Isaiah 13:20

"It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there. And wolves shall cry in their castles, and jackals in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged."

"It shall never be inhabited" (Isaiah 13:20). All right, let the arrogant destructive critics tell us how any post-exilic author of this section of Isaiah could possibly have written a line like this. Even as late as the conquest of Babylon, anyone with the slightest information about world affairs in that day would have been hailed as a lunatic for authoring a line like this. It was only Isaiah's deserved reputation as a true prophet of God that protected him from the same fate.

This marvelous prophecy regarding Babylon was inspired by God. No human wisdom could have foreseen it; no brilliant evaluator of the fate of nations could have predicted it. Such a fate for Babylon was as totally beyond "thinkability" on the part of any person in that whole time period as a prediction today that New York City would eventually be uninhabited! From the times of Cyrus until those of Alexander of Macedon (334-320 B.C.) Babylon remained one of the chief cities of the Persian empire. Alexander intended to make it his capital; but his death thwarted his plans. Afterward Babylon began to decline; and Strabo (born in 60 B.C.) described Babylon as "a perfect desert."[13] Josephus, however, stated that the place had a large population during the first century of our era.[14] But not for long, "It went rapidly to decay and soon disappeared from sight. The place became and has ever since remained `uninhabited.'"[15] From these observations the shameful efforts of some critics to deny the Isaiah authorship of this prophecy are exposed as illogical and totally unacceptable.

Regarding Babylon today, Dummelow observed that, "Its glory lingered for a time, but it died away before the beginning of the Christian era; and Babylon is now, and has long been, only a heap of ruins."[16]

"And her time is near to come ..." Peake complained that the prophecy predicted the downfall of Babylon would take place near in the future,[17] but since it did not occur for about 180 years after Isaiah revealed this prophecy, it must mean that the prophecy was written during the exile! As Rawlinson explained, however, "A hundred eighty years is indeed but a short time in the history of a nation."[18]

This great prophecy, however, covered a time period far greater than that of the relatively short time between the prophecy and the physical fall of Babylon, but embraced at the same time many generations beyond that. Note the statement in Isaiah 13:20, "from generation to generation." It would be impossible to state any more emphatically than this does it that the prophecy is not merely for weeks or years but for generations and generations and centuries of time. How perfectly was the prophecy fulfilled! All of the infidels on earth cannot possibly deny a single line of it.