Babylons
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Back in the eighth century B.C.E., Isaiah, the prophet who warned the Jews of their coming subjugation by Babylon, also foretold something astounding: the total annihilation of Babylon itself. He foretold this in graphic detail: "Here I am arousing against them the Medes . . . And Babylon, the decoration of kingdoms, the beauty of the pride of the Chaldeans, must become as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited, nor will she reside for generation after generation."Isaiah 13:17-20.
The prophet Jeremiah also foretold the fall of Babylon, which would take place many years later. And he included an interesting detail: "There is a devastation upon her waters, and they must be dried up. . . . The mighty men of Babylon have ceased to fight. They have kept sitting in the strong places. Their mightiness has run dry."Jeremiah 50:38; 51:30.
In 539 B.C.E., the time of Babylons rule as the preeminent world power came to an end when the vigorous Persian ruler Cyrus, accompanied by the army of Media, marched against the city. What Cyrus found, however, was formidable. Babylon was surrounded by huge walls and seemed impregnable. The great river Euphrates, too, ran through the city and made an important contribution to its defenses.
The Greek historian Herodotus describes how Cyrus handled the problem: "He placed a portion of his army at the point where the river enters the city, and another body at the back of the place where it issues forth, with orders to march into the town by the bed of the stream, as soon as the water became shallow enough . . . He turned the Euphrates by a canal into the basin [an artificial lake dug by a previous ruler of Babylon], which was then a marsh, on which the river sank to such an extent that the natural bed of the stream became fordable. Hereupon the Persians who had been left for the purpose at Babylon by the river-side, entered the stream, which had now sunk so as to reach about midway up a mans thigh, and thus got into the town."
In this way the city fell, as Jeremiah and Isaiah had warned. But notice the detailed fulfillment of prophecy. There was literally a devastation upon her waters, and they were dried up. It was the lowering of the waters of the Euphrates that enabled Cyrus to gain access to the city. Did the mighty men of Babylon cease to fight, as Jeremiah had warned? The Bibleas well as the Greek historians Herodotus and Xenophonrecords that the Babylonians were actually feasting when the Persian assault occurred. The Nabonidus Chronicle, an official cuneiform inscription, says that Cyrus troops entered Babylon "without battle," likely meaning without a major pitched battle.6 Evidently, Babylons mighty men did not do much to protect her.
What about the forecast that Babylon would "never be inhabited" again? That was not fulfilled immediately in 539 B.C.E. But unerringly the prophecy came true. After her fall, Babylon was the center of a number of rebellions, until 478 B.C.E. when she was destroyed by Xerxes. At the end of the fourth century, Alexander the Great planned to restore her, but he died before the work had progressed very far. From then on, the city just declined. There were still people living there in the first century of our Common Era, but today all that is left of ancient Babylon is a heap of ruins in Iraq. Even if her ruins should be partially restored, Babylon would be just a tourist showpiece, not a living, vibrant city. Her desolate site bears witness to the final fulfillment of the inspired prophecies against her.
