Battling Babylon - Second Book of Nephi, Chapter Twenty-Three (2 Nephi 23 and Isaiah 13)

You can read the entire chapter at the following links: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/23?lang=eng and https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/isa/13?lang=eng.

In this chapter, Isaiah employs great and terrible poetic imagery in the service of a single, immutable truth. The unrepentant who reject the Lord out of their own pride and selfish desire will not be able to abide His presence. Period. It can sound very harsh. But the higher purpose is to help these people understand that they have a way to redemption by turning away from their sins through the Lord—and more specifically faith on the Atonement of Jesus Christ.

The scenario Isaiah uses here is the total destruction of Babylon and its inhabitants. To the people of Israel, and especially the kingdom of Judah, Babylon, as the conqueror of Jerusalem in 587 B.C., represents the means by which the Lord has rebuked them, as the capturer of Jerusalem. Isaiah apparently sees this almost 100 years in advance. Nephi transcribes this chapter for his people, who know of Babylon’s sacking of Jerusalem as something that has already taken place, and which they narrowly avoided in their divinely inspired flight from the original land of promise to another one in the New World.

Isaiah’s objective is to show that no one escapes justice, even and especially the nation that played a role in chastening the Lord’s covenant people. And history bears out his prophecy that “Babylon, the glory of kingdoms…shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited….But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there” (verses 19-21). After having showcased itself to the world as a center of culture and sophisticated learning, Babylon is overrun and subjugated by Persians and Medes (around 539 B.C.) and various other civilizations over the course of centuries. It steadily dwindles in importance and population, until by the year 500 A.D., it is completely abandoned to ruin and desolation.

But this is only one meaning of the Babylon Isaiah is referring to. The meaning that has greater relevance both for Nephi’s people in the Americas and for us today is Babylon as a symbol or metaphor for that part of the world that tries to behave as if God does not exist, and actively tries to destroy faith and righteousness in the world—recruiting others to join in their hollow, self-absorbed misery.

When we think of this larger meaning for Babylon, Isaiah’s passages begin to make better sense. He describes “the kingdoms of nations gathered together” from “the end of heaven” to “destroy the whole land” (verses 4-5) But this is not an extermination of people living in guiltless solitude. This is at the heart of the existential struggle between good and evil, and after God in His mercy has delayed the day of reckoning to give as many as possible a chance to come down on the right side, there will be resolution. As verse 11 reads, “And I will punish the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay down the haughtiness of the terrible.”

Although we know that the Lord’s ways are right, we can’t help but cover or avert our virtual eyes as we take in the brutality of the scene Isaiah depicts for us. Every man’s heart shall melt (verse 7). Their faces shall be as flames (8). “Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled and their wives ravished” (16). Those who represent the Lord will not be justified in meting out punishment that victimizes the innocent, but in some cases it appears as though the wicked of the world will get similar treatment from others that they had dispensed mercilessly at an earlier time.

On one level, the battle will take place as described. Many prophecies speak of climactic earthly battles as one of the precursors to Christ’s Second Coming and reign on earth. We see parallels between Isaiah’s words and the Apostle John’s account from the Book of Revelation (Revelation 6:13) of stars and sun and moon being darkened.

But on another level, the battle is within our own hearts and souls. If through faith and repentance we can cleanse ourselves from all desire to associate with Babylon, and turn ourselves fully over to the Lord, we join in His victory over sin. But to do so, we must be unsparing. No aspect of our conduct or introspection can escape scrutiny or be excused as “insignificant.” A latter-day apostle from our Church named Neal A. Maxwell once insightfully remarked that many of us claim our primary residence in Zion, but insist on keeping a summer home in Babylon.

My opinion is that this internal battle within our souls against Babylon is actually more real than any physical battle, because its outcome will be more lasting. And when we read in verse 4 that “the Lord of Hosts mustereth the hosts of the battle,” I believe it is possible that one reference is to the hosts of heaven, or in other words, angels who seek to influence us to choose good over the evil that Satan and his hosts would have us do.