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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).