What we have seen we might almost call, the burden of Jacob. Judgment has to “begin at the house of God” (1 Peter 4:17). Israel was that of old time, but though their heavy guilt brings on them heavy judgment, a bright future waits for them at the end. The judgment having begun at them, we now find the surrounding nations judged. A burden lay upon them from the hand of God and as the prophet uttered the burden it lay also doubtless on his own spirit. Chapter 13 begins the “burden of Babylon”. The Spirit of God foresaw that this city would become the chief oppressor, and the original seat of Gentile power when the “times of the Gentiles” should set in.
The predicted destruction will arrive when “the day of the Lord” sets in, as verses 6 and 9 show; hence the terrible overthrow, detailed in verses 1-16, will be witnessed in the last days, and be executed upon the proud Gentile power of which Babylon was the head and front, as we see in Daniel 2 and 7. Verse 11 speaks of punishing “the world” for their iniquity, and of convulsions in the heavens as well as the earth, such as the Lord also predicted in His prophetic discourse. But in verse 17 the prophecy does descend to a judgment more immediate, which was executed by the Medes, as the book of Daniel records. It is in this connection that the statement is made that the destruction of Babylon should be complete and irremediable. The prediction has been fulfilled unto this day and still stands. Anything that might appear to be to the contrary applies, we judge, to the dominant Gentile power, which does still exist, and of which Babylon was the beginning, or to that “mystery” Babylon of Revelation 17, which represents the false professing church, left for judgment when the Lord comes for His true saints.
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