Isaiah 23:13
New International Version
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.

New Living Translation
Look at the land of Babylonia— the people of that land are gone! The Assyrians have handed Babylon over to the wild animals of the desert. They have built siege ramps against its walls, torn down its palaces, and turned it to a heap of rubble.

English Standard Version
Behold the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people that was not; Assyria destined it for wild beasts. They erected their siege towers, they stripped her palaces bare, they made her a ruin.

Berean Standard Bible
Look at the land of the Chaldeans—a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.

King James Bible
Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin.

New King James Version
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans, This people which was not; Assyria founded it for wild beasts of the desert. They set up its towers, They raised up its palaces, And brought it to ruin.

New American Standard Bible
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people that did not exist; Assyria allocated it for desert creatures—they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

NASB 1995
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans— this is the people which was not; Assyria appointed it for desert creatures— they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

NASB 1977
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people which was not; Assyria appointed it for desert creatures— they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

Legacy Standard Bible
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this is the people which was not; Assyria established it for desert creatures—they erected their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

Amplified Bible
Now look at the land of the Chaldeans (Babylonia)—this is the people which was not; the Assyrians allocated Tyre for desert creatures—they set up their siege towers, they stripped its palaces, they made it a ruin.

Christian Standard Bible
Look at the land of the Chaldeans — a people who no longer exist. Assyria destined it for desert creatures. They set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They made it a ruin.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
Look at the land of the Chaldeans— a people who no longer exist. Assyria destined it for desert creatures. They set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They made it a ruin.

American Standard Version
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans: this people was not; the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness; they set up their towers; they overthrew the palaces thereof; they made it a ruin.

Aramaic Bible in Plain English
Behold, land of The Chaldeans, this is the people that was not the Assyrian; he made it for The Spirit, and he has raised up spies. They spied on her palaces and they made it a ruin

Brenton Septuagint Translation
And if thou depart to the land of the Chaldeans, this also is laid waste by the Assyrians, for her wall is fallen.

Contemporary English Version
Look what the Assyrians have done to Babylonia! They have attacked, destroying every palace in the land. Now wild animals live among the ruins.

Douay-Rheims Bible
Behold the land of the Chaldeans, there was not such a people, the Assyrian founded it: they have led away the strong ones thereof into captivity, they have destroyed the houses thereof, they have brought it to ruin.

English Revised Version
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans; this people is no more; the Assyrian hath appointed it for the beasts of the wilderness: they set up their towers, they overthrew the palaces thereof; he made it a ruin.

GOD'S WORD® Translation
Look at the land of the Babylonians. These people will be gone. Assyria gave this land to the desert animals. Assyria set up battle towers, stripped palaces bare, and turned these places into ruins.

Good News Translation
(It was the Babylonians, not the Assyrians, who let the wild animals overrun Tyre. It was the Babylonians who put up siege towers, tore down the fortifications of Tyre, and left the city in ruins. )

International Standard Version
"Look at the land of the Chaldeans! This is a people that no longer exist; Assyria destined her for desert creatures. They raised up her siege towers, they stripped her fortresses bare and turned her into a ruin.

JPS Tanakh 1917
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans--this is the people that was not, when Asshur founded it for shipmen--they set up their towers, they overthrew the palaces thereof; it is made a ruin.

Literal Standard Version
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans—this people was not, | Asshur founded it for desert-dwellers, | They raised its watchtowers, | They lifted up her palaces—He has appointed her for a ruin!

Majority Standard Bible
Look at the land of the Chaldeans—a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin.

New American Bible
Look at the land of the Chaldeans, the people that has ceased to be. Assyria founded it for ships, raised its towers, Only to tear down its palaces, and turn it into a ruin.

NET Bible
Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, demolished its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins.

New Revised Standard Version
Look at the land of the Chaldeans! This is the people; it was not Assyria. They destined Tyre for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, they tore down her palaces, they made her a ruin.

New Heart English Bible
Look, the land of the Chaldeans. This people was not. The Assyrians founded it for those who dwell in the wilderness. They set up their towers. They overthrew its palaces. They made it a ruin.

Webster's Bible Translation
Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up its towers, they raised up its palaces; and he brought it to ruin.

World English Bible
Behold, the land of the Chaldeans. This people didn’t exist. The Assyrians founded it for those who dwell in the wilderness. They set up their towers. They overthrew its palaces. They made it a ruin.

Young's Literal Translation
Lo, the land of the Chaldeans -- this people was not, Asshur founded it for the Ziim, They raised its watch-towers, They lifted up her palaces, -- He hath appointed her for a ruin!

Additional Translations ...
Audio Bible



Context
The Fall of Tyre
12He said, “You shall rejoice no more, O oppressed Virgin Daughter of Sidon. Get up and cross over to Cyprus—even there you will find no rest.” 13Look at the land of the Chaldeans— a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to ruin. 14Wail, O ships of Tarshish, for your harbor has been destroyed!…

Cross References
Psalm 72:9
May the nomads bow before him, and his enemies lick the dust.

Isaiah 10:5
Woe to Assyria, the rod of My anger; the staff in their hands is My wrath.

Isaiah 10:7
But this is not his intention; this is not his plan. For it is in his heart to destroy and cut off many nations.

Isaiah 13:21
But desert creatures will lie down there, and howling creatures will fill her houses. Ostriches will dwell there, and wild goats will leap about.

Isaiah 18:6
They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey, and to the beasts of the land. The birds will feed on them in summer, and all the wild animals in winter.

Isaiah 43:14
Thus says the LORD your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "For your sake, I will send to Babylon and bring them all as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships in which they rejoice.

Ezekiel 23:23
the Babylonians and all the Chaldeans, the men of Pekod, Shoa, and Koa, and all the Assyrians with them--all desirable young men, governors and commanders, officers and men of renown, mounted on horses.


Treasury of Scripture

Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin.

land

Isaiah 13:19
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.

Genesis 11:28,31
And Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his nativity, in Ur of the Chaldees…

Job 1:17
While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried them away, yea, and slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alone to tell thee.

the Assyrian

Genesis 2:14
And the name of the third river is Hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of Assyria. And the fourth river is Euphrates.

Genesis 10:10,11
And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar…

Genesis 11:9
Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.

for them

Psalm 72:9
They that dwell in the wilderness shall bow before him; and his enemies shall lick the dust.

and he

Ezekiel 26:7
For thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will bring upon Tyrus Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, a king of kings, from the north, with horses, and with chariots, and with horsemen, and companies, and much people.

Ezekiel 29:18
Son of man, Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon caused his army to serve a great service against Tyrus: every head was made bald, and every shoulder was peeled: yet had he no wages, nor his army, for Tyrus, for the service that he had served against it:

Jump to Previous
Account Appointed Asshur Assyria Assyrian Assyrians Babylonians Bare Beasts Chaldeans Chalde'ans Desert Destined Destroyed Dwell Dwellers Erected Exist Fortresses Founded Overthrew Palaces Raised Razed Ruin Shipmen Siege Stripped Thereof Towers Turned Tyre Wild Wilderness Ziim
Jump to Next
Account Appointed Asshur Assyria Assyrian Assyrians Babylonians Bare Beasts Chaldeans Chalde'ans Desert Destined Destroyed Dwell Dwellers Erected Exist Fortresses Founded Overthrew Palaces Raised Razed Ruin Shipmen Siege Stripped Thereof Towers Turned Tyre Wild Wilderness Ziim
Isaiah 23
1. The miserable overthrow of Tyre
15. Her restoration and unfaithfulness














(13) Behold, the land of the Chaldeans.--Heb., land of Kasdim. The prophet points to the destruction of one power that had resisted Assyria as an example of what Tyre might expect. The Assyrian inscriptions record the conquests referred to. Sargon relates his victory over the "perverse and rebellious Chaldaeans," who had rebelled under Merodach-baladan (Records of the Past, vii. 41, 45). Towns were pillaged, 80,570 men carried away captive from a single city. Sennacherib (ibid., p. 59) boasts of having plundered Babylon itself, and all the "strong cities and castles of the land of the Chaldaeans"; and again, of having crushed another revolt under Suzab the Babylonian (ibid., i. 47-49). The words that follow on this survey are better rendered: This people is no more: Asshur appointeth it for the desert beasts. They set up their towers, they destroy its palaces. The "towers are those of the Assyrian besiegers attacking Babylon; the palaces, those of the attacked. The words have, however, often been interpreted as pointing to the origin and migration of the Chaldaeans, as having had scarcely any national existence till Assyria had brought them into the plains of the Euphrates. The English version seems based upon this interpretation of the passage. It is obvious, however, that such a fragment of ethnological history does not cohere well with the context, and gives a less satisfactory meaning. It is doubtful, too, whether the supposed history itself rests on any adequate evidence.

Verse 13. - Behold the land of the Chaldeans (comp. Isaiah 13:19; Isaiah 47:1, 5; Isaiah 48:14, 20). Like Jeremiah and Ezekiel, Isaiah knows the people as Chahleans (Kasdim), the capital as Babylon. Kaldi, in the inscriptions, is a rare word, and the name of a not very important tribe. Yet Berosus uses the term to designate the whole nation. This people was not; rather, is not; i.e. "is no more a people" - "has ceased to exist." Sargon conquered Babylon in B.C. 710, and made himself king, ruling it, together with Assyria, until B.C. 705, when it rebelled and recovered its independence. Sennacherib reconquered it in B.C. 704, and again in B.C. 700, when he made his eldest son viceroy. Esarhaddon ruled over both countries, as did Asshur-bani-pal. Though later (about B.C. 620-610) Babylon reasserted her independence, and became a great empire, yet Isaiah was justified, at almost any period of his life after B.C. 710, in speaking of her as non-existent. Till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness. There is no "till" in the original. The clause is separate and independent, not connected grammatically with the preceding. Nor does it assert that the Assyrians "founded" Babylon for any one, but only that they "established" it, or "appointed" it to be a habitation for "the beasts of the desert" (comp. Isaiah 13:21; Isaiah 34:14; Jeremiah 1:39, etc.). The prophet views the Assyrians as intending to reduce Babylon to ruins, and leave it waste and uninhabited. The towers thereof; i.e. the siege-towers requisite for reducing so strong a city. They raised up; rather, they made bare (cf. Habakkuk 3:9). He brought it to ruin. "He" is "the Assyrian." The case of Babylon is adduced to increase the alarm of Tyro, by reminding the inhabitants of what the Assyrians had done to a town greater and stronger than their own. The allusion is probably to certain severities of Sargon's in B.C. 710, which, however, are rhetorically exaggerated. It was never the policy of the Assyrians to depopulate or destroy Babylon.

Parallel Commentaries ...


Hebrew
Look at
הֵ֣ן ׀ (hên)
Interjection
Strong's 2005: Lo! behold!

the land
אֶ֣רֶץ (’e·reṣ)
Noun - feminine singular construct
Strong's 776: Earth, land

of the
זֶ֤ה (zeh)
Pronoun - masculine singular
Strong's 2088: This, that

Chaldeans—
כַּשְׂדִּ֗ים (kaś·dîm)
Noun - proper - masculine plural
Strong's 3778: Chaldeans -- a region of southern Babylon and its inhab

a people
הָעָם֙ (hā·‘ām)
Article | Noun - masculine singular
Strong's 5971: A people, a tribe, troops, attendants, a flock

now
לֹ֣א (lō)
Adverb - Negative particle
Strong's 3808: Not, no

of no account.
הָיָ֔ה (hā·yāh)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular
Strong's 1961: To fall out, come to pass, become, be

The Assyrians
אַשּׁ֖וּר (’aš·šūr)
Noun - proper - feminine singular
Strong's 804: Ashshur

destined it
יְסָדָ֣הּ (yə·sā·ḏāh)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular | third person feminine singular
Strong's 3245: To set, to found, to sit down together, settle, consult

for the desert creatures;
לְצִיִּ֑ים (lə·ṣî·yîm)
Preposition-l | Noun - masculine plural
Strong's 6728: Wild beast of the desert, that dwell in inhabiting the wilderness

they set up
הֵקִ֣ימוּ (hê·qî·mū)
Verb - Hifil - Perfect - third person common plural
Strong's 6965: To arise, stand up, stand

their siege towers
בַחוּנָ֗יו (ḇa·ḥū·nāw)
Noun - masculine plural construct | third person masculine singular
Strong's 971: A watch-tower of besiegers

and stripped
עֹרְרוּ֙ (‘ō·rə·rū)
Verb - Piel - Perfect - third person common plural
Strong's 6209: To bare, to demolish

its palaces.
אַרְמְנוֹתֶ֔יהָ (’ar·mə·nō·w·ṯe·hā)
Noun - masculine plural construct | third person feminine singular
Strong's 759: A citadel

They brought it
שָׂמָ֖הּ (śā·māh)
Verb - Qal - Perfect - third person masculine singular | third person feminine singular
Strong's 7760: Put -- to put, place, set

to ruin.
לְמַפֵּלָֽה׃ (lə·map·pê·lāh)
Preposition-l | Noun - feminine singular
Strong's 4654: Something fallen, a ruin


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OT Prophets: Isaiah 23:13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans (Isa Isi Is)
Isaiah 23:12
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