CHAPTER 47 Jun. 22 
Judgement on Babylon
Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter of Babylon; sit on the ground without a throne, daughter of the Chaldeans: for you shall no more be called tender and delicate. 2Take the millstones, and grind meal; remove your veil, strip off the train, uncover the leg, pass through the rivers. 3Your nakedness shall be uncovered, yes, your shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and will spare no man. 4Our Redeemer, Yahweh of Armies is His name, is the Holy One of Israel. 5Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter of the Chaldeans; for you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms. 6I was angry with My people, I profaned My inheritance, and gave them into your hand: you showed them no mercy; on the aged you have very heavily laid your yoke. 7You said, ‘I shall be a mistress forever;’ so that you did not lay these things to your heart, nor did you remember the latter end of it. 8Now therefore hear this, you who are given to pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children:’ 9but these two things shall come to you in a moment in one day, the loss of children, and widowhood; in their full measure shall they come on you, in the multitude of your sorceries, and the great abundance of your enchantments. 10For you have trusted in your wickedness; you have said, ‘No one sees me’; your wisdom and your knowledge, it has perverted you, and you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is none else besides me’. 11Therefore evil will come on you; you won’t know when it dawns: and mischief will fall on you; you will not be able to put it away: and desolation shall come on you suddenly, which you don’t know. 12Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries in which you have laboured from your youth; if so be you shall be able to profit, if so be you may prevail! 13You are wearied in the multitude of your counsellors: let now the astrologers, the stargazers, the monthly prognosticators, stand up and save you from the things that shall come on you. 14Behold, they shall be as stubble; the fire shall burn them; they shall not deliver themselves from the power of the flame: it shall not be a coal to warm at, nor a fire to sit before. 15Thus shall the things be to you in which you have laboured: those who have trafficked with you from your youth shall wander each one to his place; there shall be none to save you.

Commentary

47:8 I am and there is none else- We bear the Name of Yahweh / Jehovah, by reason of our baptism into it. His Name is declared as His character- merciful, truthful, judging sin, patient etc (Ex. 34:5-7). He who will be who He will be, manifesting His characteristics as He does so, must have His way in us too. Babylon and Nineveh were condemned for having the attitude that “I am, and there is none beside me” (Zeph. 2:15). Their self-perception was a parody on the Name and being of Yahweh: He alone can say “I am, and there is none else” (43:11; 44:6; 45:6,21) and seek to be who He is. He alone can seek to articulate the characteristics that make up His Name onto the lives of others, and onto the things that comprise His Kingdom. We are not to be who we are in a fleshly sense; to ‘just be yourself’; to ‘just do it’, as foolish slogans and adverts encourage us. We are here to show forth His mercy, truth, judgment of sin, patient saving of the weak etc., not our own human agenda. We are, in the very end, Yahweh manifested to this world, through our participation in His Name in Christ.