For Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The foreigner will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of Jacob. The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in Yahweh’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
It will happen in the day that Yahweh will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve, that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!” Yahweh has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers, who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song. Yes, the cypress trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of Lebanon, saying, “Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us.” Sheol from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the departed spirits for you, even all the rulers of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. They all will answer and ask you, “Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?” Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you.
How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north! I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!” Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit. Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities, who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”
All the kings of the nations, sleep in glory, everyone in his own house. But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain, who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot. You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The offspring of evildoers will not be named forever.
Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities. “I will rise up against them,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son,” says Yahweh. “I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” says Yahweh of Armies.
Yahweh of Armies has sworn, saying, “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders. This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations. For Yahweh of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”
This burden was in the year that king Ahaz died.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 25, 28 Meaning, that the Gentiles shalt be joined with the…
Meaning, that the Gentiles shalt be joined with the Church, and worship God.
He showeth why God will haste to destroy his enemies, to wit, because he will deliver his Church.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–28 Isa 14:1 For the LORD will have mercy on…
Isa 14:1 For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
Ver. 1. For the Lord will have mercy upon Jacob.] And therefore destroy Babylon. {as Isa 13:1-22} Such is his love to his Church that for her sake, and in revenge of her wrongs, he will fall foul upon her enemies. Si in Hierosolymis fiat scrutinium, quanto magis in Babylon. {a}
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And the strangers shall be joined with them.] Proselyted, especially when made partakers of the grace of the gospel.
{a} Bernard.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 The Lord will have mercy on Jacob; God will…
The Lord will have mercy on Jacob; God will pity and deliver his people; and therefore will destroy Babylon, which hinders it, and set up Cyrus, who shall promote it.
will yet choose Israel; will renew his choice of them; for he had refused and rejected them.
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The stranger shall be joined with them: so they did in part at their coming from Babylon, being thereunto moved either by the favour which the Jews had in the Persian court, or by the consideration of their wonderful deliverance, and that exactly in the time designed by their holy prophets. But what was then begun was more fully accomplished at the coming of the Messiah.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 4, 24 This comes in here as the reason why Babylon…
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, 1. The injuries done to them must be reckoned for and revenged upon their persecutors. Mercy to Jacob will be wrath and ruin to Jacob's impenitent implacable adversaries, such as Babylon was. 2. The yoke of oppression which Babylon had long laid on their necks must be broken off, and they must be set at liberty; and, in order to this, the destruction of Babylon is as necessary as the destruction of Egypt and Pharaoh was to their deliverance out of that house of bondage. The same prediction is a promise to God's people and a threatening to their enemies, as the same providence has a bright side towards Israel and a black or dark side towards the Egyptians. Observe,
I. The ground of these favours to Jacob and Israel - the kindness God had for them and the choice he had made of them (Isa 14:1): "The Lord will have mercy on Jacob, the seed of Jacob now captives in Babylon; he will make it to appear that he has compassion on them and has mercy in store for them, and that he will not contend for ever with them, but will yet choose them, will yet again return to them; though he has seemed for a time to refuse and reject them, he will show that they are his chosen people and that the election stands sure." However it may seem to us, God's mercy is not gone, nor does his promise fail, Psa 77:8.
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II. The particular favours he designed them. 1. He would bring them back to their native soil and air again: The Lord will set them in their own land, out of which they were driven. A settlement in the holy land, the land of promise, is a fruit of God's mercy, distinguishing mercy. 2. Many should be proselyted to their holy religion, and should return with them, induced to do so by the manifest tokens of God's favourable presence with them, the operations of God's grace in them, the operations of God's grace in them, and his providence for them: Strangers shall be joined with them, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard that God is with you, Zac 8:23. It adds much to the honour and strength of Israel when strangers are joined with them and there are added to the church many from without, Act 2:47. Let not the church's children be shy of strangers, but receive those whom God receives, and own those who cleave to the house of Jacob. 3. These proselytes should not only be a credit to their cause, but very helpful and serviceable to them in their return home: The people among whom they live shall take them, take care of them, take pity on them, and shall bring them to their place - as friends, loth to part with such good company - as servants, willing to do them all the good offices they could. God's people, wherever their lot is cast, should endeavour thus, by all the instances of an exemplary and winning conversation, to gain an interest in the affections of those about them, and recommend religion to their good opinion. This was fulfilled in the return of the captives from Babylon, when all that were about them, pursuant to Cyrus's proclamation, contributed to their removal (Ezr 1:4, Ezr 1:6), not as the Egyptians, because they were sick of them, but because they loved them. 4. They should have the benefit of their service when they had returned home, for many would of choice go with them in the meanest post, rather than not go with them: They shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids; and as the laws of that land saved it from being the purgatory of servants, providing that they should not be oppressed, so the advantages of that land made it the paradise of those servants that had been strangers to the covenants of promise, for there was one law to the stranger and to those that were born in the land. Those whose lot is cast in the land of the Lord, a land of light, should take care that their servants and handmaids may share in the benefit of it, who will then find it better to be possessed in the Lord's land than possessors in any other. 5. They should triumph over their enemies, and those that would not be reconciled to them should be reduced and humbled by them: They shall take those captives whose captives they were and shall rule over their oppressors, righteously, but not revengefully. The Jews perhaps bought Babylonian prisoners out of the hands of the Medes and Persians and made slaves of them. Or this might have its accomplishment in their victories over their enemies in the times of the Maccabees. It is applicable to the success of the gospel (when those were brought into obedience to it who had made the greatest opposition to it, as Paul) and to the interest believers have in Christ's victories over their spiritual enemies, when he led captivity captive, to the power they gain over their own corruptions, and to the dominion the upright shall have in the morning, Psa 49:14. 6. They should see a happy termination of all their grievances (Isa 14:3): The Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and thy fear, and from thy hard bondage. God himself undertakes to work a blessed change, (1.) In their state. They shall have rest from their bondage; the days of their affliction, though many, shall have an end; and the rod of the wicked, though it lie long, shall not always lie on their lot. (2.) In their spirit. They shall have rest from their sorrow and fear, sense of their present burdens and dread of worse. Sometimes fear puts the soul into a ferment as much as sorrow does, and those must needs feel themselves very easy to whom God has given rest from both. Those who are freed from the bondage of sin have a foundation laid for true rest from sorrow and fear.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–28 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, will…
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, will yet choose Israel,.... While the Jews were in captivity, the Lord seemed to have no pity for them, or compassion on them, and it looked as if he had rejected them, and wholly cast them off; but by delivering them from thence, he showed that he had a merciful regard unto them, and made it to appear that they were his chosen people, and beloved by him: and this is a reason why Babylon should be destroyed, and her destruction be no longer deferred, because the Lord's heart of compassion yearned towards his own people, so that his mercy to them brought ruin upon others: a choice of persons to everlasting salvation, though it is not made in time, but before the foundation of the world, yet is made to appear by the effectual calling, which therefore is sometimes expressed by choosing, Co1 1:26 and is the fruit and effect of sovereign grace and mercy, and may be intended here; the words may be rendered, "and will yet choose in Israel" (t), some from among them; that is, have mercy on them, and call them by his grace, and so show them to be a remnant, according to the election of grace; and such a chosen remnant there was among them in the times of Christ, and his apostles, by which it appeared that the Lord had not cast off the people whom he foreknew:
and set them in their own land: or "cause them to rest upon their own land" (u); for the word not only denotes settlement and continuance, but rest, which they had not in Babylon; but now should have, when brought into their own land; and no doubt but reference is had to the original character of the land of Canaan, as a land of rest; and hither shall the Jews be brought again, and be settled when mystical Babylon is destroyed:
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and the stranger shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob; by which is meant, that proselytes should be made to the Jewish religion, who should be admitted into their church state, as well as into their commonwealth, and should abide faithful to the profession they made; which doubtless was fulfilled in part at the time of the Jews' return from the Babylonish captivity, when many, who had embraced their religion, cleaved to them, and would not leave them, but went along with them into their land, that they might join with them in religious worship there; but had a greater accomplishment in Gospel times, when Gentiles were incorporated into the same Gospel church state with the believing Jews, and became fellow heirs, and of the same body, and partakers of the same promises and privileges; and so Kimchi and Ben Melech apply this to the times of the Messiah; and Jarchi to time to come, when Israel should be redeemed with a perfect redemption: because from the word translated "cleave" is derived another, which signifies a scab; hence the Jews (w) have a saying,
"proselytes are grievous to Israel as a scab.''
(t) "et eliget adhuc in Israele", Pagninus, Montanus. (u) "et requiescere eos faciet", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus. (w) T. Bab. Yebamot, fol. 47. 2. & Kiddushin, fol. 70. 2.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 Israel shall be delivered from the Babylonish captivity, their…
Israel shall be delivered from the Babylonish captivity, their triumph over Babylon, ver. 1-13. God's purpose against Assyria, ver. 14-27. Palestina threatened, ver. 28-32.
Chuse - Will renew his choice of them; for he had rejected them.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 9, 11, 12, 13, 19, 20, 23, 25, 28 Deliverance of Israel from captivity, which shall follow the
CHAPTER XIV
Deliverance of Israel from captivity, which shall follow the
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downfall of the great Babylonish empire, 1, 2.
Triumphant ode or song of the children of Jacob, for the signal
manifestation of Divine vengeance against their oppressors,
3-23.
Prophecy against the Assyrians, 24, 25.
Certainty of the prophecy, and immutability of the Divine
counsels, 26, 27.
Palestine severely threatened, 28-31.
God shall establish Zion in these troublous times, 32.
NOTES ON CHAP. XIV
Verse 1. And will yet choose Israel.] That is, will still regard Israel as his chosen people; however he may seem to desert them, by giving them up to their enemies, and scattering them among the nations. Judah is sometimes called Israel; see Eze 13:16; Mal 1:1; Mal 2:11: but the name of Jacob and of Israel, used apparently with design in this place, each of which names includes the twelve tribes, and the other circumstances mentioned in this and the next verse, which did not in any complete sense accompany the return from the captivity of Babylon, seem to intimate that this whole prophecy extends its views beyond that event.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 6, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 28 Isa 14:1. For the Lord will have mercy on…
Isa 14:1. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob — Will pity and deliver his people; and therefore will destroy Babylon. which hinders their deliverance, and will raise up and exalt Cyrus, who shall promote it; and he will not prolong the time, but do these things speedily, as the prophet had just affirmed. For he is continuing his discourse concerning Babylon, and assigning the reason, not only of its fall, but of the speedy approach of that fall, as predicted in the last clause of the preceding chapter. It was not to be delayed, because the deliverance of the church of God depended upon it. And will yet choose Israel — Will renew his choice of them, for he had appeared to reject and cast them off: or he will still regard them as his chosen people, however he may seem to desert them by giving them up to their enemies, and scattering them among the nations. Israel is put for Judah, as it frequently is. Israel being the name which God gave to Jacob, as a mark of his favour, it is chiefly made use of by the prophets when they deliver some gracious promise, or announce some blessing from the mouth of God, especially such a one as concerns the twelve tribes, all equally descended from Jacob, as this prophecy, in its ultimate sense, undoubtedly does. And the strangers shall be joined to them — It is probable that many strangers were made proselytes to the Jewish religion during their captivity, who were willing to go along with them into Judea, there to enjoy the free exercise of their religion. And others, who had not been proselytes before, might be induced to become such, and unite themselves to them, either through the favour shown to the Jews in the Persian court, or by consideration of their wonderful deliverance taking place exactly at the time foretold by the prophets. But what was then begun was more fully accomplished at the coming of the Messiah.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–28 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob -…
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob - That is, he will pity the captive Jews in Babylon. He will not abandon them, but will remember them, and restore them to their own land.
And will yet choose Israel - Will show that he regards them as still his chosen people; or will again “choose” them by recovering them from their bondage, and by restoring them to their country as his people. The names ‘Jacob’ and ‘Israel’ here simply denote the Jews. They do not imply that all of those who were to be carried captive would return, but that as a people they would be restored.
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And set them ... - Hebrew, ‘Will cause them to rest in their own country;’ that is, will give them peace, quietness, and security there.
And the stranger shall be joined to them - The ‘stranger,’ here, probably refers to those foreigners who would become proselytes to their religion, while they were in Babylon. Those proselytes would be firmly united with them, and would return with them to their own land. Their captivity would be attended with this advantage, that many even of those who led them away, would be brought to embrace their religion, and to return with them to their own country. If it is asked what “evidence” there is that any considerable number of the people of Chaldea became Jewish proselytes, I answer, that it is expressly stated in Est 8:17 : ‘And many of the people of the land became Jews, for the fear of the Jews fell upon them. Ezra, indeed, has not mentioned the fact, that many of the people of Babylonia became proselytes to the religion of the Jews, but it is in accordance with all that we know of their history, and their influence on the nations with which, from time to time, they were connected, that many should have been thus joined to them. We know that in subsequent times many of other nations became proselytes, and that multitudes of the Egyptians, the Macedonians, the Romans, and the inhabitants of Asia Minor, embraced the Jewish religion, or became what were called ‘proselytes of the gate.’ They were circumcised, and were regarded as entitled to a part of the privileges of the Jewish people (see Act 2:9-11; compare Act 17:4, Act 17:17). Tacitus, speaking of his time, says, that every abandoned man, despising the religion of his country, bears tribute and revenue to Jerusalem, whence it happens that the number of the Jews is greatly increased.’ - (“Hist.” v. 5.) That the Jews, therefore, who were in Babylon should induce many of the Chaldeans during their long captivity to become proselytes, is in accordance with all their history.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 28 Prolonged. Babylon was taken one hundred and seventy-two years…
Prolonged. Babylon was taken one hundred and seventy-two years after. (Calmet) --- Yet this time is counted short, compared with the monarchy, which had lasted a thousand years. (Worthington) --- Ground. Cyrus restored the Jews; yet all did not return at that time. --- Stranger. Converts, Esther viii. 17. All Idumea received circumcision under Hyrcan.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 24, 28 1 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob,
2. THE DELIVERANCE OF ISRAEL
Isa_14:1-2
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1 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob,
And will yet choose Israel,
And set them in their own land:
And the strangers shall be joined with them,
And they shall cleave to the house of Jacob.
2 And 1the people shall take them, and bring them to their place:
And the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord
For servants and handmaids:
And 2they shall take them captives, 3whose captives they were;
And they shall rule over their oppressors.
GRAMMATICAL AND CRITICAL
Isa_14:1. הִנִּיחַ. comp. Isa_28:2; Isa_46:7. נלוה as to sense and construction like Isa_56:3; Isa_56:6, where alone the word occurs again in this sense.—Niph. נספח only here. Comp. Hithp. 1Sa_26:19 and on Isa_37:30.
Isa_14:2. Hithp. התנחל in Isa. only here.—The accusative depends on the transitive notion that is latent in the reflexive form. Comp. Num_33:54 and often. The expression אדמת י׳ occurs only here. But comp. Isa_14:25; Joe_1:6; 4:2; Jer_2:7, etc.—שׁבים. Comp. 1Ki_8:46-50.—רָדָה in Isa. only here, Isa_14:6; Isa_41:2 (Hiph.).—נֹגְשִׂים. Comp. Isa_3:12; Isa_9:3; Isa_60:17.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The reason for the destruction of Babylon described in Isa_13:14-22 is here indicated by the Prophet to be the intention of Jehovah to have mercy again on His people, and bring them back into their land. That shall take place by the glad consent and even active co-operation of the heathen nations. These will join themselves to Israel—in fact lead Israel into their own land (Isa_14:1). Israel will then have them for servants and maids, and will hold those in prison who before devoted them to such a fate (Isa_14:2).
2. For the Lord—their oppressors.
Isa_14:1-2. Though Israel’s deliverance is not the sole motive of the Lord in destroying Babylon, it is yet a chief motive. Isaiah in the second part, and Jeremiah in the denunciations of judgments (Jeremiah 50, 51) that connect so closely with the present and the later prophecies of Isaiah on this subject, frequently declare that Babylon’s fall is to be Israel’s deliverance (e.g., Jer_50:4 sqq., Jer_50:8 sqq., Jer_50:28; Jer_51:6, Jer_50:36 sqq., Jer_50:45 sqq.). The adhesion of strangers, who would be witnesses of the mighty deeds of Jehovah in judging and delivering, is a trait that the second return from bondage will have in common with the first (Exo_12:19; Exo_12:38; Num_11:4, etc.). And the people shall take them, etc.—It is more exactly explained that this adhesion of strangers will not be to seek protection, but to form an honorable and serviceable attendance as friends and admirers. This is a thought that often recurs in the second part of Isa_44:5; Isa_49:22 sq.; Isa_55:5; Isa_60:4-9 sq., This notion that strangers should amicably attend Israel and then be enslaved for it occasions offence. But the heathen will only display this friendliness constrained thereto by the mighty deeds of Jehovah. And even if the Old Testament knows of a conversion of the heathen to Jehovah (Hos_2:23; Isa_65:1; comp. Rom_9:24 sqq.; Isa_10:18 sqq.)—yet, from the Old Testament view-point, there remains ever such a chasm between Israel and even the converted heathen that for the latter no other position was conceivable than that of those strangers who went along to Canaan out of Egypt or the desert, or of the Canaanites that remained (1Ki_9:20 sq). This is a consequence of that fleshly consciousness of nobility of which Israel was full. Only by Christ could that chasm be bridged over, in whom there is neither circumcision nor uncircumcision (Gal_5:6; Gal_3:28; Rom_10:12). [“The simple meaning of this promise seems to be that the church or chosen people and the other nations should change places, the oppressed becoming the oppressor, and the slave the master. This of course admits both an external and internal fulfilment. In a lower sense and on a smaller scale it was accomplished in the restoration of the Jews from exile; but its full accomplishment is yet to come, not with respect to the Jews as a people, for their pre-eminence has ceased forever, but with respect to the church, including Jews and Gentiles, which has succeeded to the rights and privileges, promises and actual possessions of God’s ancient people. The true principle of exposition is adopted even by the Rabbins. Jarchi refers the promise to the future, to the period of complete redemption. Kimchi more explicitly declares that its fulfilment is to be sought partly in the restoration from Babylon, and partly in the days of the Messiah.” J. A. Alex.in loc.]
Footnotes:
[1]Or, nations.
[2]Or, they shall be captors of their captors.
[3]Heb. that had taken them captives.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–28 the people--of Babylon, primarily. Of the whole Gentile world…
the people--of Babylon, primarily. Of the whole Gentile world ultimately (Isa 49:22; Isa 66:20; Isa 60:9).
their place--Judea (Ezr 1:1-6).
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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).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 24, 26, 28 1. For — The word is a sign of…
1. For — The word is a sign of a continued drift of thought from the foregoing chapter.
The Lord will have mercy — In accordance with a perpetual covenant. It was a mercy to punish with captivity. The discipline was needed.
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On Jacob — Jacob and Israel are terms collective of the spiritual people — Jews purified through their afflictions in Babylon. Such carried the seeds of their religion with them, which grew to fruit-age. Thus the Lord has mercy on them and re-chooses them.
Strangers shall be joined with them — Proselytes in Babylon to the true religion. In like manner, from Est_8:17, we learn that “many of the people of the land became Jews,” as the effect of evidences that God had mercy on them and chose them. Many probably accompanied them back to their land.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 28 1. The immediate result of the judgment on Babylon…
1. The immediate result of the judgment on Babylon will be the emancipation of Israel from captivity.
will yet choose Israel] Rather, will again choose, as formerly in Egypt (cf. Zec_2:12).
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the strangers] the sojourner, or protected guest; here used, as in later Hebrew, with the sense of “proselyte”: ch. Isa_56:3-7; Zec_2:11; Zec_8:21-23.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1–28 (1) For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob…
XIV.
(1) For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob . . .—The words imply a prevision of the return of the Israelites from exile, and therefore of the exile itself. The downfall of Babylon was certain, because without it the mercy of the Lord to Israel could not be manifested. The whole section is an anticipation of the great argument of Isaiah 40-66, and the question of its authorship stands or falls on the same grounds.
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The strangers shall be joined with them . . .—The thought is one specially characteristic of the later prophecies of Isaiah (Isa_44:5; Isa_55:5; Isa_56:3-6), but is prominent in the earlier also (Isa_2:2). In later Hebrew the same words came to be applied to the proselytes who are conspicuous in the apostolic age (Act_2:10; Act_6:5), and in them, as before in the adhesion and support of the Persian kings and satraps, and as afterwards in the admission of the Gentiles into the kingdom of the Christ, we may trace successive fulfilments of the prophet’s words.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 Vers. 1-23. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL, AND HER SONG…
Vers. 1-23. THE RESTORATION OF ISRAEL, AND HER SONG OF TRIUMPH OVER BABYLON. The destruction of Babylon is to be followed by the restoration of Israel, with the good will of the nations, and by their exercising rule over their late oppressors (vers. 1, 2). In this time of rest and refreshment they will sing a song of triumph over Babylon. The song extends from ver. 4 to ver. 23. It consists of five stanzas, or strophes, each comprising seven long lines, after which there is a brief epode, or epilogue, of a different character. This epode is comprised in vers. 22 and 23.
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob. God"s purpose of mercy upon Israel requires, as its preliminary, the destruction of Babylon, and may be considered as the final cause of that destruction. His desire to have mercy on Israel soon is the reason why the days of Babylon are not prolonged. (see Isa_13:22) Will yet choose Israel. The Captivity was a rejection of Israel from their position as a favored race God"s peculiar people; their restoration was a fresh "choice" of them out of all the nations of the world, a free act of grace on his part; to which they had no claim or right whatsoever. And set them in their own land; or, on their own ground . The land that once was theirs, but which they had forfeited by their disobedience, could only become "their own" again by a fresh gift from God. The strangers shall be joined with them; rather, the stranger shall join himself to them. On the return from the Captivity, there would be an influx of proselytes from the nations, who would voluntarily join themselves to those whom they saw favored both by God and man. (comp. Est_8:17) Though the Jews did not commonly seek proselytes, they readily received such as offered themselves. A further fulfillment of the prophecy took place when the Gentiles flocked into the Church of God after the coming of Christ.
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HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-23. Song of redeemed Israel
I THE OCCASION OF THE SONG. (Vers. 1-3.) The immediate purpose of that awful convulsion of the nations described in the preceding chapter was judgment; but beyond this lies the purpose of mercy. The inspired song of Israel is ever of "mercy and judgment." One loving purpose works, whether through the hiding of the cloud and the storm, or in the manifest brightness of the calm summer day. Whether he makes himself known to us amidst terror and trembling, or in peace and tranquilly flowing hours, "God"s in his heaven, all"s right with the world." After the storm comes the still small voice, heard in the sanctuary, echoed in the heart, "Fear not; I am with thee." Jehovah will give his people rest in their land from the cruel sufferings of slavery. The heathen will look on, astonished at the deliverance of Israel, and wilt be convinced that there is a truth in the religion of Israel superior to that of their own. They will escort the people of Jehovah to the sacred place, and there become attached to their service as dependents. To the prophetic conscience it seems that this is but in accordance with the law of compensation. It seems preposterous, nothing less than an invasion of the true order of things, for a community which holds the purest principles to be enslaved to one whose power is built on falsehood. The conscience of the prophet teaches him that as God is right, so there must be a rectification of the world"s wrong. The present first must become the last, and the last first, and the world must be turned upside down, that Israel may obtain and retain her destined lead among the nations. This is a leading ideal of prophecy, and we find it reappearing in the days of Christ. We may, indeed, without straining a point, say that such predictions, born of the profoundest religious convictions, have been fulfilled in the course of our religion. It will hardly be denied that the great spiritual principles summed up in the phrase, "the kingdom of God upon earth" have grown upon the world, have obtained a larger and more commanding recognition with every great change among the nations. Israel, Greece, broke up as nations only to resign their deposit of truth to a larger stewardship; and Rome"s work was fulfilled when she became the vehicle of Christianity to the wide Western world. The forms of Divine fulfillment seen by the prophets in their forecast may not have been always the truest forms, limited as they were by conditions of space and time. The substance and spirit of their message was of eternal truth.
II THE CONTENTS OF THE SONG. (Vers. 4-8,)
1. The picture of rest from tyranny. The Babylonian oppressor shall be quelled; his lordly pride and wrath shall cease. For the staff of authority wielded by impious hands shall be broken, the tyrant"s scepter dashed from his hand. His part will be reversed; having incessantly smitten the people in his cruel rage, and trodden them beneath Ills feet in the exercise of arbitrary and unchecked power, he will himself be powerless, as all injustice must be, disjoined from physical force. See the critical notes for the discussion of the meaning of the words, and the strong images of violence, inspired by tyrannic caprice and cruelty, which they call up in the imagination. "The oppressor"s scorn, the proud man"s contumely," are enumerated by our great poets among those conditions which tempt men to doubt the worth of existence. Take away the freedom of religious life, the placid enjoyment of old customs of family and social life, from a people, and you extract from them the relish for life. liberty, fair liberty alone, That gives the fleeting flower of life its sweetness and perfume.
There is no deeper passion, nor one more just, than the hatred of tyranny, m the human breast. If we look at the question from the point of view of the tyrant himself, his lot is odious. Xenophon represents Hiero of Syracuse lamenting to the poet Simonides his unhappiness. He must surround himself with guards whom he cannot trust. Intimate friendship, such as blesses the meanest of his subjects, must be to him denied. He cannot close the sleepless eye of suspicion. Amiable ha may be and sympathetic by nature, yet his heart may not expand in the chilling atmosphere which surrounds him. The cruel necessities of power may even render the lot of the oppressor less enviable than that of the oppressed. The heart of the people in every hind and age cries out against tyranny as an abuse of the moral order, a violence done to the nature of things. And the true prophet, ever feeling in unison with that heart, translating its dim yearnings into articulate oracles, denounces and predicts the downfall of tyranny as inevitable, if the kingdom of Jehovah on earth is a reality. "There remaineth a rest for the people of God." "The empire is peace." These words, once uttered vainly by a potentate in our time, and soon sternly refuted by the roar of artillery from around the walls of his fair city and from a score of battle-fields throughout his pleasant land, contain the policy of the kingdom of the Messiah. Selfishness, ambition, tyranny of individual wills, these are the most constant causes of restlessness and war. When "all man"s good" shall be "each man"s rule," such evils will be impossible; the "unsuffering kingdom" of the Messiah will come, and the meek will inherit the earth.
2. The sympathy of nature with man. How exquisite is the poetic feeling for nature in the next verses (7, 8)! Like all the imagery of Hebrew poesy, they are full of simplicity, sublimity, pathos. "Now resteth, now is quiet all the earth; songs of jubilation break forth. The cypresses rejoice on thy account, the cedars of Lebanon. Since thou liest low (they say) none will come up to lay the axe against us." The Chaldean used the wood of these trees, of great durability, for his buildings, his besieging apparatus, his ships. A small remnant, heirs of those magnificent trees on Lebanon of the prophet"s time, still stands on the spot. They seem, in their robust and beautiful forms, the very type of human life in the ideal freedom and independence of its growth. There is a strong poetic feeling for the tree in the Hebrew psalmists and prophets. The just man is like the tree planted by the flowing stream, or like the palm flourishing in the desert, the image of outward suffering and deprivation. We all yearn for the sight of the trees. We cannot see their leaves fall in autumn without something of a pang. We hail the returning blush on the beech woods of our own land in the springtime, and the dimly deepening green of the hedgerows. A silent sense of sympathy steals to our heart, as if sickness, old age, and death were illusions, life the only reality. The dimpling reflections of the sunlight on the leaves are as smiles, and as a whisper from the spiritual world the rustle or" the wind among them. We can understand how in olden time men felt the trees to be oracular, and believed, or half believed them to be tenanted by supernatural beings. A landscape without a tree, like a sea without a sail, is a sight we cannot long endure without pain. Such feelings have undoubtedly a religious meaning and value. As we listen to them and cultivate them, the faith grows stronger that a Divine love and sympathy is stirring at the very heart of things. It is an ill thing if we permit on every occasion our cold scientific conscience to chide us out of such a mood. In the present exalted mood of the prophet, the trees seem not merely to offer a silent sympathy, but to find tongue and to break forth into articulate triumph. Still more boldly, in Isa_4:1-2, they are conceived as clapping their hands in joy. Here the cypresses and cedars, appropriated by the patriotic eagerness of the prophet, as it were, exult in deliverance from the axe of the alien feller, as he exults in the breaking of the alien scepter.
III LESSON ON THE SYMPATHY OF MIND WITH NATURE. Let us not be tempted to idle words in speaking of that high faculty of poetic fancy exercised upon the objects and scenes of nature, and illustrated in this passage. A great spiritual poet of our age Wordsworth has taught us religiously to cherish it. We accept the teaching, but not in its exaggerated forms. It has been asserted as a principle of primary and universal import, that "it has pleased God to educate mankind from the beginning through impressions derived from the phenomena of the natural world." A sounder theology and a juster theory of the imagination teaches otherwise. The home, the school, the Church, the state, society, these are the scenes of our spirit"s training in religion and in morals, for time and for eternity. We cast upon the forms of the external world reflections of sentiments and truths we could not divine from that world. We know the physical cosmos through the moral cosmos, not vice versa. As to poets of the highest order, all have been at home in the grandeurs of the spiritual world, not all have been affected by the forms of nature. This has been especially remarked of Dante. This observation is fixed almost exclusively upon the Divine and human world. And, indeed, it must be admitted that the noblest objects of contemplation are God and man himself. "The universe and all its fair and glorious forms is indeed included in the wide empire of imagination; but she has placed her home and her sanctuary amidst the inexhaustible varieties and impenetrable mysteries of the human mind.... Is it not the fact that external objects never strongly excite our feelings but when they are contemplated with reference to man, as illustrating his destiny or as influencing his character?" (Macaulay). We can find in Nature only what we take to her. The key to her mystical meanings is to be found in the awakened conscience, the heart made pure. Petrarch, unlike Dante, loved the face of nature. But on one occasion, in the midst of a glow of delight in a glorious prospect, he remembered that he had a volume of St. Augustine in his pocket. Opening the book at random, he read these words: "Men go to admire the lofty mountains, the mighty sea-billows, the broad courses of the rivers, the circuit of the ocean, the orbit of the stars; and they neglect themselves." He closed the book and reproached himself. Even the heathen philosophers might have taught him a deeper truth. Doubtless. Socrates said that "trees did not teach him anything, but man." Let us adapt the saying to religious feeling. The trees will yield no oracles but those which have been first heard in the inmost conscience. And if there are times when they seem to whisper of gladness, or to smile and clap their hands for joy, it is because God has already opened a fountain of perennial trust and hope within the soul. Then "fruitful trees and all cedars" will praise the Lord, when the heart is filled with praise. "The outward face of nature is a religious communication to those who come to it with the religious element already in them, but no man can get a religion out of the beauty of nature. Those who have first made the knowledge of themselves and their own souls their care, its glory has ever turned to light and hope. They have read in nature an augury and a presage; they have found in it a language and a revelation" (Moztey). J.
HOMILIES BY W. CLARKSON Vers. 1-3. The reign of sin and the rest of God.
Taking the period of exile as a picture of the condition of the human soul when it is in a foreign land, under the sway of the enemy, apart and afar from its true heritage, and regarding the return and the "rest" (ver. 3) in their own laud as a picture of the soul"s condition when it has been brought back to God and has re-entered on his service, we have here some valuable suggestions.
I OUR SPIRITUAL CONDITION UNDER THE REIGN OF SIN.
1. It is one in which we may look for sorrow, and sorrow unrelieved by those alleviations in which godliness finds its solace (ver. 3). Sin and sorrow go hand-in-hand, or, if not thus conjoined, the latter follows surely and steadily on the steps of the former. The grosser transgressions bring the sterner miseries, but all departure from God and from rectitude leads down to trouble, to dissatisfaction, to sadness of spirit.
2. It is one in which anxiety is always appropriate. "Thy fear" (ver. 3). For it is a condition in which the Divine Disposer of everything is unreconciled to us, is decidedly and seriously displeased with us, is warning us of an evil doom; in which we have no right to reckon on the continuance of his kindness for another hour, and in which the termination of our earthly course places us before a judgment-bar at which we are not prepared to stand.
1. It is one of spiritual bondage. "Thy hard bondage" (ver. 3). How truly sin is a slavery we see when we regard it in its more flagrant forms. We see the drunkard, the opium-eater, the liar, so enslaved by their respective vices, that, try how they may to free themselves, they are held down as by
2. an unseverable chain. The children of folly are its pitiable victims, held in a "hard bondage" from which they strive to escape, and often strive in vain. All sin, that of omission as well as commission, is enslaving. The withholding from God that which he claims leads the soul down into a confirmed habit of neglect, of indifference, of procrastination, which holds it fast in its evil toils.
3. It is one of exile. They who are living in sin are living in a country which, emphatically, is not" their own land" (ver. 1). They were created to live with God, consciously near to him, rejoicing in him, engaged perpetually in his service; under the sway of sin, human souls are living afar off; in a foreign country, in a "strange land". (Psa_137:4)
II THE REST WHICH GOD GIVES US HERE.
1. He sets his heart on us to deliver us. He "has mercy on us; he chooses us" (ver. 1). He looks upon each one of us with distinguishing interest, affection, yearning. He "earnestly remembers" us, that he may save us.
2. He leads us back to himself. By different ways he leads us home, and "sets us in our own land." He so acts upon our souls, in his grace and in his providence, that we are led to penitence and faith, and thus find ourselves back in his favorer and his service.
3. The condition to which God restores us is one of spiritual rest.
(1) We rest from sorrow in the possession of inward peace and abiding joy.
(2) We rest from fear in the enjoyment of well-grounded trust, and a hope which will never make ashamed.
(3) We rest from bondage in the heritage of a spiritual freedom. (Joh_8:21 Gal_5:1, Gal_5:13)
4. The rest which we have from him is consistent with a large measure of holy usefulness. The children of Israel were to take back with them to their own land these "strangers," who were thenceforth to be their servants instead of their oppressors (vers. 1, 2). So are the children of God, by patient, strenuous activity, to win their adversaries to the faith and love of Christ; to make them possessors of the privileges of the kingdom of God even with themselves, and to secure their active help in the conquests they have still to make. C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK Ver. 1. God"s mercy may delay, it does not fail.
The captivity in Babylon seems to be in the thought of the prophet, and it would be a long and weary time, during which the people, even the faithful among the people, might think God had "forgotten to be gracious," or "delayed his coming;" so assurances are given that, however it may please God to tarry, holding back the fulfillment of his promises, they are always "yea and amen," and at the last it wilt be found that "not one word hath failed of all that the Lord hath spoken." The historical connection of the passage is that the fall of Babylon, to which previous reference has been made, was to be designed, overruled, by Jehovah for the fulfillment of his promise and the restoration of his people. God is said to "yet choose Israel," because permitting them to go into captivity was an appearance of having temporarily cast them off. In illustration of the topic suggested by the passage, we note
I MERCY CAN PROMISE. Judgment is always blended with mercy. Mercy must get in its gracious and comforting word. Judgment without mercy is only crushing. Mercy holds before us the hope that enables us to endure the judgment, and learn the lessons of it. Show what the Captivity would have been to Israel without the promises, and the hope of return when the judgment had wrought its work.
II MERCY CAN HOLD BACK FULFILMENT OF PROMISE. Illustrated in the forty years of wandering in the desert: an unexpected holding back, necessitated by the willfulness and murmuring of the people. Or by David, promised the kingdom, but required to wait for it, even after the death of Saul.
III MERCY CAN KEEP FIRM TO CONDITIONS OF PROMISE. This is the real reason of the delay. All promises are conditional; and it could be neither wisdom nor kindness on God"s part to show indifference to the conditions. Our not meeting conditions is the real reason for prolonged and renewed delays. God never really tarries. His deliverances and benedictions always come at the first possible moment. This may be shown in relation to the Captivity; and the promised Messiah only appeared "when the fullness of time was come.
IV MERCY CANNOT BE SATISFIED WITHOUT FULFILLING, PROMISES AT LAST. We are to think of God"s mercy as a most active attribute. It is watching for its opportunity; determined not to be frustrated; working to secure its ends; and, sooner or later, accomplishing its gracious purpose. Mercy will be finally triumphant. R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 9, 24 For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob
Isa_14:1
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob
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Gods mercy and Israels converts
I.
THE PRINCIPLE OF GODS MORAL GOVERNMENT--Mercy. This people had grievously sinned.
1. They had sinned against light. The direct revelation of heaven had been given to them as a nation
2. They rebelled amid privileges. The Mighty God interfered to protect them from their foes.
3. They had sinned in spite of rebukes and punishments. The rebellious people had been carried captive into a heathen nation.
II. THE CONSTANCY OF DIVINE PURPOSES--I will yet choose, etc. Notwithstanding all their rebellion I will yet have mercy on them. Nothing can separate from the love of God.
III. THE RESTORATIVE BLESSEDNESS OF RELIGION. When God takes a man in hand, He restores him. In paradise he was the image and associate of God. Salvation will make him nothing more. Heaven will contain additional elements of joy, but the man will be restored.
IV. THE CONTAGION OF ENTHUSIASM. When the Jews should return, many of the heathen, leaving their own country and their idols, would return along with them. And the strangers shall be joined with them. This was part of Gods design in the Captivity. It was not only to punish His people for their sin, but also to render them a blessing to others. God often appoints the afflictions of His people for His own glory, and we must not mourn but rejoice if we are counted worthy of forwarding His cause.
V. THE ATTRACTIVENESS OF RELIGION. It commands affection and regard. It is our duty to render it attractive so as to win others. (Homilist.)
Gods passion to Israel
We have here in nuce the comforting substance of chaps. 40-46. Babylon falls in order that Israel may rise. (F. Delitzsch, D. D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v24
CHAPTER XVII
ISAIAH TO THE FOREIGN NATIONS
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736-702 B.C.
Isa_14:24-32; Isaiah 15-21, 23
THE centre of the Book of Isaiah (chapters 13 to 23) is occupied by a number of long and short prophecies which are a fertile source of perplexity to the conscientious reader of the Bible. With the exhilaration of one who traverses plain roads and beholds vast prospects, he has passed through the opening chapters of the book as far as the end of the twelfth; and he may look forward to enjoying a similar experience when he reaches those other clear stretches of vision from the twenty-fourth to the twenty-seventh and from the thirtieth to the thirty-second. But here he loses himself among a series of prophecies obscure in themselves and without obvious relation to one another. The subjects of them are the nations, tribes, and cities with which in Isaiahs day, by war or treaty or common fear in face of the Assyrian conquest, Judah was being brought into contact. There are none of the familiar names of the land and tribes of Israel which meet the reader in other obscure prophecies and lighten their darkness with the face of a friend. The names and allusions are foreign, some of them the names of tribes long since extinct, and of places which it is no more possible to identify. It is a very jungle of prophecy, in which, without much Gospel or geographical light, we have to grope our way, thankful for an occasional gleam of the picturesque-a sandstorm in the desert, the forsaken ruins of Babylon haunted by wild beasts, a view of Egypts canals or Phoenicias harbours, a glimpse of an Arab raid or of a grave Ethiopian embassy.
But in order to understand the Book of Isaiah, in order to understand Isaiah himself in some of the largest of his activities and hopes; we must traverse this thicket. It would be tedious and unprofitable to search every corner of it. We propose, therefore, to give a list of the various oracles, with their dates and titles, for the guidance of Bible-readers, then to take three representative texts and gather the meaning of all the oracles round them.
First, however, two of the prophecies must be put aside. The twenty-second chapter does not refer to a foreign State, but to Jerusalem itself; and the large prophecy which opens the series (chapters 13-14:23) deals with the overthrow of Babylon in circumstances that did not arise till long after Isaiahs time, and so falls to be considered by us along with similar prophecies at the close of this volume. (See Book V)
All the rest of these chapters-14-21 and 23-refer to Isaiahs own day. They were delivered by the prophet at various times throughout his career; but the most of them evidently date from immediately after the year 705, when, on the death of Sargon, there was a general rebellion of the Assyrian vassals.
1. Isa_14:24-27-OATH OF JEHOVAH that the Assyrian shall be broken. Probable date, towards 701.
2. Isa_14:28-32-ORACLE FOR PHILISTIA. Warning toPhilistia not to rejoice because one Assyrian king is dead, for a worse one shall arise: "Out of the serpents root shall come forth a basilisk. Philistia shall be melted away, but Zion shall stand." The inscription to this oracle (Isa_14:28) is not genuine. The oracle plainly speaks of the death and accession of Assyrian, not Judaean, kings. It may be ascribed to 705, the date of the death of Sargon and accession of Sennacherib. But some hold that it refers to the previous change on the Assyrian throne-the death of Salmanassar and the accession of Sargon.
3 Isaiah 15-Isaiah 16:12-ORACLE FOR MOAB. A long prophecy against Moab. This oracle, whether originally by himself at an earlier period of his life, or more probably by an older prophet, Isaiah adopts and ratifies, and intimates its immediate fulfilment, in Isa_16:13-14 : "This is the word which Jehovah spake concerning Moab long ago. But now Jehovah hath spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, and the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt with all the great multitude, and the remnant shall be very small and of no account." The dates both of the original publication of this prophecy and of its reissue with the appendix are quite uncertain. The latter may fall about 711, when Moab was threatened by Sargon for complicity in the Ashdod conspiracy or in 704, when, with other states, Moab came under the cloud of Sennacheribs invasion. The main prophecy is remarkable for its vivid picture of the disaster that has overtaken Moab and for the sympathy with her which the Jewish prophet expresses; for the mention of a "remnant" of Moab; for the exhortation to her to send tribute in her adversity "to the mount of the daughter of Zion"; {Isa_16:1} for an appeal to Zion to shelter the outcasts of Moab and to take up her cause: "Bring counsel, make a decision, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts, bewray not the wanderer;" for a statement of the Messiah similar to those in chapters 9 and 11; and for the offer to the oppressed Moabites of the security of Judah in Messianic times (Isa_16:4-5). But there is one great obstacle to this prospect of Moab lying down in the shadow of Judah-Moabs arrogance. "We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud," {Isa_16:6, cf. Jer_48:29; Jer_48:42; Zep_2:10} which pride shall not only keep this country in ruin, but prevent the Moabites prevailing in prayer at their own sanctuary (Isa_16:12)-a very remarkable admission about the worship of another god than Jehovah.
4. Isa_17:1-11 -ORACLE FOR DAMASCUS. One of the earliest and most crisp of Isaiahs prophecies. Of the time of Syrias and Ephraims league against Judah, somewhere between 736 and 732.
5. Isa_17:12-14 -UNTITLED. The crash of the peoples upon Jerusalem and their dispersion. This magnificent piece of sound, which we analyse below, is usually understood of Sennacheribs rush upon Jerusalem. Isa_17:14 is an accurate summary of the sudden break-up and "retreat from Moscow" of his army. The Assyrian hosts are described as "nations," as they are elsewhere more than once by Isaiah. {Isa_22:6; Isa_29:7} But in all this there is no final reason for referring the oracle to Sennacheribs invasion, and it may just as well be interpreted of Isaiahs confidence of the defeat of Syria and Ephraim (734-723). Its proximity to the oracle against Damascus would then be very natural, and it would stand as a parallel prophecy to Isa_8:9 : "Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of the distances of the earth: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces"-a prophecy which we know belongs to the period of the Syro-Ephraimitic league.
6. Isaiah 18 -UNTITLED. An address to Ethiopia, "land of a rustling of wings, land of many sails, whose messengers dart to and fro upon the rivers in their skiffs of reed." The prophet tells Ethiopia, cast into excitement by the news of the Assyrian advance, how Jehovah is resting quietly till the Assyrian be ripe for destruction. When the Ethiopians shall see His sudden miracle they shall send their tribute to Jehovah, "to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, Mount Zion." It is difficult to know to which southward march of Assyria to ascribe this prophecy-Sargons or Sennacheribs? For at the time of both of these an Ethiopian ruled Egypt.
7. Isaiah 19 -ORACLE FOR EGYPT. The first fifteen verses (Isa_19:1-15) describe judgment as ready to fall on the land of the Pharaohs. The last ten speak of the religious results to Egypt of that judgment, and they form the most universal and "missionary" of all Isaiahs prophecies. Although doubts have been expressed of the Isaiah authorship of the second half of this chapter on the score of its universalism, as well as of its literary style, which is judged to be "a pale reflection" of Isaiahs own, there is no final reason for declining the credit of it to Isaiah, while there are insuperable difficulties against relegating it to the late date which is sometimes demanded for it. On the date and authenticity of this prophecy, which are of great importance for the question of Isaiahs "missionary" opinions, see Cheynes introduction to the chapter and Robertson Smiths notes in "The Prophets of Israel" (p. 433). The latter puts it in 703, during Sennacheribs advance upon the south. The former suggests that the second half may have been written by the prophet much later than the first, and justly says, "We can hardly imagine a more swan-like end for the dying prophet."
8. Isaiah 20 -UNTITLED. Also upon Egypt, but in narrative and of an earlier date than at least the latter half of chapter 19. Tells how Isaiah walked naked and barefoot in the streets of Jerusalem for a sign against Egypt and against the help Judah hoped to get from her in the years 711-709, when the Tartan, or Assyrian commander-in-chief, came south to subdue Ashdod.
9. Isa_21:1-10 -ORACLE FOR THE WILDERNESS OF THESEA, announcing but lamenting the fall of Babylon. Probably 709.
10. Isa_21:11-12 -ORACLE FOR DUMAH. Dumah, or Silence - Psa_94:17; Psa_115:17, "the land of the silence of death," the grave - is probably used as an anagram for Edom and an enigmatic sign to the wise Edomites, in their own fashion, of the kind of silence their land is lying under-the silence of rapid decay. The prophet hears this silence at last broken by a cry. Edom cannot bear the darkness any more. "Unto me one is calling from Seir, Watchman, how much off the night? how much off the night? Said the watchman, Cometh the morning, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire, come back again." What other answer is possible for a land on which the silence of decay seems to have settled down? He may, however, give them an answer later on, if they will come back. Date uncertain, perhaps between 704 and 701.
11. 21:13-17 -ORACLE FOR ARABIA. From Edom the prophet passes to their neighbours the Dedanites, travelling merchants. And as he saw night upon Edom, so, by a play upon words, he speaks of evening upon Arabia: "in the forest, in Arabia," or with the same consonants, "in the evening." In the time of the insecurity of the Assyrian invasion the travelling merchants have to go aside from their great trading roads "in the evening to lodge in the thickets." There they entertain fugitives, or (for the sense is not quite clear) are themselves as fugitives entertained. It is a picture of the "grievousness of war," which was now upon the world, flowing down even those distant, desert roads. But things have not yet reached the worst. The fugitives are but the heralds of armies, that "within a year" shall waste the "children of Kedar," for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it. So did the prophet of little Jerusalem take possession of even the far deserts in the name of his nations God.
12. Isaiah 23 -ORACLE FOR TYRE. Elegy over its fall, probably as Sennacherib came south upon it in 703 or 702. To be further considered by us.
These, then, are Isaiahs oracles for the Nations, who tremble, intrigue, and go down before the might of Assyria.
We have promised to gather the circumstances and meaning of these prophecies round three representative texts. These are-
1. "Ah! the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of mighty waters they rush; nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He rebuketh it, and it fleeth afar off, and is chased like the chaff on the mountains before the wind and like whirling dust before the whirlwind." {Isa_17:12-13}
2. "What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find refuge the afflicted of His people." {Isa_14:32}
3. "In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be My people Egypt, and the work of My hands Assyria, and Mine inheritance Israel". {Isa_19:24-25}
I.
The first of these texts shows all the prophets prospect filled with storm, the second of them the solitary rock and lighthouse in the midst of the storm: Zion, His own watchtower and His peoples refuge; while the third of them, looking far into the future, tells us, as it were, of the firm continent which shall rise out of the waters-Israel no longer a solitary lighthouse, "but in that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth." These three texts give us a summary of the meaning of all Isaiahs obscure prophecies to the foreign nations-a stormy ocean, a solitary rock in the midst of it, and the new continent that shall rise out of the waters about the rock.
The restlessness of Western Asia beneath the Assyrian rule (from 719, when Sargons victory at Rafia extended that rule to the borders of Egypt) found vent, as we saw, in two great Explosions, for both of which the mine was laid by Egyptian intrigue. The first Explosion happened in 711, and was confined to Ashdod. The second took place on Sargons death in 705, and was universal. Till Sennacherib marched south on Palestine in 701, there were all over Western Asia hurryings to and fro, consultations and intrigues, embassies and engineerings from Babylon to Meroe in far Ethiopia, and from the tents of Kedar to the cities of the Philistines. For these Jerusalem, the one inviolate capital from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt, was the natural centre. And the one far-seeing, steady-hearted man in Jerusalem was Isaiah. We have already seen that there was enough within the city to occupy Isaiahs attention, especially from 705 onward; but for Isaiah the walls of Jerusalem, dear as they were and thronged with duty, neither limited his sympathies nor marked the scope of the gospel he had to preach. Jerusalem is simply his watchtower. His field-and this is the peculiar glory of the prophets later life-his field is the world.
How well fitted Jerusalem then was to be the worlds watchtower, the traveller may see to this day. The city lies upon the great central ridge of Palestine, at an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. If you ascend the hill behind the city, you stand upon one of the great view-points of the earth. It is a forepost of Asia. To the east rise the red hills of Moab and the uplands of Gilead and Bashan, on to which wandering tribes of the Arabian deserts beyond still push their foremost camps. Just beyond the horizon lie the immemorial paths from Northern Syria into Arabia. Within a few hours walk along the same central ridge, and still within the territory of Judah, you may see to the north, over a wilderness of blue hills, Hermons snowy crest; you know that Damascus is lying just beyond, and that through it and round the base of Hermon swings one of the longest of the old worlds highways-the main caravan road from the Euphrates to the Nile. Stand at gaze for a little, while down that road there sweep into your mind thoughts of the great empire whose troops and commerce it used to carry. Then, bearing these thoughts with you, follow the line of the road across the hills to the western coastland, and so out upon the great Egyptian desert, where you may wait till it has brought you imagination of the southern empire to which it travels. Then, lifting your eyes a little further, let them sweep back again from south to north, and you have the whole of the west, the new world, open to you, across the fringe of yellow haze that marks the sands of the Mediterranean. It is even now one of the most comprehensive prospects in the world. But in Isaiahs day, when the world was smaller, the high places of Judah either revealed or suggested the whole of it.
But Isaiah was more than a spectator of this vast theatre. He was an actor upon it. The court of Judah, of which during Hezekiahs reign he was the most prominent member, stood in more or less close connection with the courts of all the kingdoms of Western Asia; and in those days, when the nations were busy with intrigue against their common enemy, this little highland town and fortress became a gathering place of peoples. From Babylon, from far-off Ethiopia, from Edom, from Philistia, and no doubt from many other places also, embassies came to King Hezekiah, or to inquire of his prophet. The appearance of some of them lives for us still in Isaiahs descriptions: "tall and shiny" figures of Ethiopians {Isa_18:2}, with whom we are able to identify the lithe, silky-skinned, shining-black bodies of the present tribes of the Upper Nile. Now the prophet must have talked much with these strangers, for he displays a knowledge of their several countries and ways of life that is full and accurate. The agricultural conditions of Egypt; her social ranks and her industries (chapter 19); the harbours and markets of Tyre (chapter 23); the caravans of the Arab nomads, as in times of war they shun the open desert and seek the thickets {Isa_21:14} -Isaiah paints these for us with a vivid realism. We see how this statesman of the least of States, this prophet of a religion which was confessed over only a few square miles, was aware of the wide world, and how he loved the life that filled it. They are no mere geographical terms with which Isaiah thickly studs these prophecies. He looks out upon and paints for us, lands and cities surging with men-their trades, their castes, their religions, their besetting tempers and sins, their social structures and national policies, all quick and bending to the breeze and the shadow of the coming storm from the north.
We have said that in nothing is the legal power of our prophets style so manifest as in the vast horizons, which, by the use of a few words, he calls up before us. Some of the finest of these revelations are made in this part of his book, so obscure and unknown to most. Who can ever forget those descriptions-of Ethiopia in the eighteenth chapter?-"Ah! the land of the rustling of wings, which borders on the rivers of Cush, which sendeth heralds on the sea, and in vessels of reed on the face of the waters! Travel, fleet messengers, to a people lithe and shining, to a nation feared from ever it began to be, a people strong, strong and trampling, whose land the rivers divide"; or of Tyre in chapter 23?-"And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations." What expanses of sea! what fleets of ships! what floating loads of grain! what concourse of merchants moving on stately wharves beneath high warehouses!
Yet these are only segments of horizons, and perhaps the prophet reaches the height of his power of expression in the first of the three texts, which we have given as representative of his prophecies on foreign nations. Here three or four lines of marvellous sound repeat the effect of the rage of the restless world as it rises, storms, and breaks upon the steadfast will of God. The phonetics of the passage are wonderful. The general impression is that of a stormy ocean booming in to the shore and then crashing itself out into one long hiss of spray and foam upon its barriers. The details are noteworthy. In Isa_17:12 we have thirteen heavy M-sounds, besides two heavy Bs, to five Ns, five Hs, and four sibilants. But in Isa_17:13 the sibilants predominate; and before the sharp rebuke of the Lord the great, booming sound of Isa_17:12 scatters out into a long yish-sha oon. The occasional use of a prolonged vowel amid so many hurrying consonants produces exactly the effect now of the lift of a storm swell out at sea and now of the pause of a great wave before it crashes on the shore. "Ah, the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of the mighty waters they rush: nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He checketh it"-a short, sharp word with a choke and a snort in it-"and it fleeth far away, and is chased like chaff on mountains before wind, and like swirling dust before a whirlwind."
So did the rage of the world sound to Isaiah as it crashed into pieces upon the steadfast providence of God. To those who can feel the force of such language nothing need be added upon the prophets view of the politics of the outside world these twenty years, whether portions of it threatened Judah in their own strength, or the whole power of storm that was in it rose with the Assyrian, as in all his flood he rushed upon Zion in the year 701.
II.
But amid this storm Zion stands immovable. It is upon Zion that the storm crashes itself into impotence. This becomes explicit in the second of our representative texts: "What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find a refuge the afflicted of His people". {Isa_14:32} This oracle was drawn from Isaiah by an embassy of the Philistines. Stricken with panic at the Assyrian advance, they had sent messengers to Jerusalem, as other tribes did, with questions and proposals of defences, escapes, and alliances. They got their answer, Alliances are useless. Everything human is going down. Here, here alone, is safety, because the Lord hath decreed it.
With what light and peace do Isaiahs words break out across that unquiet, hungry sea! How they tell the world for the first time, and have been telling it ever since, that, apart from all the struggle and strife of history, there is a refuge and security of men, which God Himself has assured. The troubled surface of life, nations heaving uneasily, kings of Assyria and their armies carrying the world before them-these are not all. The world and her powers are not all. Religion, in the very teeth of life, builds her a refuge for the afflicted.
The world seems wholly divided between force and fear. Isaiah says, It is not true. Faith has her abiding citadel in the midst, a house of God, which neither force can harm nor fear enter.
This then was Isaiahs Interim-Answer to the Nations-Zion at least is secure for the people of Jehovah.
III.
Isaiah could not remain content, however, with so narrow an interim-answer: Zion at least is secure, whatever happens to the rest of you. The world was there, and had to be dealt with and accounted for-had even to be saved. As we have already seen, this was the problem of Isaiahs generation; and to have shirked it would have meant the failure of his faith to rank as universal.
Isaiah did not shirk it. He said boldly to his people, and to the nations: "The faith we have covers this vaster life. Jehovah is not only God of Israel. He rules the world." These prophecies to the foreign nations are full of revelations of the sovereignty and providence of God. The Assyrian may seem to be growing in glory; but Jehovah is watching from the heavens, till he be ripe for cutting down. {Isa_18:4} Egypts statesmen may be perverse and wilful; but Jehovah of hosts swingeth His hand against the land: "they shall tremble and shudder". {Isa_19:16} Egypt shall obey His purposes (chapter 17). Confusion may reign for a time, but a signal and a centre shall be lifted up, and the world gather itself in order round the revealed will of God. The audacity of such a claim for his God becomes more striking when we remember that Isaiahs faith was not the faith of a majestic or a conquering people. When he made his claim, Judah was still tributary to Assyria, a petty highland principality, that could not hope to stand by material means against the forces which had thrown down her more powerful neighbours. It was. no experience of success, no mere instinct of being on the side of fate, which led Isaiah so resolutely to pronounce that not only should his people be secure, but that his God would vindicate His purposes upon empires like Egypt and Assyria. It was simply his sense that Jehovah was exalted in righteousness. Therefore, while inside Judah only the remnant that took the side of righteousness would be saved, outside Judah wherever there was unrighteousness, it would be rebuked, and wherever righteousness, it would be vindicated. This is the supremacy which Isaiah proclaimed for Jehovah over the whole world.
How spiritual this faith of Isaiah was, is seen from the next step the prophet took. Looking out on the troubled world, he did not merely assert that his God ruled it, but he emphatically said, what was a far more difficult thing to say, that it would all be consciously and willingly Gods. God rules this, not to restrain it only, but to make it His own. The knowledge of Him, which is today our privilege, shall be tomorrow the blessing of the whole world.
When we point to the Jewish desire, so often expressed in the Old Testament, of making the whole world subject to Jehovah, we are told that it is simply a proof of religious ambition and jealousy. We are told that this wish to convert the world no more stamps the Jewish religion as being a universal, and therefore presumably a Divine, religion than the Mohammedans zeal to force their tenets on men at the point of the sword is a proof of the truth of Islam.
Now we need not be concerned to defend the Jewish religion in its every particular, even as propounded by an Isaiah. It is an article of the Christian creed that Judaism was a minor and imperfect dispensation, where truth was only half revealed and virtue half developed. But at least let us do the Jewish religion justice; and we shall never do it justice till we pay attention to what its greatest prophets thought of the outside world, how they sympathised with this, and in what way they proposed to make it subject to their own faith.
Firstly then, there is something in the very manner of Isaiahs treatment of foreign nations, which causes the old charges of religious exclusiveness to sink in our throats. Isaiah treats these foreigners at least as men. Take his prophecies on Egypt or on Tyre or on Babylon-nations which were the hereditary enemies of his nation-and you find him speaking of their natural misfortunes, their social decays, their national follies and disasters, with the same pity and with the same purely moral considerations with which he has treated his own land. When news of those far-away sorrows comes to Jerusalem, it moves this large-hearted prophet to mourning and tears. He breathes out to distant lands elegies as beautiful as he has poured upon Jerusalem. He shows as intelligent an interest in their social evolutions as he does in those of the Jewish State. He gives a picture of the industry and politics of Egypt as careful as his pictures of the fashions and statecraft of Judah. In short, as you read his prophecies upon foreign nations, you perceive that before the eyes of this man humanity, broken and scattered in his days as it was, rose up one great whole, every part of which was subject to the same laws of righteousness, and deserved from the prophet of God the same love and pity. To some few tribes he says decisively that they shall certainly be wiped out, but even them he does not address in contempt or in hatred. The large empire of Egypt, the great commercial power of Tyre, he speaks of in language of respect and admiration; but that does not prevent him from putting the plain issue to them which he put to his own countrymen: If you are unrighteous, intemperate, impure-lying diplomats and dishonest rulers-you shall certainly perish before Assyria. If you are righteous, temperate, pure, if you do trust in truth and God, nothing can move you.
But, secondly, he, who thus treated all nations with the same strict measures of justice and the same fulness of pity with which he treated his own, was surely not far from extending to the world the religious privileges which he has so frequently identified with Jerusalem. In his old age, at least, Isaiah looked forward to the time when the particular religious opportunities of the Jew should be the inheritance of humanity. For their old oppressor Egypt, for their new enemy Assyria, he anticipates the same experience and education which have made Israel the firstborn of God. Speaking to Egypt, Isaiah concludes a missionary sermon, fit to take its place beside that which Paul uttered on the Areopagus to the younger Greek civilisation, with the words, "In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands and Israel Mine inheritance."
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv3, 9, 11, 20 Isa_14:3-4. And it shall come to pass in the…
THE JOY OF SALVATION
Isa_14:3-4. And it shall come to pass in the day, &c.
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In these verses is described the feeling of relief and joy of Israel in view of release from the Babylonish captivity. So profound will be their sense of God’s deliverance and favour, that they will look with contempt even upon the imperious and exacting Babylon, whose glory will be smitten, whose strength will be destroyed.
This is an experience known to men in their spiritual seekings and findings of God. Blessed is that “rest” which follows many a season of sorrow, and fear, and hard bondage wherein men are made to serve. Consider—
I. SOME JOYFUL DELIVERANCES, of which we may be said to have here a type. Every soul engaged in a true search after God can recall such experiences: first there was the “sorrow,” then the “joy;” first the “fear,” then the confidence; first the “bondage,” and then the rescue and the liberty. E.g.,
1. The time of spiritual conversion. That is often preceded by deep conviction, anguish, and gloom. Alarming are those awakenings whose first mission is to show us our guilt and danger. Then we feel the grievousness of the bondage of sin. It is a time of exile, want, servitude. What a glorious day is that in which the Lord gives us rest from our sorrow and fear, by removing from us the terrors of the law, and leading us into the liberty of the Gospel! This is the deliverance to which our Saviour calls us (Mat_11:28).
2. The light which comes after a period of great mental conflict and doubt respecting Divine things also illustrates our subject. Honest and reverent doubt, which intercepts a true seeker after God, is no sin. To creatures who have everything to learn, doubt is but a part of the process of learning; all original research, all independent inquiry, has more or less of it. But doubt may become a hard master, a ruthless tyrant; that which comes from mere prying curiosity, idle speculation, empty cavilling, is certain to do so; in this case doubt, instead of being a pathway, becomes a prison (H. E. I., 4867, 4868). But doubt in any case is a source of unhappiness; it should lead, not to scepticism (H. E. I., 4867, 4868; P. D., 910), but to prayer (P. D., 915, 916). Those whose prayers for deliverance from it have been answered, know how blessed is that day when the Lord gives them “rest.”
3. The period of victory which follows a season of severe temptation is another illustration. In most virtues weak, there are sides of our character specially exposed to assault. The sin which most easily besets us proves our oppressor, our tyrant (H. E. I., 4482–4484, 4497–4499). Recall the conflicts you have often had, how often sin has wellnigh proved fatal to you. What a gracious day was that when the Lord came to your help, and gave you rest from your enemy!
4. The heavenly life hereafter will be a still better realisation of the thought before us. To many of God’s people the general character of their earthly life is so mysterious, burdensome, and sad, that it all seems a bondage to them. To such, death will come as the day of the Lord to give them “rest” (H. E. I., 220, 1623–1628).
II. THE REAL INSIGNIFICANCE OF OUR FOES, which in the day of our deliverance will be made plain to us, and which should be apprehended by our faith even now (Isa_14:4).
1. Greater is He that is for us than all that can be against us, and therefore, if we be faithful, our victory is sure (1Jn_4:4; Rom_8:37; H. E. I., 934, 2368, 2791).
2. By Him even our very foes and oppressors shall be made to help us. In the case of Israel, their masters were to become their servants, their oppressors their subjects (Isa_14:2). It is so in the spiritual life: our very sorrows, fears, nay, our sins, may be made to serve great ends; a vanquished fear, a defeated sin, will leave us stronger to meet the next. Let us so live and strive, by the grace of God, that, having triumphed over every evil habit, every ignoble doubt, every besetting sin, we may be able to say at last, “How hath the oppressor ceased!”—William Manning.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 "The Lord hath founded Zion;" this is the guarantee…
Isa 14:32
"The Lord hath founded Zion;" this is the guarantee of His love and her stability. "The poor of her people shall trust in it"—or, as the margin has it, shall betake themselves unto it—this is one purpose of the Church’s mission upon earth,—the care, the teaching, the education, the guidance of the poor.
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I. The strongest, most fundamental title of protection is creation. Even among ourselves, no one frames an object to destroy it; he who makes, makes that he may preserve. And if this be so in human nature, shall there be nothing to compare with it in the Divine? God, indeed, who is eternal, can require no successor to whom to devise His purposes of love; but all the claims that the thing framed can have on Him who framed it, hold with tenfold force when the object is not, as in our humbler works, the mere apposition of preexisting materials, in which nothing is ours except the order of arrangement, but is itself, alike in matter and in form, the direct offspring of His own inexhaustible power and goodness. (1) Behold, then, how as His own "God loved the world;" how as not only His own, but His own in pain and anguish, and endeared to His inmost heart as such, God hath loved His Church. He spoke to bid the one, He died to make the other, exist. (2) In this Church of His is His own honour pledged. He hath not covenanted with the world that now is to immortalise it; but He has passed His own word for the perpetuity of His Church. Nothing so framed was ever framed to perish; He has infused into it His own Spirit, and His Spirit is life. (3) Is not the Church in its ultimate perfection set forth as the very reward of all the sorrows of its Lord? and shall He be defrauded of His recompense? (4) There is more than creation to bind the Church to Christ, more than promise, more than reward; there is communion, oneness, identification. A man may desert his child; he cannot desert himself. With such a union there can be no separation; if Christ be immortal, the Church is so; when He dies she shall perish, but not till then.
II. The text predicts that this Zion of God shall be the resort of His poor, and the object of their trust. The Church of Christ is one vast institute for the benefit of the poor. He who loved all, eminently loved them; and His Church has ever, even in her darkest days, retained much of the character He thus impressed.
W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, 2nd series, p. 227.
At first sight the prediction which closes the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah seems of temporary interest only, and to speak of judgments which within a very few years were destined to fall upon one of the most inveterate enemies of God’s ancient people; and yet I cannot but think those commentators right who, following the opinion of divers of the Fathers of the Church, have found in the passage an allusion to the Gospel and Church of Christ.
I. That the prophecy would be one of pressing and immediate interest to the contemporaries of the prophet is obvious from the manner in which it is ushered in: "In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden" (or, as we should nowadays say, this denunciation of wrath) against the Philistines. After bidding the inhabitants of Palestine howl for the judgments that were impending, Isaiah, speaking as he was moved by the Holy Ghost, makes the inquiry and gives the answer of the text. It was usual for neighbouring nations, who were friends and allies, to send ambassadors, and congratulate each other on success. When, therefore, the coming triumph over the Philistines should be known abroad, and the envoys of friendly states should inquire of Judah into the circumstances of his success, "Let this answer," said the prophet, "suffice: that the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of His people shall trust in it."
II. No one can read that promise and not feel that it was intended to have an ampler scope for its fulfilment than in the personal security of a handful of Jewish peasants; the whole turn of expression is redolent of Gospel times. Such words were never fully verified till Christ, the Son of David, had founded the Christian Church, and made His gracious offer to a world enslaved in the most cruel of all bondage: "Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."
F. E. Paget, Sermons for Special Occasions, p. 65.
References: Isa 14:10.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 178. Isa 16:1.—J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages from the Prophets, vol. i., pp. 35,46. Isa 17:10, Isa 17:11.—A. Maclaren, Old Testament Outlines, p. 179.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On vv1, 24, 28 1. Strangers] The thought of the voluntary adhesion of…
1. Strangers] The thought of the voluntary adhesion of strangers is prominent in the later chapters of the book (Isa_44:5; Isa_55:5; Isa_60:5).
2. People] RV 'peoples.' Similar anticipations are found in Isa_49:22; Isa_60:10; Isa_61:5 : these were in some measure fulfilled in the time of Ezra: Ezr_1:1-4; Ezr_6:7, Ezr_6:8.
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4. Proverb] RV 'parable' (Hab_2:6), or 'taunting-song.' The King] Nabonidus was king of Babylon from 555 till its fall 549 b.c. Golden city] rather, RM, 'exactress,' or 'raging one.'
7. The nations rejoice in the peace which follows the fall of their oppressor.
9. The spirit of the dead king of Babylon is greeted by the shades in Hades. The dead] lit. 'feeble ones'; the word is used in Heb. for disembodied spirits (Psa_88:10). It hath raised, etc.] In Hades the dead monarchs are conceived as retaining some shadow of their former greatness: cp. Eze_32:21. n. The grave] RV 'hell,' as in Eze_32:9 i.e. Hades.
12. The fall of the mighty king is compared, first, to the fall of the bright star of dawn from the sky, then, by a sudden change of figure, to the felling of a great tree. Lucifer] RV 'day-star.' Weaken] RV 'lay low.'
13. The arrogant self-deification here put into the mouth of the Babylonian king finds a parallel in some of the Assyrian inscriptions.
Mount, etc.] not Zion, as many ancient commentators explain, comparing Psa_48:2, but the mount in the far N. where the gods are imagined to reside—the Babylonian Olympus: cp. Eze_28:12-14. Sides] RV 'uttermost parts,' and so in Isa_14:15.
16. The scene now shifts to the battle-field, where men gaze upon the dishonoured corpse of the dead king.
18. Lie] RV 'sleep.' In his own house] i.e. in a tomb of his own.
19. An abominable branch] i.e. a blighted branch cut off from a tree and left to rot upon the ground. And as the raiment.. slain] RV 'clothed with the slain.' The king's corpse lies under heaps of the slain on the field of defeat. The stones of the pit] referring to stones flung together in a hastily-made grave on the battle-field.
20. Shalt not be joined, etc.] To be excluded from burial was the extremest disgrace for a king: Jer_22:19; 2Ch_21:20; 2Ch_24:25. with them] i.e. the honourably buried kings (Isa_14:18).
Shall.. renowined] RV 'shall not be named for ever'; a similar curse is pronounced on Jehoiachin (Jer_22:30). The taunt-song ends with this verse, and in Isa_14:21-23 the prophet speaks in his own person.
21. With cities] as emblems of their dominion.
22. Nephew] RV 'son's son.'
23. Pools of water] The works of irrigation connected with the Euphrates being destroyed the land would become a morass. This, in fact, happened after the conquest of Babylon by Cyrus.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv9, 11, 12, 15, 22, 26, 28 Heb. "Sheol," Also; 15 (See Scofield "Hab 2:5")
hell
Heb. "Sheol," Also; 15 (See Scofield "Hab 2:5")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Israel’s Restoration and Blessing After Babylon is Fallen and…
CHAPTER 14
Israel’s Restoration and Blessing After Babylon is Fallen and the Burden of Philistia
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1. Israel’s restoration and exaltation (Isa 14:1-2) 2. The proverb against the king of Babylon (Isa 14:3-11) 3. The triumph over Lucifer (Satan) (Isa 14:12-20) 4. Babylon’s destruction (Isa 14:21-23) 5. The Assyrian broken (Isa 14:24-27) 6. The burden of Philistia (Isa 14:28-32)When the last great Babylon is overthrown the Lord will remember His people and Jerusalem in mercy. He will then set His people in rest in their own land. The king of Babylon here in this chapter is not Nebuchadnezzar, nor his grandson Belshazzar, but the final great king of Babylon. It is the little horn of Dan 7:1-28, the great political head of the restored Roman Empire. Behind this final king of the times of the Gentiles looms up Satan, who energized that wicked and false king. The description of him who was “Lucifer,” the light-bearer, and his fall is of deep interest.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 23 The Deliverance of Israel
The Deliverance of Israel
v. 1. For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, it is His love for His spiritual people, for His Church, which caused Him to bring the judgment of destruction upon Babylon, and will yet choose Israel, in accordance with His divine plan of salvation, and set them in their own land, His Church being rightly called a peculiar people, 1Pe 2:9; and the strangers, people who are not members of Israel according to the flesh, shall be joined with them, in the great communion of saints, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob, to be reckoned members of God’s people.
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v. 2. And the people shall take them and bring them to their place, nations considering it a privilege to serve the believers; and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the Lord for servants and handmaids, the former enemies of the Lord being glad to serve Him in this manner; and they, the members of the spiritual Israel, the believers, shall take them captives whose captives they were, in returning good for evil in a most remarkable manner; and they shall rule over their oppressors, namely, with the rule of the Gospel-message.
v. 3. And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear and from the hard bondage wherein thou wast made to serve, for the spiritual afflictions were included with those of the body in the Babylonian captivity,
v. 4. that thou shalt take up this proverb, a song of triumph, against the king of Babylon and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! literally, "Ended is the driving despot, ended the exacting" (of gold), or "the oppression"; for the greatest burden which Babylon laid upon the people under her dominion was that of tribute.
v. 5. The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked and the scepter of the rulers, since it was used only for tyrannous oppression.
v. 6. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, namely, the scepter of the tyrant, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth, rather, "he subjugated in anger nations by hounding on without sparing," for such is the way of the enemies of God’s people at all times.
v. 7. The whole earth is at rest and is quiet, now that the enemy is overthrown, the peace of God’s kingdom being pictured; they break forth into singing, the believers praising the Lord for His deliverance.
v. 8. Yea, the fir-trees, or cypresses, rejoice at thee, at the tyrant’s misfortune, and the cedars of Lebanon, for their wood had been exported to the East for centuries, so that the great forests had practically disappeared, saying, Since thou art laid down, Babylon having fallen, no feller is come up against us, to strip the mountainsides of their forests. At the same time, however, while things have grown quiet on earth and the Church is enjoying peaceful growth, the realm of the dead and of the damned is in turmoil.
v. 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee, the place of eternal torment being stirred, to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, the specters or giants inhabiting hell, even all the chief ones, literally, "the leaders" or "great goats," of the earth, as many as are in the dominion of darkness; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All these dwellers in the realms of everlasting torment are pictured as astonished and excited at the prospect of seeing the king of Babylon enter their place of abode, their words of greeting now being given by the prophet.
v. 10. All they shall speak and say unto thee, not in contempt and mockery, but in honest astonishment, Art thou also become weak as we, void of all strength? Art thou become like unto us?
v. 11. Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, all Babylon’s earthly glory and majesty destroyed, and the noise of thy viols, the sound of the harps which accompanied his feasts of merrymaking on earth; the worm, the flesh-eating maggot, is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee, the most repulsive creatures, symbols of decay, taking the place of the precious Babylonian carpets, tapestries, and coverings to which the king had been accustomed here on earth.
v. 12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! literally, "O day-star, son of the dawn," the reference being to the high and influential position occupied by the Babylonian ruler. How art thou cut down to the ground, like a giant tree which has been felled, which didst weaken the nations, in conquering and subduing them.
v. 13. For thou hast said in thine heart, in the pride of Nebuchadnezzar, Dan 4:30, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, the residences of the spirits of God; I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the North, this being said according to the idea of the Babylonians, who placed the sacred mountain of the gods in the far North;
v. 14. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, considered the chariots and thrones of the ancient deities; I will be like the Most High, many of the emperors of old regarding themselves as the sons or the offspring of God and laying claim to divine honors. This pride is, in the final analysis, at the bottom of all enmity against Christ and His Church, for every one who opposes God, His Word and His work, thereby exalts himself above the majesty of Him who will not give His glory to another. The song of the specters in the realm of the damned is now merged into the prophecy of the Lord:
v. 15. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit, his reception in the place of everlasting destruction having just been pictured.
v. 16. They that see thee, after the great downfall which has been so graphically pictured, shall narrowly look upon thee and consider thee, musing upon the terrible fate which struck their former companion or acquaintance, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms, as the great Babylonian empire often did;
v. 17. that made the world as a wilderness and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? showing no pity in dismissing them to their homes. Because the king of Babylon was guilty on every count here brought forward, for that reason he himself was pitilessly dealt with and now lay there as a deserted carcass, his empire sharing his fate.
v. 18. All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house, their bodies, properly prepared for burial, lying in state in the tombs of their ancestors.
v. 19. But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, like a worthless twig or parasite, which hinders the growth of the tree, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit, for the garments of the fallen soldiers that were slashed to pieces and smeared with blood were not saved by their friends nor considered welcome plunder by their enemies, but were thrown into the pit with the carcasses; as a carcass trodden under feet, not even given the honor of a burial.
v. 20. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, his punishment reaching even beyond his death, because thou hast destroyed thy land and slain thy people, making it the instrument of his tyrannical lust of conquest; the seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned, his race becoming extinct as godless and cursed.
v. 21. Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers, to which they agreed and on whose account his dynasty shall be destroyed, that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities, thereby once more establishing their dominion and regaining their former power.
v. 22. For I will rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts, here speaking directly through the prophet, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, all the descendants that are left, and son, and nephew, saith the Lord.
v. 23. I will also make it, the site of Babylon, a possession for the bittern, or an animal something like the porcupine which inhabits the wastes of the Euphrates Valley, and pools of water, swamps resulting from the annual overflow of the river; and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, treating it like a heap of rubbish, saith the Lord of hosts. As noted at the end of chapter 13, this prophecy was literally fulfilled, as the accounts of Babylonian excavations show.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 26, 28 Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob
Yahweh will have compassion on Jacob
Here "Jacob" refers to the descendants of Jacob. AT: "Yahweh will have mercy on the descendants of Jacob" (See: Metonymy)
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attach themselves to the house of Jacob
The house of Jacob refers to the descendants of Jacob, the Israelites. AT: "unite with the descendants of Jacob" (See: Metonymy)
The nations will bring them to their own place
"The nations will bring the descendants of Jacob back to the land of Israel"
the house of Israel
This refers to the Israelites, the descendants of Israel. AT: "the descendants of Israel" (See: Metonymy)
They will take captive those who had captured them
"The Israelite soldiers will take as captives those who had captured Israelites"
translationWords
Yahweh
compassion
Jacob
Israel
restore
alien
house
nation
servant
oppress
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 26 14:1-2 This message for Israel separates two prophecies of…
14:1-2 This message for Israel separates two prophecies of judgment against Babylon (ch 13; 14:3-23).
14:1 The Hebrew word here translated mercy draws from the imagery of a woman’s maternal care for her child to illustrate God’s merciful love for his people (see also 49:15; 66:13). • God had initially chosen Israel as his special people when he called Abraham (see 41:8; Gen 12:1-3). Although their status did not change during the Exile, they faced God’s wrath like any other wicked nation because they had rejected him. • settle once again in their own land: This promise began to be fulfilled in 538 BC (see Ezra 1:1-11). • People from many different nations would join Israel as the people of God (see also Isa 2:3-4; 11:11-12; 19:18-25; 60:1-14).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.