Isa 14:13, 15 | JFB | STEP | 13. above . . . God —In , "stars" express earthly potentates. "The stars" are often also used to express heavenly principalities ( ). mount of the congregation —the place of solemn meeting between God and His people in the temple at Jerusalem. In , this is attributed to Antichrist. sides of the north —namely, the sides of Mount Moriah on which the temple was built; north of Mount Zion ( ). However, the parallelism supports the notion that the Babylonian king expresses himself according to his own, and not Jewish opinions (so in ) thus "mount of the congregation" will mean the northern mountain (perhaps in Armenia) fabled by the Babylonians to be the common meeting-place of their gods. "Both sides" imply the angle in which the sides meet; and so the expression comes to mean " the extreme parts of the north." So the Hindus place the Meru, the dwelling-place of their gods, in the north, in the Himalayan mountains. So the Greeks, in the northern Olympus. The Persian followers of Zoroaster put the Ai-bordsch in the Caucasus north of them. The allusion to the stars harmonizes with this; namely, that those near the North Pole, the region of the aurora borealis (compare see on ; ) [MAURER , Septuagint, Syriac ].

Isaiah 14:13

13. above . . . God—In Da 8:10, "stars" express earthly potentates. "The stars" are often also used to express heavenly principalities (Job 38:7).

mount of the congregation—the place of solemn meeting between God and His people in the temple at Jerusalem. In Da 11:37, and 2Th 2:4, this is attributed to Antichrist.

sides of the north—namely, the sides of Mount Moriah on which the temple was built; north of Mount Zion (Ps 48:2). However, the parallelism supports the notion that the Babylonian king expresses himself according to his own, and not Jewish opinions (so in Isa 10:10) thus "mount of the congregation" will mean the northern mountain (perhaps in Armenia) fabled by the Babylonians to be the common meeting-place of their gods. "Both sides" imply the angle in which the sides meet; and so the expression comes to mean "the extreme parts of the north." So the Hindus place the Meru, the dwelling-place of their gods, in the north, in the Himalayan mountains. So the Greeks, in the northern Olympus. The Persian followers of Zoroaster put the Ai-bordsch in the Caucasus north of them. The allusion to the stars harmonizes with this; namely, that those near the North Pole, the region of the aurora borealis (compare see on Job 23:9; Job 37:22) [MAURER, Septuagint, Syriac].

Isaiah 14:15

15. to hell—to Sheol (Isa 14:6), thou who hast said, "I will ascend into heaven" (Mt 11:23).

sides of the pit—antithetical to the "sides of the north" (Isa 14:13). Thus the reference is to the sides of the sepulcher round which the dead were arranged in niches. But MAURER here, as in Isa 14:13, translates, "the extreme," or innermost parts of the sepulchre: as in Eze 32:23 (compare 1Sa 24:3).

Isa 14:16-20. THE PASSERS-BY CONTEMPLATE WITH ASTONISHMENT THE BODY OF THE KING OF BABYLON CAST OUT, INSTEAD OF LYING IN A SPLENDID MAUSOLEUM, AND CAN HARDLY BELIEVE THEIR SENSES THAT IT IS HE.