Isa. 47 God’s judgments upon Babylon and Chaldea; for their cruelty towards God’s people, Isa. 47:1–6; their pride and other sins, Isa. 47:7–10. Their enchantments shall not deliver them, Isa. 47:11–15.

Come down from thy throne, as it follows, and sit in the dust; either necessarily, because thou shalt have no higher seat; or voluntarily, as mourners do, bewailing thine approaching calamities. O virgin daughter of Babylon; so called, either, 1.

Take the millstones; betake thyself to the millstones; as we commonly say, Take thy bed, or, Betake thyself to thy bed. The meaning is, Thou shalt be brought down to the basest kind of slavery, which grinding at the mill was esteemed; of which see on Ex. 11:5, Judg. 16:21, Job 31:10, Lam. 5:13.

Thy nakedness shall be uncovered; either, 1. For want of raiment to cover it; or rather, 2. By thine enemies in way of scorn and contumely, by comparing this place with Ezek. 16:37, Ezek. 23:29. Thy shame shall be seen upon thee for thy many and great injuries done to my people.

According to this version, the prophet inserteth this passage in the midst of this prophecy against Babylon, as Jacob inserteth a like passage in the midst of his blessings and prophecies concerning his children, Gen. 49:18. And this may be here interposed, either, 1.

Sit thou silent, through grief and shame, and as mourners use to do, Job 2:13. Cease thy vaunting and insolent speeches; thou canst say nothing for thine own justification. Get thee into darkness; thou shalt go into an obscure, disconsolate, and calamitous condition.

I have polluted mine inheritance; I cast them away as an unclean thing; I stained their glory; I removed them from the Holy Land, and from the place of my presence and worship, which alone made them a holy and peculiar people; I banished them into a polluted land, amongst uncircumcised and unclean…

These things; thy cruel usages of my people, and the heavy judgments which thou hadst reason to expect for them. The latter end of it; of that lady or of Babylon, and her glory and empire, or of thyself; here being a sudden change of the person, of which I have noted many examples in this prophet.

I am; I am independent, and self-sufficient, and unchangeable, as that phrase implies, which therefore is appropriated to God, Isa. 41:4, Isa. 43:10, and elsewhere. The prophet doth not here use the very phrase which the Babylonians used, but expresseth their sense in a Scripture phrase.

In their perfection; in the highest degree. Thy king and kingdom shall be utterly and eternally destroyed. For the multitude of thy sorceries, and for the great abundance of thine enchantments; for thy superstitious and magical practices, which were very frequent there, as we see Isa.

Thou hast trusted in thy wickedness; confidently expecting to preserve thyself by these and other wicked arts and policies. Thou hast said, None seeth me; my counsels are so deeply and cunningly laid, that God himself can neither discover nor prevent the execution of them.

Therefore shall evil come upon thee; or rather, when it shall come: Heb. the morning of it, the day or time of its approach. And they are justly upbraided and derided for this ignorance, because the astrologers, the star-gazers, and the monthly prognosticators, mentioned here, Isa.

Stand: this word notes either, 1. Continuance. Persist or go on in these practices. Or, 2. Their gesture. For those that inquired of their gods by any of these superstitious practices used to stand; this being a posture, both of reverence, and waiting for an answer.

Thou art wearied; thou hast spent thy time and strength in going from one to another, in trying all manner of experiments, and all to no purpose. Stand up, and save thee to succour thee, or to inquire for thee.

They shall not deliver themselves, and much less thee, from the power of the flame; they shall be totally consumed, and all the comfort which thou didst expect from them shall utterly vanish.

Thus, such comfortless and helpless creatures, shall they be; either, 1. Thy merchants, as it follows, with whom thou hast trafficked. Or, 2. Thy sorcerers, astrologers, &c., with whom they are said to have laboured, both here and Isa.