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Matthew Henry’s Complete Commentary
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Matthew Henry |
I S A I A H.
CHAP. XIV.
In this chapter,
I. More weight is added to the burden of Babylon, enough to sink it
like a mill-stone;
I. It is Israel’s cause that is to be pleaded in this quarrel with
Babylon,
2. The king of Babylon, for the time being, shall be remarkably brought
down and triumphed over,
3. The whole race of the Babylonians shall be cut off and extirpated,
II. A confirmation of the prophecy of the destruction of Babylon,
which was a thing at a distance, is here given in the prophecy of the
destruction of the Assyrian army that invaded the land, which happened
not long after,
III. The success of Hezekiah against the Philistines is here foretold,
and the advantages which his people would gain thereby,
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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 the 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 they shall take them
captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over
their oppressors.
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,
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
(v. 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,
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,
Zech. viii. 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,
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
(Ezra i. 4, 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,
6. They should see a happy termination of all their grievances
(v. 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.
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4 That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of
Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city
ceased!
5 The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the
sceptre of the rulers.
6 He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he
that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none
hindereth.
7 The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth
into singing.
8 Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of
Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up
against us.
9 Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy
coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief
ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the
kings of the nations.
10 All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become
weak as we? art thou become like unto us?
11 Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of
thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover
thee.
12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst
weaken the nations!
13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into
heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit
also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the
north:
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be
like the most High.
15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the
pit.
16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and
consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to
tremble, that did shake kingdoms;
17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the
cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?
18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in
glory, every one in his own house.
19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable
branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust
through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a
carcase trodden under feet.
20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou
hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of
evildoers shall never be renowned.
21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their
fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill
the face of the world with cities.
22 For I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts,
and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and
nephew, saith the LORD.
23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools
of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction,
saith the LORD of hosts.
The kings of Babylon, successively, were the great enemies and
oppressors of God’s people, and therefore the destruction of Babylon,
the fall of the king, and the ruin of his family, are here particularly
taken notice of and triumphed in. In the day that God has given Israel
rest they shall take up this proverb against the king of
Babylon. We must not rejoice when our enemy falls, as ours; but
when Babylon, the common enemy of God and his Israel, sinks, then
rejoice over her, thou heaven, and you holy apostles and
prophets,
Rev. xviii. 20.
The Babylonian monarchy bade fair to be an absolute, universal, and
perpetual one, and, in these pretensions, vied with the Almighty; it is
therefore very justly, not only brought down, but insulted over when it
is down; and it is not only the last monarch, Belshazzar, who was
slain on that night that Babylon was taken
(Dan. v. 30),
who is here triumphed over, but the whole monarchy, which sunk in him;
not without special reference to Nebuchadnezzar, in whom that monarchy
was at its height. Now here,
I. The fall of the king of Babylon is rejoiced in; and a most curious
and elegant composition is here prepared, not to adorn his hearse or
monument, but to expose his memory and fix a lasting brand of infamy
upon it. It gives us an account of the life and death of this mighty
monarch, how he went down slain to the pit, though he had been
the terror of the mighty in the land of the living,
Ezek. xxxii. 27.
In this parable we may observe,
1. The prodigious height of wealth and power at which this monarch and
monarchy arrived. Babylon was a golden city,
v. 4
(it is a Chaldee word in the original, which intimates that she used to
call herself so), so much did she abound in riches and excel all other
cities, as gold does all other metals. She is gold-thirsty, or
an exactress of gold (so some read it); for how do men get wealth to
themselves but by squeezing it out of others? The New Jerusalem is the
only truly golden city,
The king of Babylon, having so much wealth in his dominions and the
absolute command of it, by the help of that ruled the nations
(v. 6),
gave them law, read them their doom, and at his pleasure weakened
the nations
(v. 12),
that they might not be able to make head against him. Such vast and
victorious armies did he bring into the field, that, which way soever
he looked, he made the earth to tremble, and shook kingdoms
(v. 16);
all his neighbours were afraid of him, and were forced to submit to
him. No one man could do this by his own personal strength, but by the
numbers he has at his beck. Great tyrants, by making some do what they
will, make others suffer what they will. How piteous is the case of
mankind, which thus seems to be in a combination against itself, and
its own rights and liberties, which could not be ruined but by its own
strength!
2. The wretched abuse of all this wealth and power, which the king of
Babylon was guilty of, in two instances:–
(1.) Great oppression and cruelty. He is known by the name of the
oppressor
(v. 4);
he has the sceptre of the rulers
(v. 5),
has the command of all the princes about him; but it is the staff of
the wicked, a staff with which he supports himself in his
wickedness and wickedly strikes all about him. He smote the
people, not in justice, for their correction and reformation, but
in wrath
(v. 6),
to gratify his own peevish resentments, and that with a continual
stroke, pursued them with his forces, and gave them no respite, no
breathing time, no cessation of arms. He ruled the nations, but he
ruled them in anger, every thing he said and did was in a
passion; so that he who had the government of all about him had no
government of himself. He made the world as a wilderness, as if
he had taken a pride in being the plague of his generation and a curse
to mankind,
Great princes usually glory in building cities, but he gloried in
destroying them; see
Two particular instances, worse than all the rest, are here given of
his tyranny:–
[1.] That he was severe to his captives
(v. 17):
He opened not the house of his prisoners; he did not let them
loose homeward (so the margin reads it); he kept them in close
confinement, and never would suffer any to return to their own land.
This refers especially to the people of the Jews, and it is that which
fills up the measure of the king of Babylon’s iniquity, that he had
detained the people of God in captivity and would by no means release
them; nay, and by profaning the vessels of God’s temple at Jerusalem,
did in effect say that they should never return to their former use,
For this he was quickly and justly turned out by one whose first act
was to open the house of God’s prisoners and send home the temple
vessels.
[2.] That he was oppressive to his own subjects
(v. 20):
Thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people; and what did
he get by that, when the wealth of the land and the multitude of the
people are the strength and honour of the prince, who never rules so
safely, so gloriously, as in the hearts and affections of the people?
But tyrants sacrifice their interests to their lusts and passions; and
God will reckon with them for their barbarous usage of those who are
under their power, whom they think they may use as they please.
(2.) Great pride and haughtiness. Notice is here taken of his
pomp, the extravagancy of his retinue,
He affected to appear in the utmost magnificence. But that was not the
worst: it was the temper of his mind, and the elevation of that, that
ripened him for ruin
(v. 13, 14):
Thou has said in thy heart, like Lucifer, I will ascend into
heaven. Here is the language of his vainglory, borrowed perhaps
from that of the angels who fell, who not content with their first
estate, the post assigned them, would vie with God, and become not only
independent of him, but equal with him. Or perhaps it refers to the
story of Nebuchadnezzar, who, when he would be more than a man, was
justly turned into a brute,
The king of Babylon here promises himself,
[1.] That in pomp and power he shall surpass all his neighbours, and
shall arrive at the very height of earthly glory and felicity, that he
shall be as great and happy as this world can make him; that is the
heaven of a carnal heart, and to that he hopes to ascend, and to be as
far above those about him as the heaven is above the earth. Princes are
the stars of God, which give some light to this dark world
but he will exalt his throne above them all.
[2.] That he shall particularly insult over God’s Mount Zion, which
Belshazzar, in his last drunken frolic, seems to have had a particular
spite against when he called for the vessels of the temple at
Jerusalem, to profane them; see
In the same humour he here said, I will sit upon the mount of the
congregation (it is the same word that is used for the holy
convocations), in the sides of the north; so Mount Zion is said
to be situated,
Perhaps Belshazzar was projecting an expedition to Jerusalem, to
triumph in the ruins of it, at the time when God cut him off.
[3.] That he shall vie with the God of Israel, of whom he had indeed
heard glorious things, that he had his residence above the heights
of the clouds. “But thither,” says he, “will I ascend, and
be as great as he; I will be like him whom they call the Most
High.” It is a gracious ambition to covet to be like the Most Holy,
for he has said, Be you holy, for I am holy; but it is a sinful
ambition to aim to be like the Most High, for he has said, He that
exalteth himself shall be abased, and the devil drew our first
parents in to eat forbidden fruit by promising them that they should be
as gods.
[4.] That he shall himself be deified after his death, as some of the
first founders of the Assyrian monarchy were, and stars had even their
names from them. “But,” says he, “I will exalt my throne above
them all.” Such as this was his pride, which was the undoubted omen
of his destruction.
3. The utter ruin that should be brought upon him. It is foretold,
(1.) That his wealth and power should be broken, and a final period put
to his pomp and pleasure. He has been long an oppressor, but he shall
cease to be so,
v. 4.
Had he ceased to be so by true repentance and reformation, according to
the advice Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar, it might have been a
lengthening of his life and tranquillity. But those that will not cease
to sin God will make to cease. “The golden city, which one would
have thought might continue for ever, has ceased; there is an
end of that Babylon. The Lord, the righteous God, has broken
the staff of that wicked prince, broken it over his head, in token
of the divesting him of his office. God has taken his power from him,
and rendered him incapable of doing any more mischief: he has broken
the sceptres; for even these are brittle things, soon broken and often
justly.”
(2.) That he himself should be seized: He is persecuted
(v. 6);
violent hands are laid upon him, and none hinders. It is the common
fate of tyrants, when they fall into the power of their enemies, to be
deserted by their flatterers, whom they took for their friends. We read
of another enemy like this, of whom it is foretold that he shall
come to his end and none shall help him,
Dan. xi. 45.
Tiberius and Nero thus saw themselves abandoned.
(3.) That he should be slain, and go down to the congregation of the
dead, to be free among them, as the slain that are no more
remembered,
Ps. lxxxviii. 5.
He shall be weak as the dead are, and like unto them,
v. 10.
His pomp is brought down to the grave
(v. 11),
that is, it perishes with him; the pomp of his life shall not, as
usual, end in a funeral pomp. True glory (that is, true grace) will go
up with the soul to heaven, but vain pomp will go down with the body to
the grave: there is an end of it. The noise of his viols is now
heard no more. Death is a farewell to the pleasures, as well as to the
pomps, of this world. This mighty prince, that used to lie on a bed of
down, to tread upon rich carpets, and to have coverings and canopies
exquisitely fine, now shall have the worms spread under him and the
worms covering him, worms bred out of his own putrefied body,
which, though he fancied himself a god, proved him to be made of the
same mould with other men. When we are pampering and decking our
bodies it is good to remember they will be worms’-meat shortly.
(4.) That he should not have the honour of a burial, much less of a
decent one and in the sepulchres of his ancestors. The kings of the
nations lie in glory
(v. 18),
either their dead bodies themselves so embalmed as to be preserved from
putrefaction, as of old among the Egyptians, or their effigies (as with
us) erected over their graves. Thus, as if they would defy the
ignominy of death, they lay in a poor faint sort of glory, every one
in his own house, that is, his own burying-place (for the grave is
the house appointed for all living), a sleeping house, where the busy
and troublesome will lie quiet and the troubled and weary lie at rest.
But this king of Babylon is cast out and has no grave
(v. 19);
his dead body is thrown, like that of a beast, into the next ditch or
upon the next dunghill, like an abominable branch of some
noxious poisonous plant, which nobody will touch, or as the clothes of
malefactors put to death and by the hand of justice thrust through
with a sword, on whose dead bodies heaps of stones are raised, or
they are thrown into some deep quarry among the stones of the
pit. Nay, the king of Babylon’s dead body shall be as the carcases
of those who are slain in a battle, which are trodden under feet
by the horses and soldiers and crushed to pieces. Thus he shall not
be joined with his ancestors in burial,
v. 20.
To be denied decent burial is a disgrace, which, if it be inflicted for
righteousness’ sake (as
may, as other similar reproaches, be rejoiced in
(Matt. v. 12);
it is the lot of the two witnesses,
But if, as here, it be the just punishment of iniquity, it is an
intimation that evil pursues impenitent sinners beyond death, greater
evil than that, and that they shall rise to everlasting shame and
contempt.
4. The many triumphs that should be in his fall.
(1.) Those whom he had been a great tyrant and terror to will be glad
that they are rid of him,
Now that he is gone the whole earth is at rest and is quiet, for
he was the great disturber of the peace; now they all break forth
into singing, for when the wicked perish there is shouting
(Prov. xi. 10);
the fir-trees and cedars of Lebanon now think themselves safe; there is
no danger now of their being cut down, to make way for his vast armies
or to furnish him with timber. The neighbouring princes and great men,
who are compared to fir-trees and cedars
(Zech. xi. 2),
may now be easy, and out of fear of being dispossessed of their rights,
for the hammer of the whole earth is cut asunder and broken
(Jer. l. 23),
the axe that boasted itself against him that hewed with it,
ch. x. 15.
(2.) The congregation of the dead will bid him welcome to them,
especially those whom he had barbarously hastened thither
(v. 9, 10):
“Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy
coming, and to compliment thee upon thy arrival at their dark and
dreadful regions.” The chief ones of the earth, who when they
were alive were kept in awe by him and durst not come near him, but
rose from their thrones, to resign them to him, shall upbraid him with
it when he comes into the state of the dead. They shall go forth to
meet him, as they used to do when he made his public entry into cities
he had become master of; with such a parade shall he be introduced into
those regions of horror, to make his disgrace and torment the more
grievous to him. They shall scoffingly rise from their thrones and
seats there, and ask him if he will please to sit down in them, as he
used to do in their thrones on earth? The confusion that will then
cover him they shall make a jest of: “Hast thou also become weak as
we? Who would have thought it? It is what thou thyself didst not
expect it would ever come to when thou wast in every thing too hard for
us. Thou that didst rank thyself among the immortal gods, art thou come
to take thy fate among us poor mortal men? Where is thy pomp now, and
where thy mirth? How hast thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer! son of
the morning!
v. 11, 12.
The king of Babylon shone as brightly as the morning star, and fancied
that wherever he came he brought day along with him; and has such an
illustrious prince as this fallen, such a star become a clod of clay?
Did ever any man fall from such a height of honour and power into such
an abyss of shame and misery?” This has been commonly alluded to (and
it is a mere allusion) to illustrate the fall of the angels, who were
as morning stars
but how have they fallen! How art thou cut down to the ground,
and levelled with it, that didst weaken the nations! God will
reckon with those that invade the rights and disturb the peace of
mankind, for he is King of nations as well as of saints. Now this
reception of the king of Babylon into the regions of the dead, which is
here described, surely is something more than a flight of fancy, and is
designed to teach these solid truths:–
[1.] That there is an invisible world, a world of spirits, to which the
souls of men remove at death and in which they exist and act in a state
of separation from the body.
[2.] That separate souls have acquaintance and converse with each
other, though we have none with them: the parable of the rich man and
Lazarus intimates this.
[3.] That death and hell will be death and hell indeed to those that
fall unsanctified from the height of this world’s pomps and the fulness
of its pleasures. Son, remember,
Luke xvi. 25.
(3.) Spectators will stand amazed at his fall. When he shall be
brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit, and be lodged
there, those that see him shall narrowly look upon him, and consider
him
(v. 15, 16);
they shall scarcely believe their own eyes. “Never was death so great a
change to any man as it is to him. Is it possible that a man, who a few
hours ago looked so great, so pleasant, and was so splendidly adorned
and attended, should now look so ghastly, so despicable, and lie thus
naked and neglected? Is this the man that made the earth to tremble
and shook kingdoms? Who could have thought he should ever come to
this?”
5. Here is an inference drawn from all this
(v. 20):
The seed of evil-doers shall never be renowned. The princes of
the Babylonian monarchy were all a seed of evil-doers, oppressors of
the people of God, and therefore they had this infamy entailed upon
them. They shall not be renowned for ever (so some read it);
they may look big for a time, but all their pomp will only render their
disgrace at last the more shameful. There is no credit in a sinful
way.
II. The utter ruin of the royal family is here foretold, together with
the desolation of The royal city.
1. The royal family is to be wholly extirpated. The Medes and Persians,
that are to be employed in this destroying work, are ordered, when they
have slain Belshazzar, to prepare slaughter for his children
(v. 21)
and not to spare them. The little ones of Babylon must be dashed
against the stones,
Ps. cxxxvii. 9.
These orders sound very harshly; but,
(1.) They must suffer for the iniquity of their fathers, which
is often visited upon the children, to show how much God hates
sin and is displeased at it, and to deter sinners from it, which is the
end of punishment. Nebuchadnezzar had slain Zedekiah’s sons
(Jer. lii. 10),
and, for that iniquity of his, his seed are paid in the same coin.
(2.) They must be cut off now, that they may not rise up to possess
the land and do as much mischief in their day as their fathers had
done in theirs–that they may not be as vexatious to the world by
building cities for the support of their tyranny (which was Nimrod’s
policy,
as their ancestors had been by destroying cities. Pharaoh oppressed
Israel in Egypt by setting them to build cities,
The providence of God consults the welfare of nations more than we are
aware of by cutting off some who, if they had lived, would have done
mischief. Justly may the enemies cut off the children: For I will
rise up against them, saith the Lord of hosts
(v. 22),
and if God reveal it as his mind that he will have it done, as none can
hinder it, so none need scruple to further it. Babylon perhaps was
proud of the numbers of her royal family, but God had determined to
cut off the name and remnant of it, so that none should be left,
to have both the sons and grandsons of the king slain; and yet we are
sure he never did, nor ever will do, any wrong to any of his
creatures.
2. The royal city is to be demolished and deserted,
It shall be a possession for solitary frightful birds, particularly
the bittern, joined with the cormorant and the owl,
And thus the utter destruction of the New-Testament Babylon is
illustrated,
It has become a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. Babylon
lay low, so that when it was deserted, and no care taken to drain the
land, it soon became pools of water, standing noisome puddles,
as unhealthful as they were unpleasant: and thus God will sweep it
with the besom of destruction. When a people have nothing among
them but dirt and filth, and will not be made clean with the besom of
reformation, what can they expect but to be swept off the face of the
earth with the besom of destruction?
| The Doom of the Assyrians; The Doom of the Philistines. | B. C. 726. |
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24 The LORD of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have
thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so
shall it stand:
25 That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my
mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from
off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders.
26 This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth:
and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the
nations.
27 For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul
it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it
back?
28 In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden.
29 Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him
that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent’s root shall
come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying
serpent.
30 And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy
shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine,
and he shall slay thy remnant.
31 Howl, O gate; cry, O city; thou, whole Palestina, art
dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none
shall be alone in his appointed times.
32 What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation?
That the LORD hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall
trust in it.
The destruction of Babylon and the Chaldean empire was a thing at a
great distance; the empire had not risen to any considerable height
when its fall was here foretold: it was almost 200 years from this
prediction of Babylon’s fall to the accomplishment of it. Now the
people to whom Isaiah prophesied might ask, “What is this to us, or
what shall we be the better for it, and what assurance shall we have of
it?” To both questions he answers in these verses, by a prediction of
the ruin both of the Assyrians and of the Philistines, the present
enemies that infested them, which they should shortly be eye-witnesses
of and have benefit by. These would be a present comfort to them, and a
pledge of future deliverance, for the confirming of the faith of their
posterity. God is to his people the same to day that he was yesterday
and will be hereafter; and he will for ever be the same that he has
been and is. Here is,
I. Assurance given of the destruction of the Assyrians
(v. 25):
I will break the Assyrian in my land. Sennacherib brought a very
formidable army into the land of Judah, but there God broke it, broke
all his regiments by the sword of a destroying angel. Note, Those who
wrongfully invade God’s land shall find that it is at their peril: and
those who with unhallowed feet trample upon his holy mountains shall
themselves there be trodden under foot. God undertakes to do this
himself, his people having no might against the great company that came
against them: “I will break the Assyrian; let me alone to do it
who have angels, hosts of angels, at command.” Now the breaking of the
power of the Assyrian would be the breaking of the yoke from off the
neck of God’s people: His burden shall depart from off their
shoulders, the burden of quartering that vast army and paying
contribution; therefore the Assyrian must be broken, that Judah
and Jerusalem may be eased. Let those that make themselves a yoke and a
burden to God’s people see what they are to expect. Now,
1. This prophecy is here ratified and confirmed by an oath
(v. 24):
The Lord of hosts hath sworn, that he might show the
immutability of his counsel, and that his people may have strong
consolation,
What is here said of this particular intention is true of all God’s
purposes: As I have thought, so shall it come to pass; for he
is in one mind, and who can turn him? Nor is he ever put upon new
counsels, or obliged to take new measures, as men often are when things
occur which they did not foresee. Let those who are the called
according to God’s purpose comfort themselves with this, that,
as God has purposed, so shall it stand, and on that their
stability depends.
2. The breaking of the Assyrian power is made a specimen of what God
would do with all the powers of the nations that were engaged against
him and his church
(v. 26):
This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth
(the whole world, so the LXX.), all the inhabitants of the
earth (so the Chaldee), not only upon the Assyrian empire (which
was then reckoned to be in a manner all the world, as afterwards the
Roman empire was,
and with it many nations fell that had dependence upon it), but upon
all those states and potentates that should at any time attack his
land, his mountains. The fate of the Assyrian shall be theirs; they
shall soon find that they meddle to their own hurt. Jerusalem, as it
was to the Assyrians, will be to all people a burdensome stone; all
that burden themselves with it shall infallibly be cut to pieces by
it,
Zech. xii. 3, 6.
The same hand of power and justice that is now to be stretched out
against the Assyrian for invading the people of God shall be
stretched out upon all the nations that do likewise. It is still
true, and will ever be so, Cursed is he that curses God’s
Israel,
Num. xxiv. 9.
God will be an enemy to his people’s enemies,
3. All the powers on earth are defied to change God’s counsel
(v. 27):
“The Lord of hosts has purposed to break the Assyrian’s yoke,
and every rod of the wicked laid upon the lot of the righteous; and
who shall disannul this purpose? Who can persuade him to recall it,
or find out a plea to evade it? His hand is stretched out to
execute this purpose; and who has power enough to turn it
back or to stay the course of his judgments?”
II. Assurance is likewise given of the destruction of the Philistines
and their power. This burden, this prophecy, that lay as a load upon
them, to sink their state, came in the year that king Ahaz died,
which was the first year of Hezekiah’s reign,
When a good king came in the room of a bad one then this acceptable
message was sent among them. When we reform, then, and not till then,
we may look for good news from heaven. Now here we have,
1. A rebuke to the Philistines for triumphing in the death of king
Uzziah. He had been as a serpent to them
(v. 29),
had bitten them, had smitten them, had brought them very low,
He warred against the Philistines, broke down their walls, and built
cities among them. But when Uzziah died, or rather abdicated, it
was told with joy in Gath and published in the streets of
Ashkelon. It is inhuman thus to rejoice in our neighbour’s fall.
But let them not be secure; for though when Uzziah was dead they made
reprisals upon Ahaz, and took many of the cities of Judah
yet out of the root of Uzziah should come a cockatrice, a
more formidable enemy than Uzziah was, even Hezekiah, the fruit of
whose government should be to them a fiery flying serpent, for
he should fall upon them with incredible swiftness and fury: we find he
did so.
He smote the Philistines even to Gaza. Note, If God remove one
useful instrument in the midst of his usefulness, he can, and will,
raise up others to carry on and complete the same work that they were
employed in and left unfinished.
2. A prophecy of the destruction of the Philistines by famine and war.
(1.) By famine,
“When the people of God, whom the Philistines has wasted, and
distressed, and impoverished, shall enjoy plenty again,” and the
first-born of their poor shall feed (the poorest among them shall
have food convenient), then, as for the Philistines, God will kill
their root with famine. That which was their strength, and with
which they thought themselves established as the tree is by the root,
shall be starved and dried up by degrees, as those die that die by
famine; and thus he shall slay the remnant: those that escape
from one destruction are but reserved for another; and, when there are
but a few left, those few shall at length be cut off, for God will make
a full end.
(2.) By war. When the needy of God’s people shall lie down in
safety, not terrified with the alarms of war, but delighting in the
songs of peace, then every gate and every city of the Philistines shall
be howling and crying
(v. 31),
and there shall be a total dissolution of their state; for from Judea,
which lay north of the Philistines, there shall come a smoke (a
vast army raising a great dust, a smoke that shall be the indication of
a devouring fire at hand), and none of all that army shall be
alone in his appointed times; none shall straggle or be missing
when they are to engage; but they shall all be vigorous and unanimous
in attacking the common enemy, when the time appointed for the doing of
it comes. None of them shall decline the public service, as, in
Deborah’s time, Reuben abode among the sheepfolds and Asher on the
sea-shore,
When God has work to do he will wonderfully endow and dispose men for
it.
III. The good use that should be made of all these events for the
encouragement of the people of God
(v. 32):
What shall one then answer the messengers of the nations?
1. This implies,
(1.) That the great things God does for his people are, and cannot but
be, taken notice of by their neighbours; those among the heathen make
remarks upon them,
(2.) That messengers will be sent to enquire concerning them. Jacob
and Israel had long been a people distinguished from all others and
dignified with uncommon favours; and therefore some for good-will,
others for ill-will, and all for curiosity, are inquisitive concerning
them.
(3.) That it concerns us always to be ready to give a reason of the
hope that we have in the providence of God, as well as in his grace, in
answer to every one that asks it, with meekness and fear,
1 Pet. iii. 15.
And we need go no further than the sacred truths of God’s word for a
reason; for God, in all he does, is fulfilling the scripture.
(4.) The issue of God’s dealings with his people shall be so clearly
and manifestly glorious that any one, every one, shall be able to give
an account of them to those that enquire concerning them. Now,
2. The answer which is to be given to the messengers of the nations is,
(1.) That God is and will be a faithful friend to his church and
people, and will secure and advance their interests. Tell them that
the Lord has founded Zion. This gives an account both of the
work itself that is done and of the reason of it. What is God doing in
the world, and what is he designing in all the revolutions of states
and kingdoms, in the ruin of some nations and the rise of others? He
is, in all this, founding Zion; he is aiming at the advancement of his
church’s interests; and what he aims at he will accomplish. The
messengers of the nations, when they sent to enquire concerning
Hezekiah’s successes against the Philistines, expected to learn by what
politics, counsels, and arts of war he carried his point; but they are
told that these successes were not owing to any thing of that nature,
but to the care God took of his church and the interest he had in it.
The Lord has founded Zion, and therefore the Philistines must fall.
(2.) That his church has and will have a dependence upon him: The
poor of his people shall trust in it, his poor people who have
lately been brought very low, even the poorest of them; they more than
others, for they have nothing else to trust to,
The poor receive the gospel,
Matt. xi. 5.
They shall trust to this, to this great truth, that the Lord has
founded Zion; on this they shall build their hopes, and not on an arm
of flesh. This ought to give us abundant satisfaction as to public
affairs, that however it may go with particular persons, parties, and
interests, the church, having God himself for its founder and Christ
the rock for its foundation, cannot but stand firm. The poor of his
people shall betake themselves to it (so some read it), shall join
themselves to his church and embark in its interests; they shall concur
with God in his designs to establish his people, and shall wind up all
on the same plan, and make all their little concerns and projects bend
to that. Those that take God’s people for their people must be willing
to take their lot with them and cast in their lot among them. Let the
messengers of the nations know that the poor Israelites, who trust in
God, having, like Zion, their foundation in the holy mountains
are like Zion, which cannot be removed, but abides for ever
(Ps. cxxv. 1),
and therefore they will not fear what man can do unto them.
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