2 Nephi 23 corresponds to Isaiah 13. This verse is the first in the third and final unit of Isaiah that Nephi will quote, and a new chapter begins here in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. (See “Excursus: Nephi’s Isaiah Quotations,” following 2 Nephi 11.) The identification as Isaiah of the prophet who receives the revelation would hardly be necessary were it the continuation of another literary unit.
The subject now shifts from Assyria to Babylon. As I observed in the commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 21:12 (Isa. 11:12), that verse appears to introduce a different gathering for Judah than that occasioned by the Assyrian invasion of 701 B.C., in which nearly all but Jerusalem was destroyed. Rather this gathering follows the Babylonian invasion a hundred years in the future during which Jerusalem was destroyed: “And he shall set up an ensign for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel and gather together Judah from the four corners of the earth” (2 Ne. 21:12). The reference to gathering a scattered Israel is appropriate for the Assyrian invasion, but gathering Judah from the four corners of the earth assumes the events of the Babylonian invasion. Perhaps that reference to a future Babylonian invasion was the thematic trigger for this prophesy focused directly on Babylon.
However, a more obvious connection between this prophetic unit and the last is the Messiah’s triumphal reign and his destruction of Israel’s traditional enemies, a symbol of good’s triumph over evil. In the second and preceding unit, Assyria, while temporarily the tool of Yahweh’s wrath, was eventually turned away from its destruction of Jerusalem (2 Ne. 20:33–34/Isa. 10:33–34).
Text: Ludlow notes:
The “message” (or “burden” [King James Version]) that Isaiah delivers to Babylon is a prophetic oracle or divine declaration. The term comes from the Hebrew word massa, which becomes a superscription throughout Isaiah’s prophecies to the foreign nations. (See Isa. 14:28; 15:1; 17:1; 19:1; 21:1, 11, 13; 22:1; 23:1.) Whereas some translators follow the King James Version and render this term as “burden,” others follow the more literal meaning of the Hebrew (“raise up”) and translate it as “oracle” or “message.” The meanings complement each other, because when a prophet “raises his voice” for God, he delivers an “oracle,” which can become a “burden” for the people, since additional knowledge and responsibility is placed upon them. The means by which Isaiah received his message is expressed in the Hebrew: he “saw” (chazah) the oracle of Babylon. Since chazah is the root for “seer,” Isaiah did not just see (ro’eh) the vision physically, but he saw it as inspired in his calling as a prophet or seer.
History: Ludlow also notes:
Isaiah first addresses Babylon, the ancient country that had ruled over the Middle East until displaced by the Assyrians. Although Babylon was subject to Assyrian rule during Isaiah’s lifetime, [it] gradually regained power and independence until the New Babylonian Empire replaced Assyria as the major power in the Fertile Crescent at the end of the seventh century B.C. But even during the so-called Assyrian period, Babylon still represented the best of culture, learning, literature, and religion (in the same way that Greek culture was sustained and imitated during the Roman period). Therefore, Isaiah often uses Babylon and [its] king as symbols of the world and its wickedness.