wonders

Isaiah 13–23 contains a collection of “burdens” or pronouncements upon nations of Isaiah’s time. Babylon, Assyria, Philistia, Moab, Damascus (Syria), Egypt, and others all came under the prophet’s gloomy oracles of judgment. These chapters may seem like a vengeful series of pronouncements, but in context, these burdens provide significant insights into both the ancient and modern worlds.

A prominent Russian writer recently produced a tattered old Bible and with a practiced hand turned to Revelations. ''Listen,'' he said, ''this is incredible: 'And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; and the name of the star is called wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter.' '' In a dictionary, he showed the Ukrainian word for wormwood, a bitter wild herb used as a tonic in rural Russia: chernobyl.