---
title: Isaiah 48:20
url: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/isaiah-48-20/
markdown: https://jw-apologetics.app/verses/isaiah-48-20.md
type: verse
perspective: Protestant (historic Nicene) response to Jehovah's Witness teaching
reference: Isaiah 48:20
testament: OT
section: Prophets
index: https://jw-apologetics.app/llms.txt
---

# Isaiah 48:20

## Text (Berean Standard Bible)

> 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!”

## JW Usage

"Get out of Babylon!" — the Watchtower reads Isaiah 48:20 (and Jeremiah 50:8, 51:45) as the Old Testament template for Revelation 18:4's "get out of her, my people" call. On the JW reading, "Babylon the Great" of Revelation is the world empire of false religion (especially Christendom), and Isaiah 48:20 is its Old Testament prefigurement. Leaving Babylon, in modern application, means leaving any non-JW religion and joining Jehovah's organisation.

## Protestant Usage

Isaiah 48:20's "get out of Babylon" is a literal exilic command — the historical city of Babylon, where Israel was held captive, is to be abandoned. Revelation 17:18 explicitly identifies Revelation's Babylon as "the great city that has a kingdom over the kings of the earth" — a city with imperial dominion, not an abstract religious system. First-century readers would have recognised Rome (cf. 1 Peter 5:13, where Peter calls Rome "Babylon"). The Watchtower's "world empire of false religion" reading requires overriding the angel's own interpretation in Revelation 17:18 with a meaning the text never states. Pair with the babylon-the-great-city argument: Revelation's Babylon is a city, not a religion.

## Arguments Using This Verse

- [Babylon the Great Is a City, Not a Religion](https://jw-apologetics.app/arguments/babylon-the-great-city.md) — Revelation 17:18 / Revelation 17:9 / Revelation 18:11-13 [Eschatology]