocks rest there.
21 But desert creatures will lie down there,
and owls will fill the houses.
Ostriches will dwell there,
and wild goats will leap about.
22 Hyenas will howl in the fortresses,
and jackals, in the luxurious palaces.
Babylon’s time is almost up;
her days are almost over.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 13:5 Or earth
- Isaiah 13:10 Or Orions
- Isaiah 13:17 Lit who have no regard for