I am the first and the last (Isaiah 48)

Isaiah chapter 48 once again has a lot to say about idolatry and false gods. The chapter opens addressing the nation of Israel as the people "which swear by the name of the LORD," provoking the SAB to ask, Is it OK to swear? which I answered in Genesis chapter 21, where I said the real issue isn't whether oaths are okay, but rather whether you are being sincere. God emphasizes here that unlike false gods, he is able to tell people what will come to pass in the future, and he does so specifically so that people can't say, "My idol told me." Closing off this section, God refers to himself as, "I am he; I am the first, I also am the last." This provokes the SAB to ask Who is the first and the last?, which is not really a contradiction, because Jesus is God; once again, it's a Trinity issue, and you could say this of the Holy Ghost as well, even though the Bible doesn't.

The SAB has a couple issues with verse 13, "Mine hand also hath laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand hath spanned the heavens: when I call unto them, they stand up together." Apparently it's unscientific and absurd. I think you have to understand what is being said here. Saying "laid the foundation of the earth" is saying God is the creator. Saying "my right hand hath spanned the heavens" is just saying God is bigger than you can imagine. The last little bit is just implying that God is also in complete control of the universe. Verse 14 is marked as cruel and unjust, but I don't think "his arm shall be on the Chaldeans" implies violence; I think it's about control (which I suppose could still be considered unjust, but God's in control of everything and that's just the way it is). Verse 19 is marked absurd, and there's definitely something to be said about this. This really sounds like God is saying the promise he made to Abraham has already been fulfilled in the time frame of this chapter, but whether it's pre- or post-exile, the idea of the Jews being "like sand" (i.e., virtually uncountable) is something I don't think has ever been fulfilled. Some have suggested that this promise is fulfilled in the sum total of all adherents to Abrahamic religions, but that can't be the case for this time frame, so maybe absurd, but I don't know the reason it's marked that way, as is so often the case. Verse 21 is also marked absurd, but that's just a call back to the miracle in Exodus 17, as the SAB itself notes.

His arm shall be on the Chaldeans (Isaiah 47)

Isaiah chapter 47 has a lot of symbolic language, but it's not clear (to me at least) what the level of symbolism is. There's a lot of talk in the beginning addressed to the "virgin daughter of Babylon," which could mean Babylon as a whole, or perhaps the women of the conquered empire of Babylon, or maybe even the queen or a princess of Babylon. The SAB marks verses two and three for "Sex" because it talks about her nakedness, but once again (especially if it's referring to the nation) this could be simply symbolic of the shame of being conquered, although if it's referring to actual women, it could be literal.

Verse one mentions Chaldeans, which is worth a moment of reflection. (This name hasn't come up prominently in anything I've covered except tangentially in the fact that Abraham may have been a Chaldean, as he came from Ur, see Genesis chapter eleven.) The thing is, "Chaldeans" can refer to four different groups of people, which all have some overlap. 1) People who live in the lower Tigris and Euphrates region, 2) various subjects of the Babylonian Empire, 3) people trained in the art of divination (this comes up mostly in Daniel), and 4) a specific ethnic group from the region in (1). These are used pretty interchangeably. Anyway, it's not clear which sense of the word is being used here, as there's stuff in the chapter alluding to all of them, but I thought it was worth discussing.

Verses 13 and 14 are marked for injustice, intolerance, and cruelty, and they come at the end of a larger discussion of Babylon's arrogance and reliance on sorcerers of various sorts. I suppose you could say the SAB has a point here, but the point Isaiah is trying to make is that the Babylonians themselves were cruel, and didn't rely on God, and at least the former is something skeptics should understand. I think the language here about "the fire shall burn them" is likely not meant to be literal, but simply is using fire as a metaphor for the level of destruction that would come upon Babylon. See this post for general reflection on the topic of people being burned to death in the Bible.

Even them the king of Babylon brought captive to Babylon (Isaiah 39)

Isaiah chapter 39 is a short one, and the SAB just calls the whole thing boring. It's certainly not very exciting, but the implications of this story are important in the long term. The son of the king of Babylon comes to visit Hezekiah, he shows off all the treasures he has. Isaiah says that he's just ensured that Babylon will eventually invade and conquer Judah to take away all these treasures, and to boot, Hezekiah's sons will be slaves of Babylon. Oddly, Hezekiah doesn't pray for God to change this outcome as he did when it was his own life.

I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation (Isaiah 21)

Isaiah chapter 21 is a medium-sized chapter that has few notes. The one note that it has other than "Boring" is a note that it's absurd that Isaiah is in pain; I'm not sure why this should be absurd whether it's actual physical pain or some metaphor of emotional anguish, either way, it happens. Anyway, the first part of the chapter is a prophecy about Babylon, and the second part is about Edom and Arabia. In both cases, the prophecy seems to be about coming military conquest, with no time frame for the former but a year for the latter.

Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city (Isaiah 14)

Isaiah chapter 14 continues talk about Babylon's destruction. Early in the chapter, it talks about Israel returning to the land, and taking people from the nations that conquered them as slaves. I know slavery is not looked on positively in modern times, but this is again retribution for the time they were in captivity; there's no indication of how long this lasts, so it may have been a temporary state of affairs.

The prophecy turns specifically to talk about the king of Babylon, and how he and his family will be brought low. Verse 12 addresses "Lucifer", in which I believe the SAB is correct in interpreting that this is the king of Babylon, and not Satan. This is the only verse in the whole Bible with this name (in the Hebrew as well), and it supposedly means "morning star". Yes, Jesus is called the morning star towards the end of Revelation, but I don't think there's any connection. The SAB takes verses 21 and 22 to mean all Babylonians will be killed (which, if that were the case, would be a failed prophecy), but I think it's referring to the royal family in particular, coming right after the talk about the fall of the king. I answered whether people are punished for the sins of others in Genesis chapter nine and other places, and it's complicated.

Lastly, Isaiah turns to Assyria, which also gets its comeuppance. It sounds like any Assyrians who are found living in Israel after it's restored are going to be killed. Then Palestine (previously in another place than Israel, despite the fact that Israel comes to be known as Palestine around the 5th century B.C., because the Philistines were invaders) gets a share of the woes that Israel and Judah got, including cockatrices (whatever the Hebrew originally meant by this; see my commentary in chapter eleven) and famine, although somehow the poor have enough.

Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not (Isaiah 13)

There's a lot going on here in Isaiah chapter 13, much of which is marked cruel, unjust, and intolerant by the SAB. Once again, this chapter is about evil people seeing the results of their evilness, so it's questionable. So Isaiah talks about Babylon, which as I said in an earlier chapter is the empire that eventually pretty much completely destroys Judah. It's apparently rather violent, and Isaiah says they're going to destroy the land, whether that "land" is the land of Judah as a nation, or somehow destruction of the soil itself is not completely clear, but I think it's the former.

It says in verse seven that "every man's heart shall melt," which I notice the SAB doesn't mark for "Science" since hearts don't really melt; I'm never real clear on what gets marked with this tag and what gets recognized as poetic language. You have to wonder when the fact that Isaiah mentions moonlight ceasing triggers a "Science" tag, despite the fact that probably every culture--including modern scientifically grounded ones like ours--talks about moonlight and doesn't insist on calling it "light reflected off the moon from the sun." I think it's also pretty clear that, when Isaiah talks about God saying, "Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place," we're just talking about a powerful earthquake. I guess science and language are a funny thing sometimes.

So anyway, the war fought by Babylon is going to be brutal, not only will they kill everyone they see, including children, they will rape the women. Then for whatever reason, the Medes get in on the general killing action, this time attacking Babylon. Then, Isaiah prophesies that Babylon in turn will be destroyed, and the destruction will be so thorough that nobody will inhabit Babylon again. As the SAB points out, this is a prophecy that never was fulfilled; the Medes and the Persians defeated Babylon, but they didn't destroy it, but rather took it over. It's possible that this is a prophecy that is still to be fulfilled around the time of Christ's return, as the book of Revelation talks about the destruction of Babylon, but yes, this didn't happen any time in the past, and Babylon has pretty much always been inhabited up to the current day (it's in Iraq). Interestingly, Isaiah says that while there will be no humans, there will be satyrs and dragons! See my comments about this sort of thing in Isaiah chapter eleven.