So take your stand with your spells and with your many sorceries, with which you have wearied yourself from your youth. Perhaps you will succeed; perhaps you will inspire terror!
Parallel translations
- WEB “Stand now with your enchantments, and with the multitude of your sorceries, in which you have labored from your youth; as if you might profit; as if you might prevail.
- KJV Stand now with thine enchantments, and with the multitude of thy sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth; if so be thou shalt be able to profit, if so be thou mayest prevail.
- NKJV “Stand now with your enchantments And the multitude of your sorceries, In which you have labored from your youth— Perhaps you will be able to profit, Perhaps you will prevail.
- NASB ¶“Persist now in your spells And in your many sorceries With which you have labored from your youth; Perhaps you will be able to benefit, Perhaps you may cause trembling.
- NLT “Now use your magical charms! Use the spells you have worked at all these years! Maybe they will do you some good. Maybe they can make someone afraid of you.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
God sarcastically tells Babylon to rely on the enchantments she has practiced from youth — perhaps they will help. Occult arts are exposed as useless.
Overview
In biting irony, Yahweh invites Babylon to stand on her lifelong sorceries and see whether they can profit or save. The challenge is meant to expose their utter impotence. Scripture's consistent verdict is that divination and magic are empty before the God who alone governs the future.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 14
- Acts 13:8–12But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith.
- Jer 2:28But where are the gods you made for yourselves? Let them rise up in your time of trouble and save you if they can; for your gods are as numerous as your cities, O Judah.
- Isa 47:9–10These two things will overtake you in a moment, in a single day: loss of children, and widowhood. They will come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries and the potency of your spells.
- Nah 3:4because of the many harlotries of the harlot, the seductive mistress of sorcery, who betrays nations by her prostitution and clans by her witchcraft.
- Isa 44:25who foils the signs of false prophets and makes fools of diviners, who confounds the wise and turns their knowledge into nonsense,
- Isa 8:19When men tell you to consult the spirits of the dead and the spiritists who whisper and mutter, shouldn’t a people consult their God instead? Why consult the dead on behalf of the living?
- Isa 19:3Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied out from among them, and I will frustrate their plans, so that they will resort to idols and spirits of the dead, to mediums and spiritists.
- Dan 5:7–9The king called out for the enchanters, astrologers, and diviners to be brought in, and he said to these wise men of Babylon, “Whoever reads this inscription and tells me its interpretation will be clothed in purple and have a gold chain placed around his neck, and he will be made the third highest ruler in the kingdom.”
- Rev 17:4–6The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet, and adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup full of abominations and the impurities of her sexual immorality.
- Exod 7:11But Pharaoh called the wise men and sorcerers and magicians of Egypt, and they also did the same things by their magic arts.
- Exod 8:7But the magicians did the same thing by their magic arts, and they also brought frogs up onto the land of Egypt.
- Exod 8:18–19The magicians tried to produce gnats using their magic arts, but they could not. And the gnats remained on man and beast.
- Exod 9:11The magicians could not stand before Moses, because the boils had broken out on them and on all the Egyptians.
- 2 Th 2:9–12The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder,
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Christ at the center
Isaiah sees him most clearly: the virgin's son Immanuel, the child on David's throne, the shoot from Jesse, the light to the nations, and above all the Suffering Servant pierced for our transgressions (ch. 53).
How Isaiah 47:12 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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