World Before Christ - Volume 2
Sample Story
The Babylonian Empire
The purpose of Living History is to provide parents a history text in story form (the method used by the Savior in His teachings) from which to teach their children, blending the secular and religious together, and putting God back into history. Students are bored with history if all they learn about are facts and figures. But our faith in God is the main motivating factor why we do much of anything. That is the "why" we study history, and that is what makes it more interesting. The Lord uses the wickedness, moral decay, and corruption of the Babylonian Empire and calls it Spiritual Babylon. He calls us to leave the world of Babylon and align ourselves with the Kingdom of God.
In volume one of The World Before Christ, an LDS Perspective, we discussed at length the events that led up to the capture of the Ten Tribes of the Northern Kingdom of Israel by the Assyrians in 721 B.C., and later the fall of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 B.C. The collapse of the Assyrian Empire by the Babylonians, one wicked kingdom was taken over by another, however, the Babylonians were not quite as ruthless in their treatment of their enemies as were the Assyrians. However, the degree of wickedness demonstrated by the Babylonians has been used in scripture to represent the world as a whole, and is also used as a term to teach the righteous how they should not be. Phrases such as "Babylon the great is fallen" and "come out from Babylon" are examples of how the Lord has used this empire as a teaching tool to accomplish his purposes. So it only stands to reason, that a study of these people and their life style should be covered at this time in our studies of the world before Christ.
And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. (Revelation 14:8)
They seek not the Lord to establish his righteousness, but every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god, whose image is in the likeness of the world, and whose substance is that of an idol, which waxeth old and shall perish in Babylon, even Babylon the great, which shall fall. (D&C 1:16)
But without faith shall not anything be shown forth except desolations upon Babylon, the same which has made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication. (D&C 35:11)
For after today cometh the burning – this is speaking after the manner of the Lord – for verily I say, tomorrow all the proud and they that do wickedly shall be as stubble; and I will burn them up, for I am the Lord of Hosts; and I will not spare any that remain in Babylon. (D&C 64:24)
Go ye out from among the nations, even from Babylon, from the midst of wickedness, which is spiritual Babylon. (D&C 133:14)
Approaching the city of Babylon, the same place in which a former wicked king ruled by the name of Nimrod, the traveler saw first the towering, seven stage temple which was the center of Babylonian worship, the Ziggurat (ZIG oo rat). It was a massive temple which rose to the height of 650 feet, and was crowned with a shrine containing a massive table of solid gold, and an ornate bed on which, each night, some woman slept to await the pleasure of the gods. This structure, taller than the pyramids of Egypt, is believed by some to have been the remains of the Tower of Babel. Around and below this temple the city spread itself out in a few wide and brilliantly painted and decorated streets, crossed by crowded canals used for transportation. South of the Ziggurat was another temple called the Temple of Marduk, and connecting the two was a street called The Sacred Way. The Sacred Way was overlaid with limestone and red bricks so that the gods might pass between the temples without getting their feet muddy. This broad avenue was lined with walls of colored tile, on which stood out one hundred and twenty brightly colored lions, snarling to keep the wicked away.
Nearby rose the famous Hanging Gardens which later became one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Nebuchadnezzar had the Gardens built to satisfy his homesick wife who was a Persian and wished for the lush landscape of home. The topmost terrace of the Gardens was covered with rich soil deep enough to grow large trees among the many flowers and plants of Persia. Hydraulic engines concealed in the columns upon which the Gardens rested were manned by shifts of slaves who carried water from the Euphrates River to the terraces of the Gardens. Here, seventy-five feet above the ground, in the cool shade of tall trees, and surrounded by exotic shrubs and fragrant flowers, the ladies of the royal harem walked, secure from the common eye; while, in the plains and streets below, the commoner labored.
In Egypt, the practice was to allow the waters of the Nile River to flood each year and water the land on each side of the river. This has made the soil along the Nile some of the most fertile in the world. However, in Babylon, the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates were not allowed to flood, but a whole series of canals and reservoirs were constructed to hold the water. Then, as it was needed, it would be released into canals that then fed the land of Babylon so irrigation of crops could be carried out. Nebuchadnezzar distinguished himself by constructing a reservoir one hundred and forty miles in circumference. Many of these canals and reservoirs can still be seen today. Buildings were constructed mostly with adobe – a clay mixed with straw, and were then fired in a kiln to dry and harden them. Some buildings were made with sun dried bricks which while still soft and moist were placed one upon the other and allowed to dry into a solid wall cemented together by the sun.
Babylonian Society
Babylon was a society supported by slave labor, and consisted of captives taken in battle, raids made on foreign states, and from the children that came along from individuals who were already slaves. Contracts written in tablets of clay and stone reveal that a captured female slave could be sold for the value from $20 to $65, and for a male from $50 to $100. Most of the physical work in the towns was done by them, including nearly all of the personal services; feeding, bathing, combing the hair, application of makeup and dressing -- these were all carried out by house slaves or domestics who attended to every personal need of their master. Female slaves were used to increase the number of children in the master’s family, and it was considered mistreatment and neglect for the master not to try and have children by his slaves. The slave might be sold to another to pay off a debt, or he might be put to death if his master thought the slave was worth more dead than alive. If he ran away no one could legally shelter him, and a reward was fixed for his capture. Like the free peasant, he could be forced into the army, required to help in the construction of public buildings, cutting roads, and digging canals. On the other hand the slave’s master paid his doctor’s fees, and took care of him through illness, through times of low employment, and even during old age. He might marry a free woman, and his children by her would be free, and when he died, half of his personal property was allowed to remain with the family. He might be set up in business by his master, and even retain part of the profits – with which he might then buy his freedom, or his master might liberate him for exceptional or long and faithful service. However, only a few slaves achieved such freedom.
If a man knocked out an eye or a tooth, or broke a limb of a Babylonian, especially of the noble class, precisely the same treatment was done to him. If a house collapsed and killed the purchaser, the architect or builder must die. If the accident killed the buyer’s son, the son of the architect or builder must die. If a man struck a girl and killed her, not he but his daughter must suffer the penalty of death. Gradually over time these punishments were replaced by awards of money for the damages. So the eye of a commoner might be knocked out for sixty pieces of silver, and the eye of a slave might be knocked out for thirty. The penalty not only varied with the gravity of the offense, but with the rank of the offender and the victim. A member of the aristocracy was subject to severer penalties for the same crime than a man of the people, but an offense against such was much more expensive than one carried out against a slave. Other laws of Babylon were if a man struck his father his hands were cut off; a physician whose patient died, or lost an eye, as the result of an operation, had his fingers cut off; a nurse who knowingly substituted one child for another had to sacrifice her breasts. Death was decreed for a variety of crimes: rape, kidnaping, stealing, burglary, incest, arrangement of a husband’s death by his wife in order to marry another man, the opening or entering of a wine shop by a priestess, the harboring of a fugitive slave, cowardice in the face of the enemy, corruption in public office, carelessness in housekeeping, and malpractice in the selling of beer.
Marriage was carried out in two different fashions. It was considered permissible for men and women to form trial marriages, terminable at the will of either party. However, the woman who entered into such a relationship was required to wear about her neck an olive made out of stone. This indicated to the observer that she was in reality a concubine, but at the same time had more or less committed herself to one man. A legal marriage required the presentation of a gift by the man to the father of the bride. This dowry was considered more of a purchase rather than as something of monetary value to start the marriage. The father of the bride was expected to give a dowry larger in value than that given by the groom. At other legal occasions things started out as an auction. The ancient historian Herodotus writes the following:
Those who had marriageable daughters used to bring them once a year to a place where a great number of men gathered round them. A public crier made them stand up and sold them all, one after another. He began with the most beautiful, and having got a large sum for her he put up the second fairest. But he only sold them on condition that the buyers married them....This very wise custom no longer exists. (Will Durrant, The Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, page 246)
An adulterous wife and her companion were drowned as punishment for their crime. However, the husband could extend his mercy and the law would allow the woman to keep her life. Childlessness, adultery, incompatibility, or careless management of the household, including neglect of the children, might all satisfy the law as grounds for granting a man a divorce. A woman could leave her husband if she was able to determine cruelty on his part. If business or war kept her husband away for an extended period of time, and he had not left means for her livelihood, it was permissible for the woman to co-habitate with another man until her husband returned.
Babylonian mathematics was based on the circle divided into 360 degrees, and the year into 360 days, which developed into a system of calculation by sixties. The numeration system they used had only three figures to represent numbers; a sign for the number 1, repeated up to 9; a sign for 10, repeated up to 90; and another sign for 100. They also had tables which showed not only multiplication and division, but halves, quarters, thirds, squares and cubes. Geometry was advanced into the measurements of complex and irregular areas.
Astronomy was the special science of the Babylonians, for which they were famous throughout the ancient world. Magic was the motivation for astronomy, not so much to chart the courses of caravans and ships, as to divine the future fates of men. They were astrologers first and astronomers second. Every planet was a god, interested and vital in the affairs of men: Jupiter was Marduk, Mercury was Nabu, Mars was Nergal, the sun was Shamash, the moon was Sin, Saturn was Ninib, and Venus was Ishtar. Every movement of every star determined, or forecast, some earthly event. If, for example, the moon was low, a distant nation would submit to the king; if the moon was in crescent the king would overcome the enemy. They divided the year into twelve lunar months, six having thirty days and six having twenty-nine. This made only 354 days in all, so periodically they added a thirteenth month to harmonize the calendar with the seasons. The month was divided into four weeks according to the four phases of the moon. The day was reckoned not from midnight to midnight but from one rising of the moon to the next.
The Gods of Babylon
Much of what we know about Babylonian mythology comes from the Epic of Gilgamesh (GIHL guh mesh). It is one of the oldest poems of the ancient world, composed in southern Mesopotamia before 2000 B.C. Gilgamesh was an ancient king of the Sumerians, (see volume 3 of The World Before Christ: an LDS Perspective), a civilization that predates the Babylonians and is the first civilization mentioned in secular literature as forming after the Flood. Gilgamesh records many of his travels and experiences with the gods, and much of his time as ruler of Sumeria. These legends and myths continued to flourish in the Mesopotamian area and were picked up by the Babylonians and continued on in their society.
The power of the king was limited not only by the law and the aristocracy, but by the clergy. Technically the king was merely the agent of the gods of the cities of Babylon. There was a god for everything, so many in fact, that a census of the gods was taken during the 800's B.C., and the count was 65,000. Taxation was in the name of the gods, and the money usually found its way into the temple treasuries instead of the treasury of the king. The king was not really king in the eyes of the people until he was invested with royal authority by the priests. This was done by a ceremony in which the priests carried through the streets of the capital the image of the god Marduk, and the king was dressed in priestly robes and followed the heathen image through the procession. In these ceremonies the monarch was symbolizing the union of the church and state, and the divine origin of the king. Superstition and the supernatural surrounded the throne, and it became a grave offense to rise up in rebellion to the dictates of the king. This, of course, was a cover used by the priests to keep the people in subjection to themselves, for in reality, the king was always kept under the thumb of the priests.
The wealth of the temples grew from generation to generation, as the rich shared their money and possessions with the gods. The kings, feeling the need of divine forgiveness, built the temples, equipped them with furniture, food and slaves, deeded to them great areas of land, and assigned to them an annual income from the state, all in an effort to appease the gods so as to stay in their good graces. When the army won a battle, the first of the captives were shared with temples, when any special good fortune befell the king, extraordinary gifts were dedicated to the gods. Certain lands were required to pay to the temples a yearly tribute of dates, corn, or fruit; if they failed, the temples could foreclose on them. In this way the lands usually came into possession of the priests and so did much of the wealth of the empire. Poor as well as rich turned over to the temples as much as they thought they should as a gift to the gods for the bounties they possessed. Thus in this manner, the priests of Babylon became the real power, and were able to control the people through wealth, land, or fear of offending some god.
The priests could not directly use or consume this wealth, so they turned it into productive or investment capital, and became the greatest agriculturists, manufacturers and financiers of the nation. Not only did they hold vast tracts of land, they owned a great number of slaves, or controlled hundreds of laborers, who were hired out to other employers, or worked for the temples in their divers trades from the playing of music to the brewing of beer. They sold the many products of the temple shops, and handled a large proportion of the country’s trade, and had a reputation for wise investment, and many persons entrusted their savings to them, confident of a modest but reliable return. Loans were made on more lenient terms than the private money lenders, and sometimes they lent to the sick or the poor without interest, merely asking a return of the principle when the god Marduk should smile upon the borrower again. Finally, they performed many legal functions: they served as notaries, attesting and signing contracts, and making wills; they heard and decided law suits and trials, kept official records, and recorded business transactions. Therefore, as can be seen, the real power of the country rested in the clergy, not in the civil law of the land.
Every family had household gods to whom prayers were said and offerings given each morning and night. Individuals had their own "guardian angel" to keep them from harm and maintain their joy, and the protector of the family and fields. Daily mishaps, headaches, toothaches, and even neighbor’s quarrels were all attributed to their appropriate demons. Many of these demons, though identified with these disorders, were unnamed and lived in the desert to the west of the nation. As the kingdom of Babylon increased in size through conquest, several local gods became the main gods of the nation. A listing of some of the myriad of gods is given below.
Marduk – Originally the sun god, he became the supreme god over all the other gods.
Anu – The god of the heavens. Responsible for the sun shining, the rains descending, and the governor of the natural and supernatural worlds.
Enlil – The Wind. He was responsible for drying up the flood waters each year resulting from the flooding of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, filling the sails of vessels on the rivers and canals, and for fertilizing the plants, thus maintaining order in nature and society.
Ea – God of the waters. Also he was the god of magic and wisdom. He had the power to impose or remove spells and curses. Connected with this power was the custom of concentrating the sins and disabilities of the community on a sheep which was then slaughtered and thrown into the river.
Shamash – Sun god. He not only traversed the sky during the day, but according to Babylonian myth, he accomplished a similar nightly journey through the underworld. He saw all wrongs, both open and hidden, and is the great god of justice.
Nannar – Moon god. The moon, marking as it does the regular passage of time, particularly impressed the ancients. He was very important for time reckoning, was an important factor in provisioning an expedition, and in estimating the duration and the period for which income would be lost while on an expedition.
Baal – The earth god. In Israel he was the sun god. He was believed to control the reproductive powers of the soil and animals as well as human beings. Worship of Baal focused on fertility, and such practices as ritual prostitution of both sexes became rampant. A stone was raised, symbolizing Baal, near a grove of trees which represent Ishtar, or in Biblical terms, Ashtoreth. It would be in these places where Israel committed some of the worst crimes before the Lord.
Ishtar – Goddess of love and war. She was the female counterpart of Baal, known in Israel as Ashtoreth. While the men would worship Baal, the women would worship her in like manner. This worship became a widespread practice among the Israelites and all throughout the land of Canaan, and the Middle East.
With these gods the Babylonians created myths depicting their creation or at least what their jobs were in the cosmos. There was first of all the myth of the creation. In the beginning was Chaos.
In the time when nothing which was called heaven existed above, and when nothing below had yet received the name of earth, Apsu, the Ocean, who first was their father, and Tiamat, [or] Chaos, who gave birth to them all, mingled their waters in one. (Will Durrant, The Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, page 236)
Things slowly began to grow and take form, but suddenly Tiamat, or Chaos, set out to destroy all the other gods, and to make herself supreme. A mighty revolution ensued in which all order was destroyed. Then another god, Marduk, slew Tiamat with her own creation by sending a hurricane of wind into her mouth as she opened it to swallow him. Marduk then thrust his own lance into Tiamat’s mouth and the goddess blew up. According to legend, Marduk then split the dead Tiamat into two long halves, then hung up one of the halves on high, which became the heavens, the other half he spread out under his feet to form the earth.
Having moved heaven and earth into place, Marduk undertook to mold the earth and thereby make men for the service of the gods. Legends differ on the precise way in which this was done, but they agree in general that man was fashioned by Marduk from a lump of clay. Man lived in simplicity and ignorance until a strange monster called Oannes, half fish and half philosopher, taught him the arts and sciences, the rules for founding cities, and the principles of law, after which Oannes plunged into the sea, and wrote a book on the history of civilization. The gods became dissatisfied with the men whom they had created, and sent a great flood to destroy them and all their works. The god of wisdom, Ea, took pity on mankind, and resolved to save one man at least – Shamash – and his wife. The flood raged, men drowned, then suddenly the gods realized what they had done, bemoaning the fact that now there was no one to make offerings unto them. However, Shamash built an ark, and after landing on dry ground surprised the gods by offering sacrifices to them. The gods sniffed the fragrant odor and gathered around the sacrifice like flies enjoying the renewed human sacrifices made to them.
The other myth regarding the creation is more romantic, and surrounds a goddess by the name of Ishtar and her younger brother Tammuz. Tammuz, son of the great god Ea, is a shepherd pasturing his flock under the great tree Erida (which covers the whole earth with its shade) when Ishtar falls in love with him and chooses him to be her spouse. However, Tammuz is gored to death by a wild boar, and descends, like all the dead, into Hades, which the Babylonians called Aralu, and over which is ruled by Ishtar’s jealous sister, Ereshkigal. Ishtar, mourning, resolves to go down to Aralu and restore Tammuz to life by bathing his wounds in the waters of a healing spring. Soon she appears at the gates of Hades in all her beauty, and demands entrance. While Ishtar is detained in Hades, the earth (Aralu), missing her presence, forgets all the arts and ways of love. Plants no longer fertilize each other, vegetation dies, animals experience no heat and man ceases to love and live a happy life in serving the gods.
The population begins to diminish, and the gods note with alarm a sharp decline in the number of offerings from the earth. In panic they command Ereshkigal to release Ishtar. It is done, but Ishtar refuses to return to the surface of the earth unless she is allowed to take Tammuz with her. She wins her point, and as she appears on the surface of the earth again, plants grow and bloom again, the land produces food, and every animal resumes the business of reproducing his kind. Love is restored among men and the offerings resume to the gods. This, of course, was the explanation for the dying of plants as winter approached and the renewal of them in the Spring. Annually the Fall was commemorated with a day of mourning and wailing for the dead Tammuz, followed by eleven days of great rejoicing over his resurrection in the Spring. Thus were the legends of the creation.
Most humans were buried in vaults, a few were cremated, and their remains were preserved in urns. The dead body was not embalmed, but professional mourners washed and perfumed it, dressed it appropriately, painted its cheeks, darkened its eyelids, put rings upon its fingers, and provided it with a change of clothes. If the corpse was that of a woman it was equipped with scent-bottles, combs, cosmetic pencils, and eye-paint to preserve its fragrance and complexion in the underworld. If not properly buried the dead would torment the living, and if not buried at all, the soul would prowl around the sewers and gutters looking for food, and might afflict an entire city with pestilence.
The usual offering made to the gods was food and drink, however, a lamb was the usual animal for sacrifices upon the altars of the temples spread throughout the land. Sacrifice was a complex ritual, requiring the expert services of a priest, and every act and word of the ceremony was established by sacred tradition, and any deviation from the prescribed order might mean that the gods would not eat the sacrifice and listen to the petition of the people making the offering.
In general, to the Babylonian, religion meant correct ritual rather than the good life. To do one’s duty to the gods one had to offer proper sacrifice to the temples, and recite the appropriate prayers; for the rest he might cut out the eyes of his fallen enemy, cut off the hands and feet of captives, and roast their remainders alive in a furnace, without much offense to heaven. To participate in – or reverently to attend – long and solemn processions like those in which the priests carried from sanctuary to sanctuary the image of Marduk, and performed the sacred drama of his death and resurrection; to anoint the idols with sweet-scented oils, to burn incense before them, clothe them with rich vestments, or adorn them with jewelry; to offer up the virginity of their daughters in the great festival of Ishtar; to put food and drink before the gods, and to be generous to the priests – these were the essential works of the devout Babylonian soul. (Will Durrant, The Story of Civilization, Our Oriental Heritage, pages 240-241)
Sin was no mere theoretical state of the soul, for like sickness it was the possession of the body by a demon that might destroy it. Prayer was in an effort to keep demons away that might come down upon the individual out of the ocean in which the ancients believed they lived and moved. Everywhere, in the Babylonian view, these hostile demons lurked: they hid in strange places, slipped through doors or even through bolts and sockets, and pounced upon their victims in the form of illness of madness whenever some sin had caused their guardian angel to withdraw from them. Even giants, dwarfs, cripples, and women, sometimes had the power, even with the simple glance of the "evil eye," to cause such destructive spirits to enter into the bodies of those whom they were displeased with. Partial protection against these demons was provided by the use of magic lockets worn about the neck and other lucky charms, and images of the gods carried on the body would usually suffice to frighten the devils away. Little stones strung on a thread or a chain and hung about the neck were especially effective, but care had to be taken that the stones were such as tradition associated with good luck, and the thread had to be of black, white or red according to the purpose of the necklace. In addition to such means it was wise also to exorcize the demon by fervent prayers and magic ritual – for example, by sprinkling the body with water taken from the sacred streams such as the Tigris or the Euphrates. Images of the demon could be made, placed on a boat, and sent over the water with a proper prayer. If the boat could be made to capsize, so much the better. The demon might be persuaded, by the appropriate prayers, to leave its human victim and enter an animal; such as a bird, a pig, or most commonly a lamb.
Magic formulas for the elimination of demons, the avoidance of evil and the protection of the future constituted a large part of the Babylonian writings found in the library of the great king Ashurbanipal (ASH ur BAHN i pal). Some of the tablets are manuals of astrology, others are lists of omens for the heavens and others for the earth. Each of these came with expert advice for reading them. Still others are directions on interpreting dreams, while others offered instruction in divining the future by examining the intestines of animals, or by observing the form and position of a drop of oil let fall into a jar of water. The observation of the liver of animals was a favorite method of divination among the Babylonian priests, for the liver was believed to be the center of the mind in both animals and man. No king would undertake a military campaign or advance into a battle, or make any kind of a crucial decision without seeking out a priest first to read the omens for him in one or another of these ways. Never was a civilization richer in superstition. Every turn of chance, from the birth of a child to the death of a loved one, there was an interpretation for the event. Every movement of the rivers, every position of the stars, every dream, every unusual performance of man or beast, revealed the future to the properly instructed Babylonian priest. Even as simple a thing as observing the movement of a dog the priest could determine the future of a king.
Spiritual Babylon
As so often happens, Babylon’s wealth and glory were accompanied by moral decay, wickedness, and iniquity. So terrible were the morals of Babylon that the very name became the symbol for worldliness, spiritual wickedness, and Satan’s kingdom. It is "the great whore" (Revelation 17:1) and "the mother of harlots and abominations" (Revelation 17:5). The Bible Encyclopedia, under the heading "Babylon" gives the following description of Babylon:
Babylon, as the center of a great kingdom, was the seat of boundless luxury,and its inhabitants were notorious for their addiction to self-indulgence and effeminacy [decadence]. Q. Curtius (v:I) asserts that, "nothing could be more corrupt than its morals, nothing more fitted to excite and allure to immoderate [unrestrained] pleasures. The rites of hospitality were polluted by the grossest and most shameless lusts. Money dissolved every tie, whether of kindred, respect, or esteem. The Babylonians were very greatly given to wine, and the enjoyments which accompany inebriety [drunkenness]. Women were present at their convivialities [feasts, activities where drinking is common], first with some degree of propriety, but, growing worse and worse by degrees, they ended by throwing off at once their modesty and their clothing." On the ground of their awful wickedness the Babylonians were threatened with condign [appropriate, deserved] punishment, through the mouths of the prophets; and the tyranny with which the rulers of the city exercised their sway as not without a decided effect in bringing on them the terrific consequences of the Divine vengeance. Nor in the whole range of literature is there anything to be found approaching to the sublimity [majestic, noble], force, and terror with which Isaiah and others speak on this painful subject. (LDS Church, Old Testament Student Manual, I Kings-Malachi, page 232)
The prophecies of the actual downfall and destruction of Babylon were topics addressed by the prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah. They prophesied during the time of the great influence of the Babylonian Empire. It seemed the whole world was following the evil and spiritually devastating practices of the heathen worship promoted by Babylon. However, the prophecies against this nation were significant and should have been of sufficient warning to the Israelites to not adhere themselves to Babylon, but to come out and away from her as the Lord had instructed. We conclude our study of Babylon with a couple of prophecies of her demise and downfall.
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful [sad, mourning] creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs [mythical symbolism of lustful men, or men with pointed ears, short horns, the body of a man and legs of a goat, or demons] shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons [jackals, wild dogs] in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged. (Isaiah 13:19-22)
Her cities are a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness, a land wherein no man dwelleth, neither doth any son of man pass thereby. And I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he hath swallowed up: and the nations shall not flow together any more unto him: yea, the wall of Babylon shall fall. My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the Lord. And lest your heart faint, and ye fear for the rumour that shall be heard in the land; a rumour shall both come one year, and after that in another year shall come a rumour, and violence in the land, ruler against ruler. Therefore, behold, the days come, that I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon: and her whole land shall be confounded, and all her slain shall fall in the midst of her. (Jeremiah 51:43-47)
The World Before Christ, an LDS Perspective, volume 2, pages 248-256.
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