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.