4 That you will take up this bitter song against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the cruel overseer come to an end! He who was lifted up in pride is cut off;
5 The stick of the evil-doers, the rod of the rulers, is broken by the Lord;
6 He whose rod was on the peoples with an unending wrath, ruling the nations in passion, with an uncontrolled rule.
7 All the earth is at rest and is quiet: they are bursting into song.
8 Even the trees of the wood are glad over you, the trees of Lebanon, saying, From the time of your fall no wood-cutter has come up against us with an axe.
9 The underworld is moved at your coming: the shades of the dead are awake before you, even the strong ones of the earth; all the kings of the world have got up from their seats.
10 They all make answer and say to you, Have you become feeble like us? have you been made even as we are?
11 Your pride has gone down into the underworld, and the noise of your instruments of music; the worms are under you, and your body is covered with them.
12 How great is your fall from heaven, O shining one, son of the morning! How are you cut down to the earth, low among the dead bodies!
13 For you said in your heart, I will go up to heaven, I will make my seat higher than the stars of God; I will take my place on the mountain of the meeting-place of the gods, in the inmost parts of the north.
14 I will go higher than the clouds; I will be like the Most High.
15 But you will come down to the underworld, even to its inmost parts.
16 Those who see you will be looking on you with care, they will be in deep thought, saying, Is this the troubler of the earth, the shaker of kingdoms?
17 Who made the world a waste, overturning its towns; who did not let his prisoners loose from the prison-house.
18 All the kings of the earth are at rest in glory, every man in his house,
19 But you, like a birth before its time, are stretched out with no resting-place in the earth; clothed with the bodies of the dead who have been put to the sword, who go down to the lowest parts of the underworld; a dead body, crushed under foot.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 14
Commentary on Isaiah 14 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 14
In this chapter,
Isa 14:1-3
This comes in here as the reason why Babylon must be overthrown and ruined, because God has mercy in store for his people, and therefore,
Isa 14:4-23
The kings of Babylon, successively, were the great enemies and oppressors of God's people, and therefore the destruction of Babylon, the fall of the king, and the ruin of his family, are here particularly taken notice of and triumphed in. In the day that God has given Israel rest they shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon. We must not rejoice when our enemy falls, as ours; but when Babylon, the common enemy of God and his Israel, sinks, then rejoice over her, thou heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, Rev. 18:20. The Babylonian monarchy bade fair to be an absolute, universal, and perpetual one, and, in these pretensions, vied with the Almighty; it is therefore very justly, not only brought down, but insulted over when it is down; and it is not only the last monarch, Belshazzar, who was slain on that night that Babylon was taken (Dan. 5:30), who is here triumphed over, but the whole monarchy, which sunk in him; not without special reference to Nebuchadnezzar, in whom that monarchy was at its height. Now here,
Isa 14:24-32
The destruction of Babylon and the Chaldean empire was a thing at a great distance; the empire had not risen to any considerable height when its fall was here foretold: it was almost 200 years from this prediction of Babylon's fall to the accomplishment of it. Now the people to whom Isaiah prophesied might ask, "What is this to us, or what shall we be the better for it, and what assurance shall we have of it?' To both questions he answers in these verses, by a prediction of the ruin both of the Assyrians and of the Philistines, the present enemies that infested them, which they should shortly be eye-witnesses of and have benefit by. These would be a present comfort to them, and a pledge of future deliverance, for the confirming of the faith of their posterity. God is to his people the same to day that he was yesterday and will be hereafter; and he will for ever be the same that he has been and is. Here is,