13. (a) What outcome awaits the insolent Assyrian? (b) What will result from the rule of the “twig” from Jesse?

¹³ “Aha, the Assyrian,” Jehovah cries, “the rod for my anger.” After using that rod against “an apostate nation,” God will cut down the insolent Assyrian himself.

14. What comedown is foretold for Babylon?

¹⁴ Pronouncing Babylon’s doom (13:1–14:27). Isaiah now looks past the Assyrian’s day into the time of Babylon’s zenith. Listen! The sound of numerous people, the uproar of kingdoms, of nations gathered together! Jehovah is mustering the army of war! It is a dark day for Babylon. Amazed faces flame, and hearts melt. The pitiless Medes will tumble Babylon, “the decoration of kingdoms.” She is to become an uninhabited desolation and a haunt of wild creatures “for generation after generation.” (13:19, 20) The dead in Sheol are stirred to receive the king of Babylon. Maggots become his couch and worms his covering. What a comedown for this ‘shining one, the son of the dawn’! (14:12) He aspired to elevate his throne but has become a carcass thrown out, as Jehovah sweeps Babylon with the broom of annihilation. No name, no remnant, no progeny, no posterity, are to remain!

15. Concerning what international desolations does Isaiah prophesy?

¹⁵ International desolations (14:28–23:18). Isaiah now points back to Philistia along the Mediterranean Sea and then to Moab, southeast of the Dead Sea. He directs his prophecy up beyond Israel’s northern boundary to Syrian Damascus, dips deep south into Ethiopia, and moves up the Nile into Egypt, with God’s judgments producing desolation all along the way. He tells of the Assyrian king Sargon, the predecessor of Sennacherib, sending commander Tartan against the Philistine city of Ashdod, west of Jerusalem. At this time Isaiah is told to strip and go naked and barefoot for three years. Thus he vividly portrays the futility of trusting in Egypt and Ethiopia, who, with “buttocks stripped,” will be led captive by the Assyrian.​—20:4.

16. What calamities are seen for Babylon, Edom, and Jerusalem’s boisterous ones, as well as for Sidon and Tyre?

¹⁶ A lookout upon his watchtower sees the fall of Babylon and her gods, and he sees adversities for Edom. Jehovah himself addresses Jerusalem’s boisterous people who are saying, “Let there be eating and drinking, for tomorrow we shall die.” ‘Die you shall,’ says Jehovah. (22:13, 14) The ships of Tarshish too are to howl, and Sidon is to be ashamed, for Jehovah has given counsel against Tyre, to “treat with contempt all the honorable ones of the earth.”​—23:9.