Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 92:366 (Apr 1935)
Article: The Destruction of Babylon Part 1
Author: Herbert Mackenzie

BSac 92:366 (Apr 35) p. 226

The Destruction of Babylon
Part 1

Herbert Mackenzie

An Address Delivered Before the American Society for Prophetic Study

The utter destruction of Babylon is a burden of the prophets, predictions being found in both the Old and the New Testaments, outlines of prophecy being given through Isaiah and Jeremiah, whose statements are added to and in some details amplified in the writings of the apostle John, recorded in the 17th and 18th chapters of the book of the Revelation. The desolations of Babylon which have been wrought through the ages are evidenced today by the heaps which are found upon her ancient site, but the destruction as outlined in the Word of God is not yet complete.

The great Babylonian city, built by the monarch whom God has called a king of kings (Dan 2:37), was taken after a successful siege by Cyrus, and at this point we reach the first fulfilments of the judgments recorded by the two prominent prophetic writers of the Old Testament. This capture of the city involved, of course, the collapse of the Babylonian armies, but the walls of the city, with its interior, were kept practically intact. Later the great world conqueror, Alexander the Great, received the surrender of the city, and the inhabitants, who had become accustomed to a foreign yoke, then mounted the walls, extended greetings to their conqueror, and welcomed the Grecian emperor who shortly afterward died before his plans to rebuild towers and temples were completely carried out. Later sieges and conquests failed to fulfil the prophetic Word, but Babylon gradually decayed and its walls were under repair as late as the fourth century. We might cover the history of this age and find

BSac 92:366 (Apr 35) p. 227

conditions call for a fuller realization of the divine prophecies which point to an utter obliteration of the great city which is the subject before us.

In order to crystallize some unfulfilled portions of the Babylon prophecies, let us note two or three things. The prophet Isaiah sets the hour for the final judgment upon Babylon as falling in the day of the Lord, Isaiah 13:6, 9 and 10. “Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate; and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” The day of the Lord...