“Babylon the great is falling; / God shall all her towers o’erthrow.” 70 Babylon truly was “the glory of kingdoms.” The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Yet, Babylon fell without a struggle before the armies of Cyrus of Persia. He and his men dug a canal into which they diverted the waters of the Euphrates, which normally flowed into Babylon, so they could penetrate into the heart of the city via the dry river bed. By this means vegetation ceased growing in the city, and the city began deteriorating, leading to the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prediction that it would be uninhabited; there wouldn’t even be an Arab to pitch a tent or a shepherd to make a sheepfold. Total desolation was predicted, and it was an accurate prophecy. Isaiah’s prophecy was gradually but literally fulfilled within a few centuries, by the Roman period.
The vivid description of Babylon’s destruction fits both the terrain at the southern end of the Dead Sea, where Sodom and Gomorrah once flourished in wickedness, and the land of Babylon. Both places foreshadow the eschatological (latter-day) devastation of spiritual Babylon.
Isaiah poetically employs two fictional beasts usually associated with superstitious traditions in this description of desolation. “Satyrs” are in Hebrew seirim, meaning “hairy” or “rough” ones. In Greek mythology, a satyr is half man and half goat. “Dragons” are jackals or wild dogs.