Isaiah 13:1

A general title for chapters 13-23, and particularly the oracle against Babylon (Isaiah 13:2 to Isaiah 14:27), opens chapter 13. An oracle (or burden) is a message from God. Babylon was at this time an ancient city, it would later be an empire, and it had been in the past the historical source of arrogant self-sufficiency (Genesis 11:1-9). When Isaiah wrote, it was a town within the Assyrian Empire that was asserting itself and was a real threat to Assyrian supremacy. Merodach-baladan was its king at this time (ca. 702 B.C.; cf. ch. 39). Isaiah "saw" the oracle in the sense that God enabled him to understand the things He proceeded to reveal (cf. Isaiah 1:1).