Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi
So our look at the word 'desert' through the Bible has brought us to the first book of the Prophets...Isaiah. I debated a bit what the best approach to this might be; I think I'm going to take the same approach I took in Psalms...group verses by topic rather than just strictly chronological. I also found, in my overview skim through, that I'm going to need to include a bunch of other verses around the 'desert' verses so we have the context to know what the 'desert verse' is even talking about it. So I'll put the actual desert verse in bold font in the quoted passage.
But I will take the topics in the order encountered; and first up is a group of verses I've tagged 'Fate of Bablylon'.
Babylon, the jewel of kingdoms, the glory of the Babylonian's pride, will be overthown by God like Sodom and Gomorrah. She will never be inhabited or lived in through all generations; no Arab will pitch his tent there, no shepherd will rest his flocks there. But the desert creatures will lie there, the jackals will fill her houses; there the owls will dwell, and there the wild goats will leap about. Hyenas will howl in her strongholds, jackals in her luxurious palaces. Her time is at hand, and her days will not be prolonged. -- Is. 13: 19-21
An oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the south land, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror. A dire vision has been shown to me: the traitor betrays, the looter takes loot. Elam, attack! Media, lay siege! I will bring an end to all the groaning she caused....Look, here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses. And he gives back the answer: "Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!" -- Is. 21:1-2 ,9
Look at the land of the Babylonians, this people that is now of no account! The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin. - Is. 23:13
And, because it's a similar expression, I'll add references to other nations as well...
Moab:
Send lambs as a tribute to the ruler of the land, from Sela, across the desert, to the mount of the Daughter of Zion. Like fluttering birds pushed from the nest, so are the women of Moab at the fords of the Arnon....We have heard of Moab's pride -- her overweening pride and conceit, her pride and her insolence -- but her boasts are empty. Therefore the Moabites wail, they wail together for Moab. Lament and grieve for the men of Kir Hareseth. The fields of Heshbon wither, the vines of Sibmah also. The rulers of the nations have trampled down the choicest vines, which once reached Jazer and spread toward the desert. Their shoots spread out and went as far as the sea. So I weep, as Jazer weeps, for the vines of Sibmah. O Heshbon, O Elealeh, I drench you with tears! The shouts of joy over your ripened fruit and over your harvests have been stilled...When Moab appears at her high place, she only wears herself out; when she goes to her shrine to pray, it is to no avail. -- Is. 16: 1-2, 6-9, 12
Edom:
For the LORD has a day of vengeance, a year of retribution, to uphold Zion's cause. Edom's streams will be turned to pitch, her dust into burning sulfur; her land will become blazing pitch! It will not be quenched night and day; its smoke will rise forever. From generation to generation it will lie desolate; no one will ever pass through it again. The desert owl and screech owl will possess it; the great owl and the raven will nest there. God will stretch over Edom the measuring line of chaos and the plumb line of desolation....Desert creatures will meet with hyenas, and wild goats will bleat to each other; there the night creatures will also repose and find for themselves places of rest. -- Is. 34:8-11,14
The three nations listed here (and there are judgments against other nations in Isaiah as well; these were the ones that referenced the desert) all have offenses registered against Israel. Babylon, of course, was the place of 70 years of captivity, and Moab and Edom, despite the fact that they were descended from common ancestors with Israel, refused to give them aid when they returned from their sojourn in Egypt. It's interesting that a common image of utter defeat is the return of the land to the desert creatures. Not that the land would be inhabited by conquerors, but that the land would be laid desolate and unproductive; Edom's doom is even more extreme...the land is fouled and burning. Which kind of makes me wonder if that vision is yet to come; something in the apocalyptic future.
[tries to write more and fails several times]
I can't get away from that image. With his own people, God used droughts, invaders, even exile and desolation as judgment but he always had a promise of restoration and blessing. But for nations that never followed him...his judgment was absolute. Owls. Wild goats. Jackals.
Desert.
Back to what the land was before the people came and dug and built and cultivated. I would almost say...back to square one, with only traces of the productivity that was once there. The desert creatures are content to live where the people were without care.
God removed the nation and let the wild creatures have the land.
Something to ponder.
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