Isaiah 13:17-22 (c. 700 BC) predicts that God would 'stir up the Medes' against Babylon, that Babylon would become 'as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah,' that 'it shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation,' and that 'wild beasts of the desert shall lie there.' Jeremiah 50-51 (c. 595 BC) expands with similar language, predicting that Babylon's stones would not be used for rebuilding, that it would be 'utterly broken,' and that it would become 'a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.'
At the time these prophecies were given, Babylon was either rising (Isaiah's day) or at the pinnacle of world power (Jeremiah's day). Under Nebuchadnezzar II (605-562 BC), Babylon was the largest city on earth—Herodotus describes walls 56 miles in circumference, 300 feet high, and 80 feet thick, with the Hanging Gardens among the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. Predicting its permanent desolation was as implausible as predicting the permanent abandonment of modern New York or London.
The first fulfillment came in 539 BC when Cyrus the Great and Darius the Mede conquered Babylon by diverting the Euphrates and entering the city through its exposed river bed (Herodotus 1.191, Daniel 5). Unlike Isaiah's hyperbolic warning, this conquest was nearly bloodless—Babylon was not destroyed but absorbed into the Medo-Persian Empire. Thus Isaiah 13's 'overthrow like Sodom' seemed initially unfulfilled.
The gradual fulfillment came over centuries. Xerxes I (486-465 BC) put down a Babylonian revolt in 482 BC, damaging temples and walls. Alexander the Great (died 323 BC) planned to rebuild Babylon as his capital but died before completing it. His successors, particularly Seleucus I, founded Seleucia on the Tigris in 305 BC and systematically transferred Babylon's population there. By the time of Strabo (c. AD 20), Babylon was described as 'a great desert,' and by the time of Pausanias (c. AD 150), only the walls remained. Islamic historians al-Mas'udi (10th century) and Ibn Hawqal describe it as a ruin. Today, the ruins near Hillah, Iraq, remain uninhabited, with Saddam Hussein's 1980s reconstruction attempts being limited and later halted.
An often-cited detail is Isaiah 13:20's prediction that 'neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there.' Travelers including Austen Henry Layard (1849), who excavated the site, and later surveyors noted that Bedouin superstition and the presence of poisonous creatures kept nomads from camping among the ruins. While some limited habitation and agricultural use has occurred over the centuries, Babylon has never been rebuilt as a significant city—a remarkable fulfillment given its ancient prominence.
Some scholars argue for a future final fulfillment based on Revelation 17-18's 'Babylon the Great,' interpreting that the complete 'overthrow like Sodom' may await an eschatological Babylon. Others see the gradual historical decline as complete fulfillment, treating apocalyptic language as hyperbolic prophetic description of the judgment's certainty rather than specific mode.