Isaiah 47

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¹“Come down and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon; Sit on the ground without a throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans! For you shall no more be called Tender and delicate. ✦ ²Take the millstones and grind meal. Remove your veil, Take off the skirt, Uncover the thigh, Pass through the rivers. ✦ ³Your nakedness shall be uncovered, Yes, your shame will be seen; I will take vengeance, And I will not arbitrate with a man.” ✦ ⁴As for our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is His name, The Holy One of Israel. ✦ ⁵“Sit in silence, and go into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; For you shall no longer be called The Lady of Kingdoms. ✦ ⁶I was angry with My people; I have profaned My inheritance, And given them into your hand. You showed them no mercy; On the elderly you laid your yoke very heavily. ✦ ⁷And you said, ‘I shall be a lady forever,’ So that you did not take these things to heart, Nor remember the latter end of them. ✦ ⁸“Therefore hear this now, you who are given to pleasures, Who dwell securely, Who say in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me; I shall not sit as a widow, Nor shall I know the loss of children’; ✦ ⁹But these two things shall come to you In a moment, in one day: The loss of children, and widowhood. They shall come upon you in their fullness Because of the multitude of your sorceries, For the great abundance of your enchantments. ✦ ¹⁰“For you have trusted in your wickedness; You have said, ‘No one sees me’; Your wisdom and your knowledge have warped you; And you have said in your heart, ‘I am, and there is no one else besides me.’ ✦ ¹¹Therefore evil shall come upon you; You shall not know from where it arises. And trouble shall fall upon you; You will not be able to put it off. And desolation shall come upon you suddenly, Which you shall not know. ✦ ¹²“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. ✦ ¹³You are wearied in the multitude of your counsels; Let now the astrologers, the stargazers, And the monthly prognosticators Stand up and save you From what shall come upon you. ✦ ¹⁴Behold, they shall be as stubble, The fire shall burn them; They shall not deliver themselves From the power of the flame; It shall not be a coal to be warmed by, Nor a fire to sit before! ✦ ¹⁵Thus shall they be to you With whom you have labored, Your merchants from your youth; They shall wander each one to his quarter. No one shall save you. ✦

Tap any verse for its study page. Underlined terms mark a concept, person, or place; ✦ marks verses with cross-references.

Where this chapter connects

Jer 51 ·16 Rev 18 ·12 Dan 5 ·10 Isa 47 ·8 Isa 14 ·5 Jer 13 ·5 Ezek 28 ·5 Jer 50 ·5

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 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.

Resources, by level

Lay

★ Start hereVideoBibleProject — video overviews & word studiesBibleProject · 5–10 min · Free · evangelical
Free animated overviews of every book of the Bible, plus themes and Hebrew/Greek word studies — the best visual on-ramp to any book. (Biblical-theology, broadly evangelical, not distinctly Reformed.)
★ Start hereAudioThrough the WordThrough the Word · ~10 min/chapter · Free · evangelical
A clear ~10-minute audio teaching for every one of the Bible's 1,189 chapters — the most systematic free way to study chapter by chapter.

Pastoral

SermonChuck Smith — C2000 SeriesChuck Smith · Free · evangelical
Free verse-by-verse audio through the entire Bible from the founder of Calvary Chapel.

Seminary

★ Start hereCommentaryThe Book of Isaiah (NICOT)John N. Oswalt · Paid · evangelical
The standard evangelical commentary on Isaiah — thorough and devotionally warm.

Commentaries & study tools

VideoBibleProject — Isaiah videosBibleProject · Lay · Free · evangelical
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
VideoWatch teaching on Isaiah 47YouTube · Lay · Free
Sermons and chapter teaching from across YouTube.
CommentaryEnduring Word — Isaiah 47David Guzik · Lay · Free · evangelical
Readable, verse-by-verse exposition of the whole chapter.
CommentaryMatthew Henry on IsaiahMatthew Henry · Pastoral · Free · evangelical
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
ReferenceBlue Letter Bible — Isaiah 47Blue Letter Bible · Seminary · Free
Interlinear, lexicon, and study tools across the chapter.

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