Babylon

Babylon stands on the plain of Shinar in southern Mesopotamia, and across the canon it is the empire that razes Jerusalem in the sixth century, deports Judah for seventy years, hosts Daniel and his companions in its court, and then becomes the symbol under which Revelation files every imperial city that drinks the blood of the saints. The earliest mention sets the place on the map: "And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, and Accad--all of them in the land of Shinar" (Gen 10:10). What follows in the canon traces a single arc from the tower at Babel to the millstone cast into the sea over Babylon the great.

Babel and the Plain of Shinar

The first time Babel is built, the builders are united and ambitious. They settle in the same plain Genesis 10 named, and they say, "Come, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top [may reach] to heaven, and let us make us a name; or else we will be scattered abroad on the face of the whole earth" (Gen 11:4). Yahweh responds by confounding their language: "So [the Speech of] Yahweh scattered them abroad from there on the face of all the earth: and they left off building the city. Therefore the name of it was called Babel; because there Yahweh confounded the language of all the earth" (Gen 11:8-9). The site of the future imperial capital is introduced as the place where a city-and-tower project to make a name was scattered by Yahweh's word.

Hezekiah's Blunder

Long before Babylon takes Jerusalem, Isaiah names Babylon as the address of the coming exile. After Hezekiah shows the Babylonian envoys his treasures, Isaiah delivers the verdict: "Look, the days come, that all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store to this day, will be carried to Babylon: nothing will be left, says Yahweh. And of your sons who will issue from you, whom you will beget, they will take away; and they will be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon" (2 Kgs 20:17-18). Hezekiah's reply, "Is it not so, if peace and truth will be in my days?" (2 Kgs 20:19), absorbs the warning into his own lifetime and lets it pass to his sons.

The Siege and Fall of Jerusalem

Babylon comes to Judah twice. The first wave, under Jehoiakim and then Jehoiachin, ends with Jerusalem stripped: "And he carried out from there all the treasures of the house of Yahweh, and the treasures of the king's house, and cut in pieces all the vessels of gold, which Solomon king of Israel had made in the temple of Yahweh, as Yahweh had said. And he carried away all Jerusalem, and all the princes, and all the mighty men of valor, even ten thousand captives, and all the craftsmen and the blacksmiths" (2 Kgs 24:13-14). The same scene, named for the king and his slave, is what Jeremiah's narrative of Zedekiah's last year fills out at the second wave. "In his days Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came up, and Jehoiakim became his slave three years: then he turned and rebelled against him" (2 Kgs 24:1).

The end of the kingdom comes in the eleventh year of Zedekiah. "And it came to pass in the ninth year of his reign, in the tenth month, in the tenth day of the month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, and encamped against it" (2 Kgs 25:1; the same reckoning stands at Jer 39:1 and Jer 32:1-2). Famine, breach, capture: "Then they took the king, and carried him up to the king of Babylon to Riblah; and they gave judgment on him. And they slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and carried him to Babylon" (2 Kgs 25:6-7). Jeremiah names the captains who sat in the middle gate, Nergal-sharezer and Samgar-nebo and the Rabsaris and the Rabmag (Jer 39:3), and tells the same fate of Zedekiah at Riblah (Jer 39:5-7). The captain of the guard, Nebuzaradan, "burned the house of Yahweh, and the king's house; and all the houses of Jerusalem, even every great house, he burned with fire" (2 Kgs 25:9). The pillars of bronze, the bases, and the bronze sea — "the Chaldeans broke in pieces, and carried the bronze of them to Babylon" (2 Kgs 25:13).

Chronicles closes the narrative theologically: "Therefore he brought on them the king of the Chaldeans, who slew their young men with the sword in the house of their sanctuary... And those who had escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon; and they were slaves to him and his sons until the reign of the kingdom of Persia: to fulfill the word of Yahweh by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths: [for] as long as it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years" (2 Chr 36:17, 20-21). The same king is the agent in the brief notice "Against him came up Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and bound him in fetters, to carry him to Babylon" (2 Chr 36:6).

The Word of Jeremiah

Jeremiah's career is bound to the king of Babylon at every turn. The seventy-year sentence is pronounced in the fourth year of Jehoiakim: "look, I will send and take all the families of the north, says Yahweh, and [I will send] to Nebuchadrezzar the king of Babylon, my slave, and will bring them against this land... And this whole land will be a desolation, and an astonishment; and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years" (Jer 25:9, 11). The same oracle promises the eventual reckoning: "And it will come to pass, when seventy years are accomplished, that I will punish the king of Babylon, and that nation, says Yahweh, for their iniquity, and the land of the Chaldeans; and I will make it desolate forever" (Jer 25:12).

Jeremiah's policy advice runs against the patriotic prophets. To Zedekiah and the assembled kings he says, "Bring your⁺ necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live" (Jer 27:12), because "I have given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my slave; and the beasts of the field also I have given him to serve him" (Jer 27:6). When the city is besieged and Jeremiah is shut up in the court of the guard, the word still comes: "Therefore thus says Yahweh: Look, I will give this city into the hand of the Chaldeans, and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he will take it" (Jer 32:28). And in the same chapter, while the mounds rise against the walls, the prophet buys his cousin's field at Anathoth as a sign that "Houses and fields and vineyards will yet again be bought in this land" (Jer 32:15). Babylon's hand is, in Jeremiah's idiom, both the instrument of Yahweh's wrath and a season with an end.

By the Rivers of Babylon

The exile is heard in Psalm 137. "By the rivers of Babylon, There we sat down, yes, we wept, When we remembered Zion. On the willows in the midst of it We hung up our harps. For there those who led us captive required of us songs, And those who wasted us [required of us] mirth, [saying] Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing Yahweh's song In a foreign land?" (Ps 137:1-4). The psalm ends in imprecation: "O daughter of Babylon, who are to be destroyed, Happy he will be, who rewards you As you have served us" (Ps 137:8).

Daniel in the Court

Daniel and his companions are taken in the first wave. "In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon to Jerusalem, and besieged it" (Dan 1:1); "Now among these were, of the sons of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah" (Dan 1:6). Daniel "purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king's dainties, nor with the wine which he drank" (Dan 1:8) and so the long career in the court begins with a refusal.

The dream-image of Daniel 2 frames Babylon inside a succession of kingdoms. "As for this image, its head was of fine gold, its breast and its arms of silver, its belly and its thighs of bronze, its legs of iron, its feet part of iron, and part of clay" (Dan 2:32-33). To Nebuchadnezzar Daniel says, "You, O king, are king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, and the strength, and the glory... you are the head of gold. And after you will arise another kingdom inferior to you; and another third kingdom of bronze, which will bear rule over all the earth" (Dan 2:37-39). The image is broken by a stone "cut out without hands" (Dan 2:34), and "in the days of those kings will the God of heaven set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed" (Dan 2:44). Babylon is given a definite place in the sequence and a definite end.

The pattern repeats. In Daniel 3, Nebuchadnezzar "made an image of gold, whose height was threescore cubits, and its width six cubits: he set it up in the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon" (Dan 3:1), and the Chaldeans bring accusation against the Jews who will not bow (Dan 3:8). In Daniel 4, after his madness, the king publishes a decree to "all the peoples, nations, and languages" (Dan 4:1) and ends, "Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven; for all his works are truth, and his ways justice; and those who walk in pride he is able to abase" (Dan 4:37). The Chaldean wise men — "the sacred scholars, and the psychics, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans" (Dan 2:2) — are the foil throughout: they cannot interpret, and Daniel can.

Belshazzar's Feast

Daniel 5 brings the dynasty down. "Belshazzar the king made a great feast to a thousand of his lords, and drank wine before the thousand" (Dan 5:1). When the writing appears on the plaster, "the king cried aloud to bring in the psychics, the Chaldeans, and the astrologers" (Dan 5:7), but again the Chaldeans cannot read it. Daniel reads it. To Belshazzar he says, "And you his son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but have lifted up yourself against the Lord of heaven; and they have brought the vessels of his house before you, and you and your lords, your wives and your concubines, have drank wine from them" (Dan 5:22-23). Then comes the inscription and the verdict: "MENE, MENE, TEKEL, UPHARSIN. This is the interpretation of the thing: MENE; God has numbered your kingdom, and brought it to an end; TEKEL; you are weighed in the balances, and are found wanting. PERES; your kingdom is divided, and given to the Medes and Persians" (Dan 5:25-28). "In that night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain. And Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about threescore and two years old" (Dan 5:30-31).

Prophetic Oracles Against Babylon

The prophets keep two registers running side by side: Babylon as Yahweh's instrument, and Babylon as a city under sentence. Isaiah opens with "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz saw" (Isa 13:1) and announces, "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' pride, will be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah" (Isa 13:19). The taunt-song of Isaiah 14 puts a parable on the lips of the freed nations: "How has the oppressor ceased! The arrogance has ceased!" (Isa 14:4). To the king of Babylon it says, "How you have fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid low the nations!... Yet you will be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit" (Isa 14:12, 15). Yahweh's own answer follows: "And I will rise up against them, says Yahweh of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son's son, says Yahweh" (Isa 14:22). The watchman of Isaiah 21 shouts, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the graven images of her gods are broken to the ground" (Isa 21:9).

Isaiah 47 addresses the city as a woman. "Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans: for you will no more be called tender and delicate" (Isa 47:1). Her self-claim is the same self-claim Yahweh denies: "you have said in your heart, I am, and there is no other besides me; I will not sit as a widow, neither will I know the loss of children: but these two things will come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood" (Isa 47:8-9). Yahweh names the agent: "He whom Yahweh loves will perform his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm [will be on] the Chaldeans" (Isa 48:14). And the redemption clause: "Thus says Yahweh, your⁺ Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your⁺ sake I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans" (Isa 43:14).

Jeremiah 50-51 is the long oracle. "The word that Yahweh spoke concerning Babylon, concerning the land of the Chaldeans, by Jeremiah the prophet" (Jer 50:1). Verdict: "Because of the wrath of Yahweh she will not be inhabited, but she will be wholly desolate: everyone who goes by Babylon will be astonished, and hiss at all her plagues" (Jer 50:13). The sword refrain: "A sword is on the Chaldeans, says Yahweh, and on the inhabitants of Babylon, and on her princes, and on her wise men... A drought is on her waters, and they will be dried up; for it is a land of graven images, and they are mad over idols" (Jer 50:35, 38). The Sodom parallel returns: "As when [the Speech of] God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah and their neighboring cities, says Yahweh, so a man will not dwell there, neither will any son of man sojourn in it" (Jer 50:40). Then Jeremiah 51: "Thus says Yahweh: Look, I will raise up against Babylon, and against those who dwell in Leb-kamai, a destroying wind" (Jer 51:1). "Babylon has suddenly fallen and destroyed: wail for her; take balm for her pain, if perhaps she may be healed" (Jer 51:8).

Habakkuk picks up the same charge in the form of woes. "Will not all these take up a parable against him, and a taunting proverb against him, and say, Woe to him who increases that which is not his!" (Hab 2:6). "Because you have plundered many nations, all the remnant of the peoples will plunder you, because of man's blood, and for the violence done to the land, to the city and to all who dwell in it" (Hab 2:8). "Woe to him who builds a town with blood, and establishes a city by iniquity!" (Hab 2:12).

The Genealogy's Anchor

Matthew's genealogy makes the Babylonian Exile one of three structural seams. "and Josiah begot Jehoiachin and his brothers at the Babylonian Exile. And after the Babylonian Exile, Jehoiachin begot Shealtiel; and Shealtiel begot Zerubbabel" (Mt 1:11-12). The summary that closes the list keeps the same hinge: "So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the Babylonian Exile were fourteen generations, and from the Babylonian Exile to the Christ were fourteen generations" (Mt 1:17). The empire that took the Davidic line into captivity is the seam between David and Christ.

Babylon in Revelation

Revelation gives Babylon back as a figure. The angel's first announcement names her: "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, that has made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her whoring" (Rev 14:8). The seventh bowl repeats it: "And the great city was divided into three parts, and the cities of the nations fell: and Babylon the great was remembered in the sight of God, to give to her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath" (Rev 16:19).

The vision in Revelation 17 makes the figure a person. "Come here, I will show you the judgment of the great whore that sits on many waters; with whom the kings of the earth went whoring" (Rev 17:1-2). The woman rides a scarlet beast, "arrayed in purple and scarlet, and decked with gold and precious stone and pearls, having in her hand a golden cup full of detestable things" (Rev 17:4), and "on her forehead a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF THE WHORES AND OF THE DETESTABLE THINGS OF THE EARTH" (Rev 17:5). She is "drunk with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus" (Rev 17:6).

Revelation 18 stages the funeral. "Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great, and has become a dwelling place of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit, and a hold of every unclean bird, and and a hold of every unclean and hateful beast" (Rev 18:2). The angel cast a great millstone into the sea: "Thus with a mighty fall will Babylon, the great city, be cast down, and will be found no more at all" (Rev 18:21). The rest of the chapter empties the city: no harpers, no craftsman, no millstone's voice, no lamp, no bridegroom and bride. "And in her was found the blood of prophets and of saints, and of all who have been slain on the earth" (Rev 18:24).

The line that runs from the plain of Shinar to the great whore is one line in this canon. The city that wanted to make a name and reach to heaven is the city Yahweh scatters; the empire that takes Judah's treasures and breaks the temple's bronze is the empire of the head of gold; the head of gold is weighed and found wanting; and the figure Revelation paints, drunk on the wine of her whoring, is the same figure cast into the sea like a millstone, never to be found at all. Peter's closing greeting from "She who is in Babylon, elect together with [you⁺]" (1 Pet 5:13) signs off from a city whose name in the canon already does double duty, both place and figure.