14
📚And her time is coming near, and her days will not be prolonged.
For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob,
and once again will choose Israel,
and set them in their own land;
and strangers will be joined with them,
and they will cling
to the house of Jacob.
2 📚And peoples will take them and
bring them to their place.
And the house of Israel will
possess them as servants
and maids in the land
of the LORD,
and they will take as captives
those whose captives they were,
and will rule over their oppressors.
3 📚And it will come about in the day
that the LORD gives you rest
from your sorrow,
and from your fear,
and from the hard bondage
in which you were made to serve,
14:3 There are two Babylons described in Scripture – the literal Babylon on the Euphrates river and figurative Babylon of Revelation chapters 17 and 18. The literal one came to an end 2500 years ago. The destruction of the other one is in the future. It does not seem impossible that the verses which follow fit both times of destruction.⚜
4 📚That you will take up this proverb
against the king of Babylon,
and say,
“How the oppressor has come
to an end,
the golden city ceased!
5 📚The LORD has broken the staff 📖
of the wicked,
and the sceptre of the rulers.
6 📚The one who struck the people
in wrath with a continual stroke,
the one who ruled the nations in anger,
is persecuted,
and no one hinders.
7 📚The whole earth 📖 is at rest
and is calm;
they break forth into singing.
8 📚Yes, the fir trees rejoice at you,
and the cedars of Lebanon,
saying, ‘Since you were laid low,
no woodsman comes up against us.’
9 📚“Hell 📖 below is stirred up about you
to meet you at your coming.
It rouses the dead for you,
all the chief ones of the earth.
It makes all who were kings
of the nations rise from their thrones.
10 📚All of them will speak and say
to you,
‘Have you also become as weak
as we?
Have you become like us?’
11 📚“Your pomp is brought down
to the grave,
and the sound of your harps.
The maggot is spread out under you,
and the worms cover you.
14:10-11 This is the end of all man’s glory and beauty apart from God. God’s saved people will inherit forever with Christ all the glory and beauty of heaven.⚜
Fall of Lucifer from heaven
12 📚“How you are fallen from heaven,
O Lucifer 📖, son of the dawn!
How you,
who weakened the nations,
are cut down to the ground!
13 📚For you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven.
I will exalt my throne above
the stars of God,
and I will sit on the Mount
of the Congregation 📖,
in the far recesses of the north.
14 📚I will ascend above the heights
of the clouds.
I will be like the Most High 📖.’
14:13-14 All Satan (or the king of Babylon) desired was self-exaltation, glory, and power over everyone else. Compare Christ’s character as revealed in Phil 2:5-11 and Matt 11:29. Leaders in general may be divided into two groups – those who have the desire and outlook of Satan and those who have the desire and outlook of Christ.⚜
15 📚Yet you shall be brought down
to hell,
to the lowest depths of the pit.
14:12-15 Some scholars are convinced that these words are spoken only to the king of Babylon. Others are equally sure that they are spoken to the one behind the king of Babylon – Satan himself. (A similar passage is Ezek 28:12-17.) It seems quite possible that both are being addressed (compare Matt 16:23). Behind the king of Babylon’s awful arrogance and defiance of heaven was the king of demons.⚜
14:15 Such will be the end of all self-exalting beings, whether men, or Satan and his hosts.⚜
16 📚Those who see you will stare
at you,
and consider you,
saying, ‘Is this the man
who caused the earth to tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
17 📚Who made the world like a
wilderness and destroyed its cities,
who did not allow his prisoners
to go home?’
18 📚“All the kings of the nations,
all of them, lie in honour,
each one in his own place.
19 📚But you are cast out of
your grave like a rejected branch,
and like the clothing
of those who have been killed,
pierced with a sword,
who go down to the stones
of the pit like a corpse trampled
underfoot.
14:19 For a king not to have a proper burial was a thing of great dishonor to him.⚜
20 📚You will not be joined
with them in burial,
because you have destroyed
your land,
and killed your people.
The offspring of evildoers will never be
mentioned again.
14:16-20 The king of Babylon is again plainly addressed. These words have to do with the earth, not the realm of the dead as in v 9-11. Between 605 BC and 538 BC the Babylonian king was the most powerful man on earth. He held God’s people captive until he was overthrown by the Medes.⚜
21 📚Prepare slaughter for his children
because of the wickedness
of their fathers,
so that they do not rise up
and possess the land,
or fill the surface of the earth
with cities”.
22 📚“For I will rise up against them”,
says the LORD of hosts,
“and cut off from Babylon
its name and survivors,
and offspring and posterity”,
says the LORD.
23 📚“Also I will make it a possession
of hedgehogs,
and watery swamps,
and I will sweep it with the broom
of destruction”, says
the LORD of hosts.
14:21-23 Both the sons of Babylon’s king and his kingdom and people would be destroyed.⚜
Against Assyria
24 📚The LORD of hosts has sworn,
saying,
“Surely as I have planned,
so it will happen;
and as I have purposed,
so it will stand.
14:24 This is true of everything God plans (v 27), but He is here speaking of the destruction of the Assyrians, as the following verse makes clear.⚜
25 📚I will break the Assyrian
in my land,
and trample him underfoot
on my mountains 📖.
Then his yoke 📖 will depart from them,
and his burden depart from
their shoulders”.
26 📚“This is the plan
that is purposed for the whole earth,
and this is the hand
that is stretched out on
all the nations.
14:26 In chapters 13–24 God is speaking of a number of nations which represent the known world of Isaiah’s day.⚜
27 📚For the LORD of hosts has formed
a purpose,
14:27 Verse 24.⚜
and who can cancel it?
And his hand is stretched out,
and who can turn it back?”
Against the Philistines
28 📚In the year that King Ahaz died 📖
this was the burden:
29 📚“Do not rejoice 📖,
all you of Philistia,
because the rod of the one
who struck you is broken 📖;
for out of the serpent’s root
will come a viper,
and its offspring will be
a fiery flying serpent.
14:1-2 Every jot and title of not only the law but of the prophets must be fulfilled. It is clear that these verses (especially v 2) were not completely fulfilled when the Jews returned from Babylon to their own land. No such power or reign of Israel over their captors and oppressors has been seen to this day. So we judge the complete fulfillment is some time in the future. Notice the words in v 1 – “once again will chose Israel” – as if for a time He had rejected them. See Matt 21:43 and compare it with Matt 19:28; Acts 1:6-7; Rom 11:11-12, 15, 23-29; Rev 7:1-8.⚜
30 📚And the firstborn of
the poor will feed,
and the needy will lie down
in safety,
but I will kill your root
with famine,
and it will kill your remnant”.
31 📚Wail, O gate!
Cry out, O city!
All you of Philistia, melt away!
For a smoke will come from the north,
and there will be no deserter
from its ranks.
32 📚What, then,
will one answer the messengers
of the nation?
That the LORD has founded Zion,
and the poor of his people will find
refuge in it.
14:28-32 For other prophecies against the Philistines see Jer 47; Ezek 25:15-17; Amos 1:6-8; Zeph 2:4-7.⚜
14:32 The Assyrians were not able to conquer Jerusalem.⚜