Isaiah

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11:16 "And there shall be an highway for the remnant of his people, which shall be left, from Assyria; like as it was to Israel in the day that he came up out of the land of Egypt"

 

Now, instead of Israelite captives and strangers building roads for their conquerors, a highway of deliverance is provided for them, as in the day of Moses (Ex. 14:29). This is a constantly recurring theme in Isaiah, appropriate to the return of that multitude of captives carried away by Sennacherib (19:23; 35:8; 40:3; 49:11; 62:10; 63:12,13). But what a mess the modernists make of this moving theme by their determination to apply these prophecies to the much less exhilarating restoration from Babylon in the time of Cyrus.

 

Isaiah shows his own exhilaration by a six-fold play on similar Hebrew words, a feature which it is quite impossible to bring out in translation.

 

The repeated comparison with the Exodus is picked up in the Apocalypse where the Song of Moses and of the Lamb is associated with the last seven plagues (15:3,8) which lead on to the drying-up of Euphrates (16:12). Perhaps the counter­part to the Song of Moses (Ex.15) is to be found in Isaiah 14:4-27.

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Chapter 12

 

12:1-3 "And in that day thou shalt say, O Lord, I will praise thee: though thou wast angry with me, thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortedst me. Behold, God is my salvation: I will trust, and not be afraid: for the LORD JEHOVAH is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation. Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation."

 

This short chapter — a psalm, really — appropriately concludes the first section of Isaiah (1-12). Very appropriately, because the repeated allusions in chapter 11 to a captivity to be set free (eg. 11:11,12,15) are followed by a song with much of its phrasing modelled on the Song of Moses in Exodus 15.

	Is.12	Ex.15
The Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also is become my salvation	2	2
Water out of the wells of salvation	3	27
Sing unto the Lord, for he hath done excellent things (triumphed gloriously)	5	1, 21
The Name of God: Yah	2	2

 

The introductory phrase, "In that day" refers back to the promise in chapter 11 of a Messiah, "a root of Jesse", and to the deliverance promised there. The same prophetic phrase recurs in the "little apocalypse" — in 25:9; 26:1; 27:2. It was to find its fulfilment in the startling theophany in Hezekiah's reign which rid the Land of all Assyrians. It is to yet find an even more impressive fulfilment in Messiah's rescue of his afflicted Israel in the Last Day. This kind of double reference of Isaiah's prophecies becomes almost commonplace after a while.

 

It may be speculated that in fact Isaiah wrote after the event, but this is readily seen to be an inadequate explanation, for if indeed the prophet had written with full knowledge of the events, it would have been virtually impossible for him to have avoided much more specific detail than he actually supplies. The temptation would have been too great for any man. Contrast in this respect Exodus 15 which certainly came after the event and is very specific in its reference to the details of the cross­ing of the Red Sea and the disaster which befell the Egyptian army.

 

Yet, against all public opinion and all likelihood of how events seemed to be shap­ing, Isaiah foretold misery and judgment on his own people because of their spiritual corruption, and yet he rounded off his expectation of desolation and captivity with an assurance that a deliverance comparable to the great events of Moses' time would assuredly take place, and this through the merits of one man, the godly descendant of David ruling in Jerusalem.

 

"In that day thou shalt say" addresses the young king-elect, who was already sharing royal responsibility with his father (contrast v.4: "ye shall say").

 

"O Lord (the Covenant Name comes four times in six verses), I will praise thee because thou wast angry with me." This, of course, makes no sense apart from the realisation that the affliction which came on Hezekiah was not personally deserved but was visited on him as representative of the nation. Nor does this first declaration make sense apart from what follows: "Thine anger is turned away, and thou comfortest me."

 

There is a sharp contrast here with the threat constantly repeated: "For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still (in punishment)." But there is no disharmony. First, God added in Hezekiah's reign further judgments in addition to the miseries of the time of Ahaz, but then later the sun of His graciousness shone out suddenly with comforting brightness and warmth.

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And so also, it will be in the days to come. The many bitter experiences of the Jews, incurred by their faithlessness, are yet to come to a woeful climax; and then with the coming of their Messiah the dramatic change in their fortunes will leave all the world incredulous and aghast. "God is able to graft them in again." He will do it before the eyes of all the nations. Isaiah's message of Messianic comfort is never far away (40:1; 49:13; 57:18; 61:2).

 

The psalm continues:

 

"Behold (the marvel of it!), God is my salvation (Jesus!), I will trust, and not be afraid." This was the very exhortation Hezekiah addressed to his craven con­temporaries as the Assyrian invasion came on. His profound godliness comes out in that one word "afraid", for it always describes fear of the Lord; in other words here was recognition that the terrifying events hanging over the nation were the work of the God of Israel.

 

But so too, much more obviously, was the deliverance; and this is emphasized by the unusual divine name Yah: "the Lord (Yah) Jehovah is my strength and my song." This name Yah comes in the Song of Moses (Ex. 15:2) and in another Exodus psalm (68:4) and in what is undoubtedly a Hezekiah psalm (118:5,14,15,18). It is even possible that Isaiah 12 is a Hezekiah psalm (note the pronouns of v. 1,2) which Isaiah included in his collection of prophecies. The second half of verse 2 is identical with Psalm 118:14. Which of the two is the original?

 

In Hezekiah's day there was only one "well of salvation" — the Gihon spring which was led underground by Hezekiah's conduit (2 Chr.32:3,4) to Siloam (Is. 8:6) inside the city's defences. The intensive plural — "wells" — is used here (v.3) for emphasis.

 

Here is the beginning (it could hardly have been introduced earlier) of the lovely figure of speech, in psalms and prophets, of the Lord as a life-saving spring of water: "My people...have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and have hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:13; cp. Ps. 42:1,2).

 

"With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells (literally: fountains) of salvation" suggests that it was in thanksgiving for the Assyrian deliverance that the procedure was instituted at the Feast of Tabernacles of drawing water from Siloam and taking it in solemn processional to the temple, there to be poured out in praise and thanks­giving at the base of the altar. It was, of course, this to which Jesus referred in his great appeal on the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles (Jn. 7:37,38). He ap­propriated the meaning of the entire procedure to himself, and thus underlined (what needs no underlining) that Isaiah 12 is about himself and his salvation.

 

One day the ceremony will be re-instituted, with a vastly intensified meaning, when for all time the Land is rid of "Assyrians."

 

Here it is appropriate to stress the joy with which this water of salvation in Christ is drawn — not with hard labour and exertion, as a deep well, like that of Jacob's, necessarily entails. Here, indirectly, is a foreshadowing of the justification of those in Christ, by their faith and the joy that goes with it, not by works and dedicated effort.

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12:4-6 "And in that day shall ye say, Praise the LORD, call upon his name, declare his doings among the people, make mention that his name is exalted. Sing unto the LORD: for he hath done excellent things: this is known in all the earth. Cry out and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion: for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee."

 

Now the pronouns are plural. The people are bidden take up the praise of God uttered by their king. "Praise the Lord, call upon his name" quotes from one of the processional psalms when David brought the ark to Zion (1 Chr. 16:8). Now, in Hezekiah's day, let not the people forget that the Holy One is still in the midst of Zion. He who from His holiness had threatened judgment on His city and nation (6-3,11,13) now showed Himself a compassionate protector (and why the change?). So His great acts are to be declared among the peoples (this word amim almost always refers to the tribes of Israel). They are to remember (Hebrews) how His Name is exalted in the deliverance so marvellously given when all looked black and hopeless. "He alone is exalted (s.w. 2:11,17; 33:5). The Hebrew word strongly suggests a high tower of refuge, and this idea is more explicitly woven into psalms of the Assyrian deliverance (46:7; 48:3).

 

The "excellent things" celebrated in a song to the Lord (26:1) suggest something majestic, something for His own people to be proud of (37:36). But the word is also used of an uprush of waters (Ex. 15:1,21; Ps. 89:9; Ez. 47:5), this by deliberate intention, for the next phrase also suggests the unexpected reading: "waters of knowledge, this is in all the Land" (v.5) — an allusion to the sudden flow of water through the Siloam conduit when completed?

 

Psalm 46, (another Sennacherib psalm), is very close in idea: "God is our refuge and strength...though the waters thereof roar and be troubled...there is a river, the streams whereof make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High...The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge...I am God...I will be exalted in the earth..."

 

The historical narrative (2 Chr. 32:23) makes clear that one outcome of the Assyrian defeat was an unparalleled acknowledging of the God of Israel by surrounding nations. He becomes "known in all the earth."

 

Well might the people of Jerusalem "cry out and shout" in unrestrained gladness at such a mighty salvation. This was specially true of the womenfolk ("the inhabitress of Zion"; cp. 4:5; 40:9 Heb), for they specially knew what horrors they had been delivered from. Contemporary Hosea was glad to quote this song of salvation, and with the same meaning: "I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger (against Israel)...for I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee: I will not enter into the city (i.e. in judgment)" (11:9). And generations later, Zephaniah, a descen­dant of Hezekiah, quoted this earlier psalm (3:14,15); but alas, a like deliverance did not come in his days.

 

But yet again, and more mightily than ever, it will come in Messiah's day. Once more when Israel's plight is desperate and by all human judgement hopeless, the trust of a faithful remnant throwing themselves upon their God will bring a theophany such as will dwarf into insignificance the might acts of the Holy One, either in the days of Moses or Hezekiah.

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Chapter 13

 

13:1 "The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see."

 

This word "burden" is always minatory in character, describing a message borne by the prophet to those who are to be dragged down to destruction.

 

This second large section of Isaiah's prophecies consists of ten Burdens uttered against the nations round Israel:

 

Babylon - 13; 14:1-17

Philistia - 14:28-32

Moab - 15; 16

Damascus - 17

Egypt - 18; 19; 20

The desert of the sea - 21:1-10

Dumah - 21:11,12

Arabia - 21:13-17

The valley of vision - 22:1-14

Tyre - 23

 

Regarding these the following characteristics are worth noting:

 

1. They all were to find their primary fulfilment with reference to the Assyrian expansion and empire-building which was going on at terrifying speed in Isaiah's day.
    
   
2. Even so, their real raison d'etre is the relationship of these nations to Israel. It is this factor, and this only, which qualifies these Gentiles for an ex­pression of concern in the Word of God. All students of Bible prophecy need to keep constantly before their minds this vital criterion: this field of divine inspiration takes in the activities of Gentile nations only in so far as they relate to Israel or Israel's Messiah. This is true of all Bible prophecy. There are no exceptions.
    
   
3. This feature can be traced clearly in almost all of these ten Burdens. Indeed, in some of them, the Israel reference almost completely takes over; e.g. the Burden of Damascus has two verses about Damascus and twelve about Israel.
    
   
4. It is to be expected that these Burdens will have a Last Day reference, in addition to their contemporary relevance. This is the normal characteristic of nearly all Messianic prophecy. In several places (e.g. 17:13; 13:5,6; 19:23-25; 22:22) clear links with other Last Day prophecies seem to demand this, although in not a few places the exercise is distinctly difficult.
    
   
5. This catalogue of ten appears to be significant, designed to remind the student of other ten in Daniel 2,7; Psalm 83; Ezekiel 38:1-6,13; Revelation 17:12-14.

 

But why should Isaiah foretell a judgment on Babylon, since in his day Babylon was effectively outside the circle which dominated the politics of Judah? And why should a prophecy of destruction be uttered then which was to have no sign of fulfil­ment for at least two hundred years? And even if it be conceded that such a far-ranging prophecy was possible, how remarkable that the desolation and curse denounced on Babylon in this chapter did not come upon it even then in the reign of Cyrus? The Persians simply took over the city, and all went on as before; Babylon was still a great and influential city in the time of Jerome, 4th century A.D., that is a full millenium after Isaiah.

 

 

At this point, then, it becomes necessary to establish fairly firmly the little known fact that in the Bible "Babylon" and "Assyria" are used interchangeably of the same political power, so that constantly it is necessary to be on the alert to know which of the two is being alluded to. The two kingdoms spoke virtually the same language. In the time of Isaiah, Assyria conquered Babylon, and then in the time of Zedekiah Babylon destroyed Assyria.

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Here, then, are the details not to be ignored, about this Assyria-Babylon con­fusion:

1. Isaiah foretells the destruction of the might of the ambitious king of "Babylon" (14:4,12), and then immediately in what is part of the same prophecy: "I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him underfoot" (v.25). Later in this commentary it will be shown that the whole of chapter 14 has reference to Assyria, and so also 13:19-22.
    
   
2. Manasseh, the son of Hezekiah, was taken captive to Babylon by the king of Assyria (2 Chr. 33:11). Also, the Assyrians brought captives from Babylon into Northern Israel (2 Kgs. 17:24).
    
   
3. There are strong indications (see later commentary) that the Babylon prophecy in Isaiah 47 is also about Nineveh. "These two things shall come upon thee in one day, the loss of children and widowhood". This did not happen to Babylon. Its greatness faded away very gradually.
    
   
4. Also, the language of verse 8: "thou that art given to pleasures, that dwellest carelessly, that sayest in thine heart, I am, and none else beside me: I shall not sit as a widow, neither shall I know the loss of children", is quoted nearly a century later by Zephaniah (2:15) with reference to the destruction of Nineveh (v.13). So either Zephaniah did not understand what Isaiah was writing about, or else he took in his stride the idea that Isaiah's "Babylon" was Nineveh, Sennacherib's capital.
    
   
5. Psalm 87, one of a block of "Korah" psalms, all of them about the experiences of Hezekiah's reign, makes mention of Rahab (Egypt) and Babylon, and also Philistia, Tyre, Ethiopia, all of them important in Hezekiah's time, but makes no mention of Assyria which dominated and battered all of them.
    
   
6. Ezra 6:22 refers to a contemporary "king of Assyria" more than a century after Nineveh had been reduced to a heap of rubble. He meant, of course, the king of Babylon who "strengthened their hands in the work of the house of God."
    
   
7. Zech. 10:10,11 foretells God's gathering of His people from Egypt and Assyria, and speaks of the pride of Assyria about to be brought down, when in fact Assyrian power had already disappeared. But Babylon was still there.
    
   
8. In the reign of Josiah, Pharaoh-nechoh went against "the king of Assyria" at Carchemish (2 Kgs. 23:29). But by that time it was no longer necessary to fear Assyria. It was the empire building of Nabopolassar, the father of Nebuchadnezzar, which Egypt feared then.
    
   
9. Micah, contemporary of Isaiah and Hezekiah, foretold that "thou shalt go even to Babylon" (4:10). Yet in the next chapter, Assyria is named as the threat: "This man (Hezekiah) shall be the peace when the Assyrian shall come into our land" (5:5)
    
   
10. Stephen quoted to the Sanhedrin the prophecy of Amos that "I (the Lord) will cause you (the northern kingdom) to go into captivity beyond Damascus." But Stephen turned it into "beyond Babylon" (Acts 7:43). How the learned men listening to him would have enjoyed exposing his in­accuracy, if indeed it were that! But they knew well enough the equivalence of Assyria (where the northern captives were taken) and Babylon.
     
    
11. Nahum also makes his emphatic witness. His prophecy about the destruction of Nineveh (1:15) quotes Isaiah's prophecy which had its primary fulfilment regarding Sennacherib's invasion (52:7). Perfectly appropriated! But also Nahum alludes to the "whoredoms, witchcraft, nakedness, and merchants" of Isaiah's "Babylon" (3:4,5,16=47:3,9,15), when his subject is still the end of Nineveh.
     
    
12. With the exception of one detail, everything in Habakkuk's prophecy suggests that he was a contemporary of Isaiah. That detail is: "the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty nation" (1:6). It can now be seen that even here the reference is to the Assyrian. "I will work a work in your days which ye will not believe." If indeed Habakkuk spoke his prophecy in Nebuchadnezzar's day, these words were irrelevant. But how appropriate to the great deliverance in Hezekiah's reign! Thus again Babylon language is found to be appropriate to Assyria.
     
    
13. An important general consideration: in 13:19 and repeatedly in ch. 14, "Babylon" is represented as the supreme world-power, exercising a cruel tyranny over many nations and especially over Israel. But in Isaiah's day, Babylon was either a conquered state of the Assyrian empire or was making sporadic attempts at rebellion from the Assyrian yoke. Thus the "Babylon" spoken of here must have been Nineveh, the bully of the world of that day.
     
    
14. The Exodus theme developed so fully in ch. 12, with its allusions to the Song of Moses, requires a counterpart here in Isaiah. This, as already shown, God provided in the miraculous destruction of Sennacherib's army; and the counterpart to Moses' Song is the Song of triumph in 14:4-27 such as all Israel must have joyfully taken up.
     
    
15. It must not be overlooked that the kings of Assyria took special pride in their domination of Babylon: Sargon records as one of his royal titles: "Viceroy of the Gods of Babylon." Tiglath-pileser proudly called himself "King of Babylon."

 

Such an accumulation of evidence is surely not to be lightly set aside. When the conclusion it points to is adopted not a few difficulties of exposition evaporate. However a further complication is that many details in this "Babylon" burden, refuse to conform to a Babylon (or Nineveh) reference at all. The first 16 — or, more likely, the first 18 — verses seem to demand exposition with reference to Judah invaded by the Assyrians. In this respect compare 17:3-14 in the "Damascus" burden which are all about Israel and Judah.

 

The details needing to be considered here are these: v.2 "The high mountain", and also v.4: "a multitude in the mountains" are phrases incapable of reference to Babylon or Nineveh, for both cities were in dead flat plains. Expositors, recognizing the difficulty, read the words as a description of the warlike Medes (v. 17) mustering in their mountainous homeland. But reference to God's holy mountain is easy and obvious. Kay says this means "the levelled mountain" — a description well-suited to 'the mountain of the house' (10:32) with its temple area at the top. This is only one of the series of details which Kay emphasizes pointing to judgment on God's people, and yet he backs away from explicit identification with God's mountain, Jerusalem!

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Also, "shake the hand" echoes Isaiah's earlier description of the Assyrian force making its first threat against Jerusalem: "he shall shake the hand against the mount of the daughter of Zion" (10:32).

 

v.3

"My sanctified ones." It is an uneasy interpretation to read this with reference to rough uncultured Medes going against cultured but utterly pagan Babylon. Nor is it much better to see the Assyrians, going against Zion, as God's sanctified ones, even in spite of 8:7: "the Lord bringeth upon them...I will send him against an hypocritical nation...(10:6)." A much better parallel is with Joel 3:11: "thither cause thy mighty ones (thy Gabriels) to come down, O Lord" — and this is when nations come against Zion (v.16). "Them that rejoice in my highness" (also v.3) seems to demand reference to angels (cp. 37:36). This Joel passage has the

same

double reference as these early chapters of Isaiah.

 

V.5

"The Lord, and the weapons of his indignation." But why should there be such violent divine indignation against Babylon, a city which hitherto had had almost no contact with Israel? But read this as describing Assyrians "the people of his wrath" being used against Israel, and there is easy parallel with copious similar phrases in Isaiah. "They

come

from a far country" — that is, they

come

to Zion. But

go

to Babylon (from Media?) would surely be more appropriate. The same phrase is used about Assyrian invasion of Judah (46:11; see commentary there). "To destroy the whole Land" is precisely and literally what the Assyrians set out to do in Judaea. Cp. v.9: "to lay the Land desolate." But the Medes and Persians made their conquest of Babylonia with hardly any destruction, for the simple reason that there was almost no opposition.

 

V.6

Quotes or is quoted by Joel (1:15); and there the primary reference is un­doubtedly to Assyrian invasion of the Land.

 

V.8

The figure of "a woman that travaileth" comes also in Psalm 48:5,6 re­garding the Assyrian threat against Jerusalem.

 

"Their faces shall be as flames" is the very description used by Joel to describe the Assyrian invaders (2:6).

 

V.9

"He shall destroy the sinners out of it". How utterly inappropriate to Babylon, for "where there is no law, there is no transgression;" but Judaea was full of sinners from end to end.

 

v.10

"Stars...sun...moon" all in a state of darkness or eclipse, But note in how many places are the heavenly bodies a figure of

Israel

(e.g. Gen. 37:9,10; Jer. 31:35,36; Rev. 6:12,13 and context; B.S. 6.01).

 

V.13

"I will shake the heavens and the earth." Again, in 50:3; 51:6; Jl. 3:16 the reference is to

Israel

.

 

V.16

"Children dashed in pieces...wives ravished." This is the very judgment denounced on the people of Nineveh (Nah. 3:10), exactly in accordance with the bitter prayer of Ps. 137:9: "Happy shall he be that taketh and dasheth

thy

little ones against the stones." (Thirtle has shown that the "Babylon" in this psalm is Assyria; "Old Testament Problems").

 

V.17

"I will stir up the Medes against them" can be read in either of two ways:

 

(a) Median mercenaries in the Assyrian army used against Israel.

(b) Oppositely, Median inroads into Assyria after the disaster of 37:36.

 

As the exposition proceeds a number of other details will be found to conform readily to the two-fold interpretation (a) that "Babylon" is the power of Assyria-(b) that — as with 1 7:3-14 — the first 16 (or 18) verses here relate to Judah over­run and devastated by the ruthless armies of Sennacherib.

 

However, turning a blind eye to the indications listed above, the moderns are determined to see in ch. 13,14 a "burden" composed in the Babylonian captivity about the destruction of Babylon (which, in any case, didn't happen for more than another thousand years). The fact that the text says: "which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see," is quietly ignored. And so also is the long list of verbal connec­tions, compiled by Kay, between ch. 13,14 and the four preceding chapters.

 

Even the word "burden" is turned into a synonym for a message. Yet the AV is proved right by such examples as the following: "The Lord laid this burden upon him" (2 Kgs. 9:25) — more than a message, a weighty responsibility.

 

"The burden of the word of the Lord for Israel...Jerusalem a burdensome stone unto all the people round about" (Zech. 1 2:1,3)

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13:2-5 "Lift ye up a banner upon the high mountain, exalt the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may go into the gates of the nobles. I have commanded my sanctified ones, I have also called my mighty ones for mine anger, even them that rejoice in my highness. The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the LORD of hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the LORD, and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land."

 

This commentary will concentrate throughout on the contemporary reference of the prophecy, and afterwards (at the end of the chapter) on the crisis situation in the Last Days to which it also refers.

 

For "high mountain" should be read "bare mountain" or, better still, "the mountain made bare" (Heb: Niphal). Kay says "levelled", and adds: "a description well-suited to 'the mountain of the House' (10:32), with its temple area at the top." And the phrase "gates of the nobles (princes)" links well with the historical hints of a special entry-gate for the rulers of Israel (1 Chr. 9:18; 2 Chr. 23:20; Jer. 39:3; Lam. 5:14).

 

Is it really possible to read "sanctified ones" and "my mighty ones" with reference to any but angels — "my Gabriels" — especially since, in Jl. 3:11, regarding the same prototype, the same phrase is used: "Thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord"? And is not that precisely what God did? (37:36). By comparison, how feeble is the attempt to pin this divine mission on to ignorant uncivilised God­less Medes ("which rejoice in my highness"!!) a thousand miles away!

 

"The mustering of the host to the battle" is a close equivalent to the familiar words: "O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger...I will send him against an hypocritical nation...The Lord bringeth upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria" (10:5,6; 8:7). And their purpose "to destroy the whole Land," was the divine commission to these brutal invaders of Judah.

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13:6-11 "Howl ye; for the day of the LORD is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, and every man's heart shall melt: And they shall be afraid: pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman that travaileth: they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be as flames. Behold, the day of the LORD cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine. And I will punish the world for their evil, and the wicked for their iniquity: and I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease, and will lay low the haughtiness of the terrible."

 

Here one detail after another (and why haven't the commentators noticed them?) steers the reader to consider God's people under judgment, the instrument of His anger being the Babylonian Assyrian, as already explained.

 

"Howl ye" is, in Hebrew, a very effective mocking play on "Hallelujah," the theme of futile temple prayers and praises.

 

"The day of the Lord" is always God's open judgment or deliverance, and with hardly an exception concerns Israel (2:12; Zeph. 1:14). It is described as "near", a word which plays on "cherub" — and the cherubim are always associated with God's activity for or against Israel.

 

"Destruction from the Almighty" is yet another of Isaiah's puns: shad mish-Shaddai. And Shaddai itself is a two-meaning name. In the Pentateuch it is used always for God as One who blesses His people with fruitfulness (the Genesis con­texts are specially impressive — and note the grim contrast here in v. 8: "pangs...travail...sorrows"). In the poetic books, however, Shaddai is associated, as here, with shadad, destroy (B.S. Ch. 15.01).

 

This verse is quoted from, or quoted by, Joel (1:15), in a contemporary prophecy which is certainly about Israel. Then why should the words here be referred to Babylon or to the uncouth Medes?

 

A similar phenomenon regarding Psalm 48:2,5,6 suggests that both psalmist and Joel wrote with their eyes on Isaiah. Perhaps the psalmist was Isaiah. "The sides of the north" (of Jerusalem; v.2; 14:13), "marvelled...hasted away" (v.5; 13:8,14), "fear took hold of them, and pain, as a woman in travail" (13:8) — these phrases are all written, in Psalm 48, with reference to the Assyrian debacle at Jerusalem. Then the grim experience of the invaded people very suddenly became the experience of the invaders. They provide yet further support for the same kind of interpretation of Isaiah 13,14.

 

Various other examples of paronomasia in this context also give subtle support to the application now being suggested. The technical details are best omitted here.

 

The figure of sun, moon, and stars being darkened again steers consideration to Israel, for without exception all other usage of this metaphor is in an Israel context (e.g. Gen. 37:9,10; Jer. 31:35,36; Mt.24:29; Rev. 6:12,13). But here, and in none of the other instances, is there included mention of "the constellations." The Hebrew word describes specifically the constellation of Orion, the Hunter, for which the ancient eastern name was Nimrod, the founder of Babylon and Nineveh. The plural, otherwise meaningless, is to be read as an intensive plural, meaning: "the mighty Nimrod." Again, details such as these are appropriate to the Judah-Assyrian crisis about which so much of Isaiah's prophecy is written.

 

Other phrases (v.11) point to the same theme. The "terrible" (v.11) is one of Isaiah's standard descriptions of the Assyrians (e.g. 25:3,4,5; 29:5). It was a description utterly inappropriate to the city of Babylon in Isaiah's time, and for nearly a century after that. "The arrogancy of the proud" (v.11) is echoed regarding "Babylon" (14:13,14; 47:7,8). "I will cause the arrogancy of the proud to cease" has its parallel in another psalm of Assyrian destruction (46:9). And by contrast with the tribulation of "the Land" (v.5,9) there is this: "I will punish the world tor their evil" (v.11) again with reference to the signal judgment on Sennacherib's army; it is an expression quite inaccurate regarding the city of Babylon, for that metropolis went unscathed for centuries; (even in the time of Cyrus, nearly 200 years later, it hardly suffered at all).

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But now it is time to look at this prophecy from a different angle. The relevance to the Last Days can hardly be doubted in view of the following catalogue of pointers in other Scriptures:

 

a. Both Peter and Paul use the phrase "the day of the Lord" (v.6) with reference to the Second Coming (2 Pet. 3:10; 1 Th. 5:2).

 

b. Verse 6 and Jl. 1:15 are the same and are about the same events: (i) the Assyrian invasion; (ii) the last great struggle in the Holy Land.

 

c. Verse 7: "Every man's heart shall melt" is matched by "Men's hearts failing them for fear" (Lk. 21:26). Where else do the prophets use this kind of language?

 

d. The figure of a woman in travail (v.8) is repeated in Paul's prophecy of the Second Coming (1 Th. 5:3) and in our Lord's Olivet prophecy: "These things are the beginning of travail" (Mk. 13:8 RV).

 

e. The metaphor of sun, moon, and stars darkened (v. 10) is repeated in four other prophecies of the Last Days: Joel 2:31; 3:15; Is. 24:23; Mt. 24:29 (Lk. 21:25); Rev. 6:12,13.

 

Who can doubt that the further fulfilment of Isaiah 13 (and 14) will produce the very situation which made the reign of Hezekiah one of the most exciting in all history? Once again, as then, there will be wrath on the state of Israel for its godlessness and lack of faith; the Land will be overrun by a confederacy of enemies; vast numbers will be herded away as slave labour in the lands of their conquerors; then, through the repentance of the faithful remnant and the merits of one Man whom God has smitten with undeserved suffering for the sake of his people, there will come sudden incredible divine deliverance, and the City of God will be safe; a gracious year of jubilee will be celebrated, with the joyous return of all the captives; and then will ensue a reign of righteousness and peace and prosperity more adequate to fulfill all the long-cherished dreams of God's pious and faithful ones.

 

Not all of this picture comes in Isaiah 13,14; but much of it is there, and the other details are copiously filled in, in Isaiah's later prophecies.

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13:12-16 "I will make a man more precious than find gold; even a man than the golden wedge of Ophir. Therefore I will shake the heavens, and the earth shall remove out of her place, in the wrath of the LORD of hosts, and in the day of his fierce anger. And it shall be as the chased roe, and as a sheep that no man taketh up: they shall every man turn to his own people, and flee every one into his own land. Every one that is found shall be thrust through; and every one that is joined unto them shall fall by the sword. Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses shall be spoiled, and their wives ravished."

 

In this paragraph also there are sufficient pointers, however unexpected, referring to Jerusalem and her people:

 

a. The shaking of heavens and earth has a distinct echo in ch. 50:3; 51:6, with reference to the overthrow of God's people (and cp. Ps. 102:25,26).

 

b. And "shaken out of its

place"

uses the word

maqom,

which normally refers to a holy place or altar — in this instance the temple in Jerusalem, surely.

 

c. "The chased roe" justifies its place here as a figure because here is a double-meaning word signifying also "the Glory"!

 

d. The horrible passage about "children dashed in pieces" is reproduced in Psalm 137:8,9, which Thirtle ("Old Testament Problems") has shown to refer to Jewish captives carried off by the Assyrians to Babylon (see earlier comments on this chapter). Hosea 13:16 has just the same idea. "Happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us" finds its fulfilment in Nahum's prophecy about the destruction of Nineveh (3:10, the same words).

 

e. "Houses spoiled (rifled), and women ravished" is quoted explicitly in Zech. 14:2 — with reference to

Jerusalem

in the Last Days. But if Isaiah 13 is about the destruction of the city of Babylon, why the quotations, and why such a bad misapplication of it?

 

f. The shaking of

heavens

and earth is again a figure for the tribulation of

Jerusalem

in the Last Days, as quoted by Joel (3:16).

 

Items e, f here serve a double purpose by establishing also that, besides the grim fulfilment of this "burden of Babylon" in Isaiah's own time and in his own Land there will be also a yet more horrifying re-fulfilment in the Holy Land in the days ahead.

 

The shaking of heavens and earth becomes also an end-time prophecy in Haggai (2:6) interpreted specifically in that way in Hebrews 12:26 and in Revelation 6:12,14.

 

The picture of even a frail mortal man (enosh) and man (adam) of the earth being hard to find foretells slaughter and captivity on a vast scale. Isaiah has already foretold this (4:1). How many of today's three and a half million Israelis will survive? It is a grim prospect.

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13:17,18 "Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them, which shall not regard silver; and as for gold, they shall not delight in it. Their bows also shall dash the young men to pieces; and they shall have no pity on the fruit of the womb; their eye shall not spare children."

 

The conventional interpretation of this "burden", which assumes that it is a prophecy of the destruction of Babylon by Cyrus (a destruction which never took place!) has all the commentators identifying these Medes as one of the main components of Cyrus' confederacy. As one man these commentators illustrate "no delight in silver or gold" with reference to a speech which Herodotus, coming years later, puts in the mouth of Cyrus as an explanation of that leader's thanks to his Me­dian troops for their unpaid service. A highly unlikely Greek literary flourish!

 

But here the Cyrus reference of this Scripture has been considered irrelevant. There are no less than three other possible references to these Medes, all with more to recommend them:

 

a. The Median destruction of Nineveh, the "Babylon" that is condemned in v.19ff. But this was still a long way in the future.

 

b. The Medes who had been recruited into the military hotch-potch which Sennacherib brought against Judah (and then v.18 matches Ps. 137:8,9; but v.17 remains difficult).

 

c. The men of Israel who had been carried away in large numbers to "the cities of the Medes" (2 Kgs. 17:6) by Shalmanezer V. In such prophecies as 48:20,21; 49:9-23 there are indications of a massive return of these captives (Part 1:ch.33) after the shock of the mighty destruction of Sennacherib's army. And it would be strange if such a return were not ac­companied by some revenge-taking against hard Assyrian masters. Hence the word "also" in harmony with Ps. 137:8,9. The Median reference in 21:2 can be read similarly.

 

"Their bows shall dash the young men in pieces" hardly makes sense; it en­courages acceptance of LXX reading: "they shall break the bows of the young men in pieces."

 

"No pity on the fruit of the womb" hides a very subtle play on words, for the alter­native Hebrew word for "womb", not used here, is identical with the word for "pity". Many of Isaiah's puns are shoutingly obvious. This one is very neatly disguised.

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13:19-22 "And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there; neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there; and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged."

 

The biggest difficulty in this prophecy — a problem carefully side-stepped by most commentators — is Isaiah's insistence on speedy fulfilment. Some have pointed to Sennacherib's conquest of the city of Babylon. But this identification runs up against the fact that in those days Babylon had no vainglorious empire-builder as its monarch (14:9-17). Nor was Babylon of those days any sort of threat to the people of God (14:13). That Babylon continued as a tolerably prosperous city for nearly a millenium.

 

The only candidate for an early fulfilment is Nineveh, and certainly soon after these words were spoken there did come a mighty divine cataclysm abolishing the Assyrian threat to many neighbour kingdoms. Yet the problem remains that the desolation spoken of here did not come for another century. However, when destruction did come to Nineveh, it came almost overnight, and with horrifying completeness such as history never knew until August 1945.

 

And in confirmation of this Nineveh reference is Zephaniah's explicit use of this passage with reference to the desolation of that city of Nimrod in his time (2:14,15).

 

Also, it has been noted that the language of these verses seems to be echoed in an inscription of Assurbanipal, the last great Assyrian monarch, in describing his devastation of Elam. Then was he perhaps acquainted with the prophecies of Isaiah, as Cyrus certainly was?

 

Thus apart from the century lapse of the time before fulfilment, everything points to reference of this prophecy to Nineveh, the great present enemy.

 

Then is it possible that just as the destruction of Nineveh proclaimed by Jonah (3:4) was deferred for 150 years, so also Isaiah's urgent prophecy about the Assyrians, learning their lesson from Sennacherib's experience, caused them not only to send all their Jewish captives home but also to leave God's Land alone, even when they were busy plundering Egypt?

 

The weird creatures referred to as making their home in the ruins of this "Babylon" have been variously identified as owls, ostriches, wolves, wild goats, jackals (see modern versions).

 

Regarding both Nineveh and Babylon this eerie description of desolation was marvellously matched by the facts. Both cities — one sooner, the other later — vanished from sight, and from site, for their very whereabouts was unknown for long centuries. And to this day they are "not inhabited, nor dwelt in." ' Jeremiah, who was a great quoter of earlier Scriptures, saw the fulfilment of these words regarding Nineveh in his own time. And yet he went on to assert a further fulfilment regarding the Babylon he knew (50:27,39,40; 51:11,28, 29,33,37,62) — a very long-range prophecy, this!

 

Nor does that end the story, for again the words are picked up to describe the ultimate fate of the apocalyptic "Babylon" (Rev. 18:2), the identification of which still has plenty of question marks hanging over it.

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Chapter 14

 

14:1,2 "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. 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."

 

As that first word "For" indicates, these two verses supply the reason for the overthrow of "Babylon". The city of that name was not brought to savage dereliction either by Sennacherib or by Cyrus or at any later time. But by two blows of intense violence almost unmatched in history the Assyrians first lost an invincible army out­side the walls of Jerusalem, and a hundred years later Nineveh itself became a ruin and an eternal devastation.

 

With the first of these hammer blows God had mercy on His beleaguered city and people, and brought His wretched captives home from Babylon where they had been exiled (Mic. 4:10) to glorify the second capital of an empire of brutality (Ps. 102:13,15,20 — a Hezekiah psalm).

 

"Mercy on Jacob" and the choosing of Israel are constantly recurring themes. And even when the entire purpose with this nation seemed to have gone wrong, this conviction animated those of later days away from their homeland: "The Lord shall yet comfort Zion, and shall yet choose Jerusalem (as the place of His dwelling)" (Zech. 1:17).

 

The promise to "set them (cause them to rest) in their own Land" implies a people taken into captivity in Isaiah's own day. The prism of Sennacherib supplies the boastful detail:

 

"I made to come out from them 200,150 people, young and old, male and female, innumerable horses, mules, donkeys, camels, large and small cattle, and counted them as the spoils of war. Hezekiah himself I shut up like a caged bird within Jerusalem, his royal city."

This captivity was vastly greater than that which is always denominated as the Babylonian captivity. But whereas that dragged on for seventy years and more, this lasted less than seventy weeks.

 

The added promise that "strangers shall be joined with them" is constantly repeated in the rest of Isaiah (44:5; 49:22; 55:5; 60:4,5,9,10,14; 61:5; and of course 2:2,3). Such language makes no sense save in the light of the stroke of Heaven against the might of Assyria, thus vindicating God's righteous king in Jerusalem. From that day forward and throughout the rest of Hezekiah's reign, the God of Israel was honoured among the Gentile nations round about. "Many brought gifts unto the Lord to Jerusalem, and presents to Hezekiah king of Judah: so that He was magnified in the sight of all nations from henceforth" (2 Chr. 32:23). "Then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them" (Ps. 126:2 — another Hezekiah psalm).

 

"They (these Gentiles) shall cleave to the house of Jacob. And the people (amim, Israel) shall...bring them to their Place (maqom certainly refers to the temple)"' Besides the passages already listed, ch.56:6-8 is outstanding:

 

"Also the sons of the strangers that join themselves unto the Lord, to serve him, and to love the name of the Lord, to be his servants, every one that keepeth the sabbath from polluting it, and taketh hold of my covenant; even them will I bring to my holy mountain, and make them joyful in my house of prayer...The Lord God which gathereth the outcasts of Israel saith, Yet will I gather others to him, beside those that are gathered to him."

 

In this unexpected way an early fulfilment came to the words: "They shall take them captives whose captives they were." It is an awe-inspiring thought that among the arrogant Assyrians were some who came to acknowledge the God of Israel as the Lord of all.

 

But never yet has it been true that Israel has "ruled over their oppressors." So here is a phrase which calls for fulfilment in the time when the righteousness and glory of Messiah's reign far outshine the qualities of Hezekiah's (45:14; 61:3; 62:5; 66:20).

 

The emphasis on return to "their own Land...the Land of the Lord (Immanuel's Land; 8:8)" is appropriate to the Year of Jubilee when God brought about this great deliverance (2 Kgs. 19:29,30; Lev. 25:21-24). Only the rich blessings of such a year could enable the nation to make recovery at express speed from the horrors of foreign domination.

 

Isaiah foretold it all, and lived to see it. He will yet live to see the gracious bless­ings of a final restoration of his people and the beneficent rule of a King whose suffering and glory the life of king Hezekiah so remarkably portrayed long centuries before.

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14:3,4a "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, That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon,"

 

Note here the almost casual way in which Isaiah makes a prophecy of such depressing accuracy — that his people are going to endure sorrow, fear and hard bondage.

 

So also Habakkuk: "Behold, is it not of the Lord of hosts that the people (amim — Israel) shall labour in the very fire, and the people shall weary themselves for very vanity?" (2:13). One of the Assyrian kings boasts in one of his inscriptions about the fear he inspired in his captives; there is a marvellous contrast with this in 31:8,9. But Israel are also going to be given "rest" from such a harrowing time (51:4). And then it will be their turn to taunt their oppressors with the mockery of their "parable" (cp. Hab. 2:6).

 

It is not certain who this king of Babylon was, who is spoken of here, but with very high probability he was actually one of the contemporary Assyrian monarchs. Boutflower argues persuasively for equation with Tiglath-pileser III who was certainly king of Babylon at the time of this prophecy (v.28). The irony is that just then Assyria was friendly towards Judah, because of the treaty (of gross subservience) which Ahaz had made, even allowing the Assyrians to quarter a garrison in the temple area (2 Chr. 28:20,21).

 

Tiglath-pileser was inordinately proud of his title as king of Babylon, not only because he had conquered that country but also because his grandmother was the famous Babylonian princess Semiramis. Many of his inscriptions and bas-reliefs were removed by his successors because of his marked preference for Babylon.

 

Shalmanezer V was actually king of Babylon before he was crowned king in Nineveh.

 

However, a strong case can be made out for identifying the king of Babylon in this prophecy with Sennacherib (v.2,3,13,14,25; see the later comments on these verses). As the "burdens" of Isaiah proceed, they become more and more specific in character, and almost all of them centre on Sennacherib's challenge to the God of Israel and how for this his power was brought down to the dust.

 

It would be surprising indeed, if this powerful prophecy is not to find a further fulfilment in the last days, when God's Messiah saves his people from another brutal northern enemy. The promise to David about Messiah's kingdom speaks of "a time...when I have caused thee to rest from all thine enemies...neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more" (2 Sam. 7:10,11). How like Isaiah's assurance: "the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow and from thy fear and from thy hard bondage." As David's reign foreshadowed Messiah's, so also this prophecy looks forward to a like fulfilment.

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14:4b-6 "How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hindereth."

 

A special characteristic of the Assyrian empire was the barbaric frightfulness with which it scared subdued nations into paying massive tribute. Halls and palaces in Nineveh bore such names as: "Holding abundance" and "Preserving the tribute of mountains and seas." Israel and Judah both suffered from this greedy oppression (2 Kgs. 15:19; 18:14). The peoples (amim, the people of God) were smitten "with a continual stroke" (v.6). Nahum has the figure of speech of a lion tearing its prey (2:12).

 

But there is the possibility here of a different reading due to the common con­fusion in OT. texts between Hebrew R and D. This would turn "golden city" into "in­solent city", a description relevant enough to the railing against the God of Israel in­dulged in by Sennacherib and his minion Rabshakeh (36:14,15,18,20; 37:10,29,35). The Assyrian campaign in Judaea was as much a war against Jehovah as against Hezekiah.

 

"The LORD hath broken the staff (10:5) of the wicked" is specially true with reference to the destruction of the Assyrians by the angel of God (37:36).

 

Here, before Ahaz died (v.28) is an undoubted prophecy of the oppressor being brought low; it was made even before the worst of the invasion had begun. In Hezekiah's day when Assyrian warriors spread fear and desolation through God's Land, the backbone of the faithful remnant would be stiffened by the knowledge that Isaiah had foretold a mighty turning of the tables.

 

The Apocalypse describes another "Babylon", a golden city (1 7:4,5; 18:16), an oppressor of God's holy people (17:6), also to be brought low. Reference of this prophecy to Rome runs into many problems which over long years expositors have carefully side-stepped. Biblical indications point in a different direction and there seem to be signs that a rabid ultra-orthodoxy in Judaism may yet turn openly and viciously (as in the first century) against their fellows in Israel who believe Jesus to be the Messiah.

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14:7,8 "The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. 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."

 

Without any doubt, this should read: "The whole Land is at rest," for the next phrase: "break forth into singing" is frequent in Isaiah, and always with reference to the restoration of Israel: 44:23; 49:13; 52:9; 54:1; 55:12; Ps. 98:3,4 (an Isaiah psalm). The last fifteen years of Hezekiah match this description perfectly, and they in turn foreshadow the tranquility and prosperity of Messiah's reign.

 

The Assyrians plundered the fir and cedar trees of Lebanon through sheer joy of increasing devastation and being able to boast about it (37:24); and a century later Nebuchadnezzar took pride in having his "photograph" taken as he personally felled a cedar of Lebanon.

 

But the "feller" Isaiah specially refers to is to be himself "laid down." This is the very word used by the prophet about the devastation of the Assyrian camp: "The Lord...bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the power; they shall lie down together, they shall not rise: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow" (43:17).

 

Again, it is a mighty judgment against the enemies of Jerusalem in the Last Days.

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14:9-11 "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. All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou also become like unto us? 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."

 

Here Isaiah develops a powerful figure of speech. He pictures this mighty tyrant going down to the abode of the dead. Whereas God's Land, and indeed the whole earth, is heaving a sigh of relief that the threat of oppression is now removed, all the mighty men and the monarchs who have preceded this brutal empire-builder into the place of the dead are now portrayed as deeply disturbed at the prospect of having to greet again the haughty dictator who had sent them thither. Ezekiel (32:21-27) has a similar elaborate figure about dead warriors, buried with all the tokens of their military prowess, greeting Egypt's Pharaoh when he joins the ranks of the slain.

 

Hell itself is personified as the leader of the dead whom he now stirs up to give a suitable welcome to the Assyrian king. These dead are pictured as sitting upon their thrones, as represented by the effigies in their mausoleums. They marvel that one whom they have known as invincible in power and more cruel than the grave should now himself be brought low to lie on a bed of worms and to be covered by the worms which hitherto have provided the glorious scarlet dye enhancing the splendour of his royal robes (cp. vermilion, from Latin vermis, a worm).

 

The fitness of all this vivid language to the death of Sennacherib is easy to trace. The mistake is often made of assuming that this proud tyrant died, assassinated by two of his sons in Nineveh, very soon after his warriors died outside Jerusalem (37:36,38). In fact there is clear archaeological evidence that it was fifteen years later when Sennacherib met a much-merited fate. Isaiah's account of this says it was "as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god." No such Assyrian god is known, but the suggestion has been made that this is a compressed form of the names Ashur, the national god of Assyria, and Aku, another name for Sin, the moon god, after whom Senna-cherib was named.

 

Asshur-bani-pal, grandson of this "hero", mentions in the Rassam cylinder "the figures of the protective deities (winged bulls and lions excavated by Layard, Assyrian "cherubim") between which they (the rebels) had smashed Sennacherib, my own grandfather."

 

Esarhaddon, in his Nineveh prism, tells how his brothers "plotted evil, even draw­ing the sword within Nineveh against divine authority. They butted at each other like young kids in order to exercise the kingship" — that is, after murdering their father they quarrelled, and so the usurpation plan came to nothing.

 

Isaiah's phrase: "the noise of thy viols" suggests religious music and ceremonial. How right this is, for it was evidently in the course of a religious procession into the temple that Sennacherib was slain.

[Resource Manager]

14:12-15 "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! 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: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds: I will be like the most High. Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit."

 

Lucifer has nothing to do with the Devil of Christian mythology. The name means Morning Star, and refers to the planet Venus, the brightest object in the sky just before dawn. In various ways the figure is appropriate to the king of Assyria, for as the morning Venus is low down in the eastern sky (where Assyria is) and can be seen climbing higher and higher, so this mighty monarch made his ambitious imperial plans to ascend higher and higher, as Ishtar (Venus).

 

This goddess was also the war-deity: "The Lady of attack", "The strengthener of battle", "The Lady of battle and war". As such she commanded the reverence of every Assyrian king.

 

Like the contemporaries of Nimrod, these ruthless men of power were set on ascending up to heaven (Gen. 11:4). And especially, since the humiliation of an earlier generation in Nineveh demanded by Jonah, they meant to exalt their throne above the stars of God, that is, above the people of Israel (Joel 3:15; Dan. 8:10), and against the angels of Jehovah (Job 38:7; Rev. 1:20).

 

In Ahaz's reign Tiglath-pileser III did sit also upon the mount of the congregation, for "Ahaz took away a portion out of the house of the Lord...and gave it unto the king of Assyria." In other words, part of the temple area was assigned to an Assyrian garrison. Ostensibly this was a friendly Assyrian gesture, to reinforce the authority of a weak and despised king, but in actual fact it was meant to keep the state of Judaea well-behaved and tractable.

 

One of the first things Hezekiah did, as a gesture of faith but not of statesmanship, was to send these Assyrians packing; and from that moment a terrifying invasion by Sargon or Sennacherib was an absolute certainty.

 

When at last it took place, these jackbooted thugs encamped on Mount Scopus "on the sides of the north" of Jerusalem, so that for long generations afterwards that area was known as "the camp of the Assyrians". A psalm of that period declares that "promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south" (75:6). Useless to look for help from the north where the Assyrian was ominous and frightening. But after God's angel had brought deliverance, another Hezekiah psalm celebrated it with both relief and devotion: "Beautiful for situation the joy of the whole Land is mount Zion, on the sides of the north, the city of the great King" (48:2). Ishtar may be known as "The Queen of the Mountain of the World", but she could celebrate no victory against mount Zion.

 

The great king of Assyria may plan to "ascend above the heights of the clouds" and to be "like the Most High." But instead "the Lord Most High is terrible: he is a Great King over all the earth" (Ps. 47:2).

 

So the Assyrian, who "weakened the nations" by draining the strength of every people his armies overran, was "cut down to the ground" — literally, in his assassination. And so also Ishtar, the great goddess — she too was "cut down to the ground" like the Baal image Gideon disposed of.

 

It may be that the derisive "How art thou fallen from heaven!" came to a near-literal fulfilment, for Velikovsky has theorised very impressively that about that time there was a dramatic perturbation in the course of the planet Venus.

 

In any case it is remarkable enough that the most impressive Babylonian epic discovered by the archaeologists is about the descent of Ishtar into the underworld.

 

And not only Ishtar, but the proud monarch who honoured her, he too "was brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit." (Job 20:5-8). His invincible warriors died in a night. The figure is highly appropriate, for when Venus is not a morning star, it is an evening star, seen vividly in the west immediately after sunset, and descending inexorably to the night horizon and the darkness below it.

 

Centuries later, Jesus made a powerful lesson from this vivid prophecy. His disciples came back from preaching full of glee, for "even the devils are subject unto us through thy name." So they were bidden recall how God chastened the pride of Assyria — "Satan as lightning (a day-star?) fallen from heaven." And not only disciples but also self-assured Capernaum, "which art exalted to heaven, shall be thrust down to hell" (Lk. 10:18,15). In every generation the lesson has to come home: "No flesh shall glory in God's presence." There is only one Lucifer, one "bright and morning star" — Jesus, the true Lord of mount Zion (Rev. 22:16).

[Resource Manager]

14:16,17 "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; That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?"

 

Here is pictured the widespread surprise that the man (no superhuman devil here! J.W.'s please note!) who had been such a terror and a scourge should come to such a sorry end. He shook kingdoms like an earthquake (Heb.). By a deliberate scorched-earth policy his ravaging armies reduced large areas to wilderness, and strong cities to piles of rubble; e.g. Lachish, and (17:2), appointed (Heb.) mass deportation of captives to other conquered lands, and with no intention that they should ever return (but the God of Israel had such an intention regarding His own people; v.1).

 

All who had come under his scourge would sigh with relief at his dramatic reversal of fortune and would learn a lesson (Heb.) from it.

[Resource Manager]

14:18-20b "All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. 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. Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people:"

 

There has never been a time when royal burial has not been a thing of great magnificence — pomp and circumstance at its finest. Here, in a judgment pro­nounced years ahead of its time on this mighty Assyrian monarch, there is a scornful contrast between the honour and glory, prepared beforehand by every petty king in the Assyrian empire for himself in the day of his interment, and the shame and despite to be heaped on Sennacherib in the day of his downfall.

 

This passage gives the gruesome detail of how he was to perish. It is known (from 37:38 and the Babylonian Chronicle and the Nineveh prism of Esarhaddon and the Rassam cylinder of Asshur-bani-pal) that two of Sennacherib's sons raised a rebellion in Nineveh and slew their father as he was in procession before the entrance of his temple. Nevertheless the coup failed, largely because of a bitter quarrel between the plotters. So they fled and left authority in the hands of Esarhad­don their brother. This was in 686 B.C., some fifteen years after the disaster outside the wall of Jerusalem. Apparently God added fifteen years to the life of Sennacherib, as He did in that same year to Hezekiah — presumably in acknowledgement of Assyria leaving God's people alone after that frightful campaign of 701 B.C.

 

Here Isaiah foretells that Sennacherib would be "thrust through with a sword" and his "carcase trodden under feet" in the melee of revolution, and his body in its blood-stained raiment "cast forth, away from his (already prepared) sepulchre as an abominable branch" — Isaiah deliberately using a familiar term for the Messiah, "the Branch out of the roots of Jesse" (11:1).

 

He who had not been joined in friendship with the kings of countries round about was not to be joined with them in his death. They, for all their subservience to the empire, had each of them a mausoleum to perpetuate their memory amongst their own people. But not so Sennacherib. In the riot and fury and carnage of the revolu­tion his was just one more bloody battered and trampled carcase among those which littered the streets of the capital.

 

All this was to befall him eventually "because thou hast destroyed my Land (Jehovah's Land), and slain my people." Here LXX corrects the pronouns of the received text.

 

(NOTE: There is one school of archaeologists which interprets the inscriptions as meaning that Sennacherib made two invasions of Judah — in 701 B.C. and in 686, the latter being the time when disaster befell his army. The usually received chronology of Hezekiah's reign, about which indeed there is a great amount of uncertainty, does not easily harmonize with this view. But if the theory is correct, then Sennacherib died soon after his army died).

[Resource Manager]

14:20c-23 "The seed of evildoers shall never be renowned. 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. 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. 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 entire dynasty of ruthless Assyrian conquerors is written off with divine disgust. "Their inward thought is that their house shall continue for ever, and their dwelling places unto all generations" (Ps. 49:11 — a contemporary psalm). But in fact this "seed of a mighty evildoer (intensive plural here) shall not be named for ever." Fathers have sought to bequeath an empire, but they have bequeathed retribution as well. "They shall not rise (this is echoed in 26:14)...nor shall they fj|| the face of the world with cities." This last word reads strangely, and can by the slightest emendation read instead: "fill the world with ruins (v. 17: destroyed the cities thereof);" or, with evil men, or, with adversities. Any of these readings is more appropriate to a description of Assyrian beastliness. By contrast, God's restored Israel is to "fill the face of the world with fruit" (27:6).

 

It almost seems possible to match the prophet's catalogue of this "seed of evildoers" with the Assyrian kings down to the destruction of Nineveh:

 

The name - Sennacherib

and remnant - Esarhaddon

and son - Asshur-bani-pal

and son's son - Shin-shar-ishkun.

 

And then Nineveh became "pools of water", by the destruction of its mighty system of irrigation — as Nahum also prophesied: "With an overrunning flood he will make an utter end of the place thereof" (1:8). This was accomplished by Nabopolassar, the empire-building father of Nebuchadnezzar. Nay, it was done by the Lord of hosts. His angel destroyed Sennacherib's army, and other angels round­ed off the task, reducing Nineveh to rubble. The city was swept with God's "besom of destruction", a powerful phrase: betetiyah b'matateh heshmed.

[Resource Manager]

14:24-27 "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: 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. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. For the LORD of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?"

 

Now, explicitly, "Babylon" is plainly said to be Assyria. Earlier (8:4-8; 10:5,6) the purpose of Heaven in using this great king as a tool has been emphasized. Now, with a strong oath sworn by the Lord of hosts, His purpose against Assyria is ex­pressed in a climax of repetition: "I have thought (i.e. made a plan)...I have purpos­ed...it shall stand...this is the purpose...the Lord hath purposed...his hand is stretched out."

 

There is also another repetition: "as...as...Assyria" is, in Hebrew, "asher...asher...Asshur," thus making the climax more effective.

 

Nothing could be more explicit. This military colossus is to come to nought, broken by act of God on the mountains of Israel, thus giving freedom to captives under the yoke and a great lightening of burdens to other conquered nations. (These "burdens" are depicted in vivid detail in no less than eleven chapters: 13-23).

 

The language of servitude — "yoke...burden" — formerly used in threat (10:27; 9:4), is now shaped into a gracious promise of release. Immanuel's Land (8:8) is now said to be God's Land. And it is here, and not at the border of Egypt (as so many of the moderns perversely insist), where this human tyranny will be broken. But when the destruction came, how did God "tread him under foot"? What kind of divine act is foretold by this phrase?

 

For the discerning of Isaiah's day, the prophecy was even chronologically explicit. Freedom from yoke and burden is the language of Jubilee, the year of release. For every contemporary of the prophet knew, in this last year of Ahaz (v.28), that the next Jubilee would be in 15 years' time. Then, and not before, would the Assyrian shadow be taken away. Weary years of waiting for the faithful remnant; but then, for certain, would be deliverance.

 

As God's hand was "stretched out still" (9:12,17,21; 10:4) in wrath against His own people, so there will also be this other stretching out (v.27), "and who shall turn it back?" This is the true word of false prophet Balaam: "Behold, I have received commandment to bless: and he hath blessed, and I cannot reverse it" (Num. 23:20).

[Resource Manager]

The Last Day reference of Isaiah 13,14

 

The great climax of God's purpose with Israel comes with the final "overturn" of the nation by their enemies (Ez. 21:27). At that time repentance will bring their Messiah (foreshadowed by godly Hezekiah) and salvation from a dreaded "Assyrian."

 

In a further survey of these two chapters one must be content to review the salient details where there are special indications of a Last-Day fulfilment, as already laid out with reference to the contemporary fulfilment:

 

a.

13:1-18 Judgment of Israel.

 

b.

13:19-22 The overthrow of "Babylon."

 

c.

14:1-3 Israel's restoration.

 

d.

14:4-27 The fate of the Assyrian (Babylon) and all his might.

 

This summary can now be set out in greater detail:

 

a.

13:4. An irresistible invasion by a gathering of nations.

13:6. It is "the day of the Lord".

13:6. The destruction of Israel from Shaddai; cp. Jl. 1:15, about the same.

13:8. Israel helpless.

13:9. The Land destroyed.

Sinners

punished.

13:10. Sun, moon, and stars obscured — a figure of Israel's calamity; Jl. 2:31; 3:15; Mt. 24:29; Rev. 12,13.

13:13. "Heaven and earth" — the old order ended.

13:16. This is Zech. 14:2.

13:17. Remote enemies join in the attack.

 

b.

13:19. Like the destruction of Sodom; Lk. 1 7:28,29.

13:20-22. Compare Isaiah 34, and note especially v.8.

13:22. "The time is near", after the destruction of Israel.

 

c.

14:1. God's mercy on Israel.

14:2. Captivity and tribulation ended.

14:3. The year of Jubilee.

 

d.

14:4-6. The power of the "Assyrian" broken.

14:7. Israel left in peace.

14:9-19. All the world wonders.

14:13. Failure to be exalted above "the stars of God" (Israel).

14:13. The temple mount coveted.

14:17. This destroyer has made the world a wilderness.

14:20. No ceremonial burial (but instead Ez. 39:11).

14:24. The oath of God regarding all this, as in such Messianic prophecies as Gen. 22:16-18; Ps. 132:11.

14:24. ”So it shall rise up" (Heb.) — i.e. a second time, in the Last Days.

14:25. The northern invader broken in God's Land.

14:25. "Yoke, burden, shoulder, counsel (purpose)" — cp. 9:4-6: Messiah's kingdom.

14:26,27. The culmination of God's Purpose (the repetition pointing to a second fulfilment).

[Resource Manager]

14:28 "In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden."

 

It is difficult to resolve with certainty the problem: Does the phrase: 'this burden' refer to the foregoing (ch.13; 14:1-27: 'Babylon') or to what follows (14:29-32: 'Philistia')? Read according to the first of these possibilities (i.e. as a sub-scription) there is much more effectiveness. The words are now seen as a declaration: This doom on 'Babylon' will be fulfilled in the reign of the new king. And the Jubilee hints in 14:2,3 would point to the 14th of Hezekiah as the appointed time of the Assyrian overthrow.

 

This doom on 'Babylon', together with Mic. 5:5, would encourage Hezekiah's prompt shrugging off of the Assyrian yoke (2 Kgs. 18:7).

 

Jeremiah's remarkable intervention in contemporary politics (27:2-4) encourages the idea that Isaiah's long series of burdens (ch. 13-23) was spoken to, or handed in writing to, the ambassadors of the various nations who came to Hezekiah's coronation (note v.32).