1 For Jehovah will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the sojourner shall join himself with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
2 And the peoples shall take them, and bring them to their place; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of Jehovah for servants and for handmaids: and they shall take them captive whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
3 And it shall come to pass in the day that Jehovah shall give thee rest from thy sorrow, and from thy trouble, and from the hard service wherein thou wast made to serve,
4 that thou shalt take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
5 Jehovah hath broken the staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers;
6 that smote the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, that ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that none restrained.
7 The whole earth is at rest, `and' is quiet: they break forth into singing.
8 Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, `and' the cedars of Lebanon, `saying', Since thou art laid low, no hewer is come up against us.
9 Sheol from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10 All they shall answer and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
11 Thy pomp is brought down to Sheol, `and' the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and worms cover thee.
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O day-star, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, that didst lay low the nations!
13 And thou saidst in thy heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit upon the mount of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit.
16 They that see thee shall gaze at thee, they shall consider thee, `saying', Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 that made the world as a wilderness, and overthrew the cities thereof; that let not loose his prisoners to their home?
18 All the kings of the nations, all of them, sleep in glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast forth away from thy sepulchre like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, that are thrust through with the sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a dead body trodden under foot.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, thou hast slain thy people; the seed of evil-doers shall not be named for ever.
21 Prepare ye slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers, that they rise not up, and possess the earth, and fill the face of the world with cities.
22 And I will rise up against them, saith Jehovah of hosts, and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son's son, saith Jehovah.
23 I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith Jehovah of hosts.
24 Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely, as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25 that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27 For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who shall annul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.
29 Rejoice not, O Philistia, all of thee, because the rod that smote thee is broken; for out of the serpent's root shall come forth an adder, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.
30 And the first-born of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety; and I will kill thy root with famine, and thy remnant shall be slain.
31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou art melted away, O Philistia, all of thee; for there cometh a smoke out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.
32 What then shall one answer the messengers of the nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall the afflicted of his people take refuge.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible » Commentary on Isaiah 14
Commentary on Isaiah 14 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
CHAPTER 14
Isa 14:1-3. The Certainty of Deliverance from Babylon.
Isa 14:4-23. The Jews' Triumphal Song Thereat.
"It moves in lengthened elegiac measure like a song of lamentation for the dead, and is full of lofty scorn" [Herder].
Isa 14:24-27. Confirmation of This by the Hereforetold Destruction of the Assyrians under Sennacherib;
a pledge to assure the captives in Babylon that He who, with such ease, overthrew the Assyrian, could likewise effect His purpose as to Babylon. The Babylonian king, the subject of this prediction, is Belshazzar, as representative of the kingdom (Da 5:1-31).
1. choose—"set His choice upon." A deliberate predilection [Horsley]. Their restoration is grounded on their election (see Ps 102:13-22).
strangers—proselytes (Es 8:17; Ac 2:10; 17:4, 17). Tacitus, a heathen [Histories, 5.5], attests the fact of numbers of the Gentiles having become Jews in his time. An earnest of the future effect on the heathen world of the Jews' spiritual restoration (Isa 60:4, 5, 10; Mic 5:7; Zec 14:16; Ro 11:12).
2. the people—of Babylon, primarily. Of the whole Gentile world ultimately (Isa 49:22; 66:20; 60:9).
their place—Judea (Ezr 1:1-6).
possess—receive in possession.
captives—not by physical, but by moral might; the force of love, and regard to Israel's God (Isa 60:14).
3. rest—(Isa 28:12; Eze 28:25, 26).
Isa 14:4-8. A Chorus of Jews Express Their Joyful Surprise at Babylon's Downfall.
The whole earth rejoices; the cedars of Lebanon taunt him.
4. proverb—The Orientals, having few books, embodied their thoughts in weighty, figurative, briefly expressed gnomes. Here a taunting song of triumph (Mic 2:4; Hab 2:6).
the king—the ideal representative of Babylon; perhaps Belshazzar (Da 5:1-31). The mystical Babylon is ultimately meant.
golden city—rather, "the exactress of gold" [Maurer]. But the old translators read differently in the Hebrew, "oppression," which the parallelism favors (compare Isa 3:5).
5. staff—not the scepter (Ps 2:9), but the staff with which one strikes others, as he is speaking of more tyrants than one (Isa 9:4; 10:24; 14:29) [Maurer].
rulers—tyrants, as the parallelism "the wicked" proves (compare see on Isa 13:2).
6. people—the peoples subjected to Babylon.
is persecuted—the Hebrew is rather, active, "which persecuted them, without any to hinder him" [Vulgate, Jerome, and Horsley].
7. they—the once subject nations of the whole earth. Houbigant places the stop after "fir trees" (Isa 14:8), "The very fir trees break forth," &c. But the parallelism is better in English Version.
8. the fir trees—now left undisturbed. Probably a kind of evergreen.
rejoice at thee—(Ps 96:12). At thy fall (Ps 35:19, 24).
no feller—as formerly, when thou wast in power (Isa 10:34; 37:24).
Isa 14:9-11. The Scene Changes from Earth to Hell.
Hades (the Amenthes of Egypt), the unseen abode of the departed; some of its tenants, once mighty monarchs, are represented by a bold personification as rising from their seats in astonishment at the descent among them of the humbled king of Babylon. This proves, in opposition to Warburton [The Divine Legation], that the belief existed among the Jews that there was a Sheol or Hades, in which the "Rephaim" or manes of the departed abode.
9. moved—put into agitation.
for thee—that is, "at thee"; towards thee; explained by "to meet thee at thy coming" [Maurer].
chief ones—literally, "goats"; so rams, leaders of the flock; princes (Zec 10:3). The idea of wickedness on a gigantic scale is included (Eze 34:17; Mt 25:32, 33). Magee derives "Rephaim" (English Version, "the dead") from a Hebrew root, "to resolve into first elements"; so "the deceased" (Isa 26:14) "ghosts" (Pr 21:16). These being magnified by the imagination of the living into gigantic stature, gave their name to giants in general (Ge 6:4; 14:5; Eze 32:18, 21). "Rephaim," translated in the Septuagint, "giants" (compare see on Job 26:5, 6). Thence, as the giant Rephaim of Canaan were notorious even in that guilty land, enormous wickedness became connected with the term. So the Rephaim came to be the wicked spirits in Gehenna, the lower of the two portions into which Sheol is divided.
10. They taunt him and derive from his calamity consolation under their own (Eze 31:16).
weak—as a shade bereft of blood and life. Rephaim, "the dead," may come from a Hebrew root, meaning similarly "feeble," "powerless." The speech of the departed closes with Isa 14:11.
11. "Pomp" and music, the accompaniment of Babylon's former feastings (Isa 5:12; 24:8), give place to the corruption and the stillness of the grave (Eze 32:27).
worm—that is bred in putridity.
worms—properly those from which the crimson dye is obtained. Appropriate here; instead of the crimson coverlet, over thee shall be "worms." Instead of the gorgeous couch, "under thee" shall be the maggot.
Isa 14:12-15. The Jews Address Him Again as a Fallen Once-bright Star.
The language is so framed as to apply to the Babylonian king primarily, and at the same time to shadow forth through him, the great final enemy, the man of sin, Antichrist, of Daniel, St. Paul, and St. John; he alone shall fulfil exhaustively all the lineaments here given.
12. Lucifer—"day star." A title truly belonging to Christ (Re 22:16), "the bright and morning star," and therefore hereafter to be assumed by Antichrist. Gesenius, however, renders the Hebrew here as in Eze 21:12; Zec 11:2, "howl."
weaken—"prostrate"; as in Ex 17:13, "discomfit."
13. above … God—In Da 8:10, "stars" express earthly potentates. "The stars" are often also used to express heavenly principalities (Job 38:7).
mount of the congregation—the place of solemn meeting between God and His people in the temple at Jerusalem. In Da 11:37, and 2Th 2:4, this is attributed to Antichrist.
sides of the north—namely, the sides of Mount Moriah on which the temple was built; north of Mount Zion (Ps 48:2). However, the parallelism supports the notion that the Babylonian king expresses himself according to his own, and not Jewish opinions (so in Isa 10:10) thus "mount of the congregation" will mean the northern mountain (perhaps in Armenia) fabled by the Babylonians to be the common meeting-place of their gods. "Both sides" imply the angle in which the sides meet; and so the expression comes to mean "the extreme parts of the north." So the Hindus place the Meru, the dwelling-place of their gods, in the north, in the Himalayan mountains. So the Greeks, in the northern Olympus. The Persian followers of Zoroaster put the Ai-bordsch in the Caucasus north of them. The allusion to the stars harmonizes with this; namely, that those near the North Pole, the region of the aurora borealis (compare see on Job 23:9; Job 37:22) [Maurer, Septuagint, Syriac].
14. clouds—rather, "the cloud," singular. Perhaps there is a reference to the cloud, the symbol of the divine presence (Isa 4:5; Ex 13:21). So this tallies with 2Th 2:4, "above all that is called God"; as here "above … the cloud"; and as the Shekinah-cloud was connected with the temple, there follows, "he as God sitteth in the temple of God," answering to "I will be like the Most High" here. Moreover, Re 17:4, 5, represents Antichrist as seated in Babylon, to which city, literal and spiritual, Isaiah refers here.
15. to hell—to Sheol (Isa 14:6), thou who hast said, "I will ascend into heaven" (Mt 11:23).
sides of the pit—antithetical to the "sides of the north" (Isa 14:13). Thus the reference is to the sides of the sepulcher round which the dead were arranged in niches. But Maurer here, as in Isa 14:13, translates, "the extreme," or innermost parts of the sepulchre: as in Eze 32:23 (compare 1Sa 24:3).
Isa 14:16-20. The Passers-by Contemplate with Astonishment the Body of the King of Babylon Cast Out, Instead of Lying in a Splendid Mausoleum, and Can Hardly Believe Their Senses that It Is He.
16. narrowly look—to be certain they are not mistaken.
consider—"meditate upon" [Horsley].
17. opened not … house … prisoners—But Maurer, as Margin, "Did not let his captives loose homewards."
18. All—that is, This is the usual practice.
in glory—in a grand mausoleum.
house—that is, "sepulchre," as in Ec 12:5; "grave" (Isa 14:19). To be excluded from the family sepulcher was a mark of infamy (Isa 34:3; Jer 22:19; 1Ki 13:22; 2Ch 21:20; 24:25; 28:27).
19. cast out of—not that he had lain in the grave and was then cast out of it, but "cast out without a grave," such as might have been expected by thee ("thy").
branch—a useless sucker starting up from the root of a tree, and cut away by the husbandman.
raiment of those … slain—covered with gore, and regarded with abhorrence as unclean by the Jews. Rather, "clothed (that is, covered) with the slain"; as in Job 7:5, "My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust" [Maurer].
thrust through—that is, "the slain who have been thrust through," &c.
stones of … pit—whose bodies are buried in sepulchres excavated amidst stones, whereas the king of Babylon is an unburied "carcass trodden under foot."
20. not … joined with them—whereas the princes slain with thee shall be buried, thou shalt not.
thou … destroyed … land—Belshazzar (or Naboned) oppressed his land with wars and tyranny, so that he was much hated [Xenophon, Cyropædia 4.6, 3; 7.5, 32].
seed … never be renowned—rather, "shall not be named for ever"; the Babylonian dynasty shall end with Belshazzar; his family shall not be perpetuated [Horsley].
Isa 14:21-23. God's Determination to Destroy Babylon.
21. Prepare, &c.—charge to the Medes and Persians, as if they were God's conscious instruments.
his children—Belshazzar's (Ex 20:5).
rise—to occupy the places of their fathers.
fill … with cities—Maurer translates, "enemies," as the Hebrew means in 1Sa 28:16; Ps 139:20; namely, lest they inundate the world with their armies. Vitringa translates, "disturbers." In English Version the meaning is, "lest they fill the land with such cities" of pride as Babylon was.
22. against them—the family of the king of Babylon.
name—all the male representatives, so that the name shall become extinct (Isa 56:5; Ru 4:5).
remnant—all that is left of them. The dynasty shall cease (Da 5:28-31). Compare as to Babylon in general, Jer 51:62.
23. bittern—rather, "the hedgehog" [Maurer and Gesenius]. Strabo (16:1) states that enormous hedgehogs were found in the islands of the Euphrates.
pools—owing to Cyrus turning the waters of the Euphrates over the country.
besom—sweep-net [Maurer], (1Ki 14:10; 2Ki 21:13).
Isa 14:24-27. A Fragment as to the Destruction of the Assyrians under Sennacherib.
This would comfort the Jews when captives in Babylon, being a pledge that God, who had by that time fulfilled the promise concerning Sennacherib (though now still future), would also fulfil His promise as to destroying Babylon, Judah's enemy.
24. In this verse the Lord's thought (purpose) stands in antithesis to the Assyrians' thoughts (Isa 10:7). (See Isa 46:10, 11; 1Sa 15:29; Mal 3:6).
25. That—My purpose, namely, "that."
break … yoke—(Isa 10:27).
my mountains—Sennacherib's army was destroyed on the mountains near Jerusalem (Isa 10:33, 34). God regarded Judah as peculiarly His.
26. This is … purpose … whole earth—A hint that the prophecy embraces the present world of all ages in its scope, of which the purpose concerning Babylon and Assyria, the then representatives of the world power, is but a part.
hand … stretched out upon—namely, in punishment (Isa 5:25).
27. (Da 4:35).
Isa 14:28-32. Prophecy against Philistia.
To comfort the Jews, lest they should fear that people; not in order to call the Philistines to repentance, since the prophecy was probably never circulated among them. They had been subdued by Uzziah or Azariah (2Ch 26:6); but in the reign of Ahaz (2Ch 28:18), they took several towns in south Judea. Now Isaiah denounces their final subjugation by Hezekiah.
28. In … year … Ahaz died—726 B.C. Probably it was in this year that the Philistines threw off the yoke put on them by Uzziah.
29. Palestina—literally, "the land of sojourners."
rod … broken—The yoke imposed by Uzziah (2Ch 26:6) was thrown off under Ahaz (2Ch 28:18).
serpent's root—the stock of Jesse (Isa 11:1). Uzziah was doubtless regarded by the Philistines as a biting "serpent." But though the effects of his bite have been got rid of, a more deadly viper, or "cockatrice" (literally, "viper's offspring," as Philistia would regard him), namely, Hezekiah awaits you (2Ki 18:8).
30. first-born of … poor—Hebraism, for the most abject poor; the first-born being the foremost of the family. Compare "first-born of death" (Job 18:13), for the most fatal death. The Jews, heretofore exposed to Philistine invasions and alarms, shall be in safety. Compare Ps 72:4, "Children of the needy," expressing those "needy in condition."
feed—image from a flock feeding in safety.
root—radical destruction.
He shall slay—Jehovah shall. The change of person, "He" after "I," is a common Hebraism.
31. gate—that is, ye who throng the gate; the chief place of concourse in a city.
from … north—Judea, north and east of Palestine.
smoke—from the signal-fire, whereby a hostile army was called together; the Jews' signal-fire is meant here, the "pillar of cloud and fire," (Ex 13:21; Ne 9:19); or else from the region devastated by fire [Maurer]. Gesenius less probably refers it to the cloud of dust raised by the invading army.
none … alone … in … appointed times—Rather, "There shall not be a straggler among his (the enemy's) levies." The Jewish host shall advance on Palestine in close array; none shall fall back or lag from weariness (Isa 5:26, 27), [Lowth]. Maurer thinks the Hebrew will not bear the rendering "levies" or "armies." He translates, "There is not one (of the Philistine watch guards) who will remain alone (exposed to the enemy) at his post," through fright. On "alone," compare Ps 102:7; Ho 8:9.
32. messengers of the nation—When messengers come from Philistia to enquire as to the state of Judea, the reply shall be, that the Lord … (Ps 87:1, 5; 102:16).
poor—(Zep 3:12).