Bible Strands
Zechariah 2:7
“Get up, O Zion! Escape, you who dwell with the Daughter of Babylon!”
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The LORD addresses Zion and its inhabitants, commanding them to rise and flee from Babylon. This occurs immediately after the declaration that God scattered them like the four winds and is now acting against the nations that plundered them.
The words — The imperative הִמָּלְטִי (hi.mal.Ti) means "escape," directed at יוֹשֶׁבֶת (yo.She.vet), "you who dwell." The compound phrase בַּת־בָּבֶל (bat-bavel) literally renders "daughter of Babylon."
The thread — The command to flee Babylon appears in Isaiah 48:20 and Isaiah 52:11, both urging departure from the city. It parallels the urgent escape narrative in Genesis 19:17, where fleeing requires immediate, unhesitating movement.
Why it lands — The text demands immediate physical and spiritual separation from Babylon before God acts against its oppressors. The reader must recognize that divine protection follows obedience to the command to flee.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Deliver thyself, O Zion, that dwellest with the daughter of Babylon.
Cross-references
- Isaiah 48:20 Leave Babylon! Flee from the Chaldeans! Declare it with a shout of joy, proclaim it, let it go out to the ends of the earth, saying, “The LORD has redeemed His servant Jacob!”
- Genesis 19:17 As soon as the men had brought them out, one of them said, “Run for your lives! Do not look back, and do not stop anywhere on the plain! Flee to the mountains, or you will be swept away!”
- Isaiah 52:11 Depart, depart, go out from there! Touch no unclean thing; come out from it, purify yourselves, you who carry the vessels of the LORD.
- Jeremiah 51:6 Flee from Babylon! Escape with your lives! Do not be destroyed in her punishment. For this is the time of the LORD’s vengeance; He will pay her what she deserves.
- Acts 2:40 With many other words he testified, and he urged them, “Be saved from this corrupt generation.”
- Revelation 18:4 Then I heard another voice from heaven say: “Come out of her, My people, so that you will not share in her sins or contract any of her plagues.
- Numbers 16:34 At their cries, all the people of Israel who were around them fled, saying, “The earth may swallow us too!”
- Isaiah 52:2 Shake off your dust! Rise up and sit on your throne, O Jerusalem. Remove the chains from your neck, O captive Daughter of Zion.
- Jeremiah 50:8 Flee from the midst of Babylon; depart from the land of the Chaldeans; be like the he-goats that lead the flock.
- Jeremiah 51:45 Come out of her, My people! Save your lives, each of you, from the fierce anger of the LORD.