Visualizing Isaiah 13:19-22 – Babylon, never inhabited

Edward Chiera, of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, excavated at Nuzi in 1927 and at Khorsabad in 1928, 29. On one of his visits in Mesopotamia he wrote a letter to his wife in which he described Babylon. This letter is included in his book They Wrote on Clay, xi-xv. The following excerpts describe vividly the fulfillment of the prophecies.

“On all sides is desert…. The large network of canals…is now represented by a series of small mounds of dirt, running in all directions. Even the Euphrates has abandoned this land by changing its course… The sun has just now disappeared and a purple sky smiles, unmindful of this scene of desolation…

“A dead city. I have visited Pompeii and Ostia, and I have taken walks along the empty corridors of the Palatine. But those cities are not dead; they are only temporarily abandoned… Here only is real death. Not a column or an arch still stands to demonstrate the permanency of human work. Everything has crumbled into dust…

“Under my feet are some holes which have been burrowed by foxes and jackals… It is beginning to be really dark, and the plaintive song of the Arab has ceased. Nothing breaks the deathly silence…”

Now read the prophecy of Isaiah regarding Babylon.

And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the splendor and pomp of the Chaldeans, will be like Sodom and Gomorrah when God overthrew them. It will never be inhabited or lived in for all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there; no shepherds will make their flocks lie down there. But wild animals will lie down there, and their houses will be full of howling creatures; there ostriches will dwell, and there wild goats will dance. Hyenas will cry in its towers, and jackals in the pleasant palaces; its time is close at hand and its days will not be prolonged. (Isaiah 13:19-22 ESV)

In 1970, eight years before Saddam Hussein began his rule, I had the opportunity to take a group of Christians to Iraq. The photo below is my favorite one of the mound of ancient Babylon. I sometimes show it with a caption from Jeremiah 51:27 – “Babylon shall become a heap of ruins.”

The mound of ancient Babylon in 1970. Photo by Ferrell Jenkins.

As a little flash from the past I thought I would share this 1970 photo made in front of a small Ishtar gate replica that served as the entry to the ruins of Babylon.

Ferrell Jenkins and Ferrell Jenkins, Jr. at the entry to ancient Babylon.

Notice that the tour was 21 days long. We visited Rome, Greece, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel, London, and Lisbon. The cost from New York, including all meals was — drum roll — $1,198!