The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah … did see.

Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them…

And I will punish the world for evil, and the wicked for their iniquity; I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease… (2 Nephi 13: 1, 2, 11)[1]

 

The Burden of Babylon: the Proud

The question is sometimes asked: why does the Lord use such evil nations as Assyria and Babylon to punish His people? Do they get off scot-free? The answer is that, no, they do not get away with anything.  Assyria and Babylon were both destroyed and, whereas Israel has been promised a return, Assyria and Babylon have not. These wicked nations may have been far more evil than the Children of Israel, but Israel had been chosen to be a royal priesthood. When they fell, their fall was hard.  Where much is given, much is expected. By the choices Israel and Judah made, they negated in some ways the covenant they had with God. They had been promised protection and prosperity if they would serve the God with whom the covenant was made; when they did not, God withdrew His protection.  He did not have to punish them.  They punished themselves. With the hedges of God’s protection gone, they were easy prey to proud and ambitious nations. Those nations, in their turn, also fell.

 

One of the themes of the Book of Mormon is America’s Covenant with God. We are told throughout the text that this land is choice above all other lands and will be protected so long as the inhabitants serve the God of this land, which is Jesus Christ. Two nations in the history of the world have been founded on divine covenant: ancient Israel and the United States of America.  Israel fell, but for us the covenant is still in effect.  As a nation, how are we doing?

One of the names connected to Babylon was that of its king, Nebuchadnezzar. We sometimes forget that the Lord knew this man and had blessed him.  God sent important revelations for the future of the world to this king in dreams.  The best known of these was his dream of the huge statue made of precious metals from gold to silver to bronze and eventually to clay.  Following Daniel's interpretation of the dream, Nebuchadnezzar praised the God of Daniel.

But that didn't last for long.  Like many great men with absolute power, his own power corrupted him.  The Lord gave him yet another dream in which a tree grew strong and mighty only to be chained down and cut off.  Daniel was able to interpret for the king that he, in fact, was the tree.  God had warned the king that in his arrogance, pitting himself against the God of Heaven, he would be cut off and would live as an animal, eating grass.

At the end of twelve months he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon.

The king spoke, and said, Is not this great Babylon, that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power, and for the honor of my majesty?

While the word was in the king’s mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken; The kingdom is departed from thee. (Daniel 4: 29-31)

The king descended into madness (lycanthropy is the hypothesis of modern scholars) and did live like a beast for 7 long years. It wasn't until he was sufficiently humbled that he called upon the God of Daniel and blessed His name and worshipped Him that he was healed from his madness and again regained his crown.

God is the God of all people, whether the acknowledge Him or not. In what ways do we try to put ourselves ahead of God? What role does pride play in that arrogance?

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[1] See Isaiah 13; the head note for these chapters state that the woes in these verses are a type of the woes coming before Christ comes again.