Isa 14:4-8 | JFB | STEP | 4. proverb-- The Orientals, having few books, embodied their thoughts in weighty, figurative, briefly expressed gnomes. Here a taunting song of triumph ( ; ). the king-- the ideal representative of Babylon; perhaps Belshazzar ( ). The mystical Babylon is ultimately meant. golden city-- rather, "the exactress of gold" [Maurer]. But the old translators read differently in the Hebrew, "oppression," which the parallelism favors (compare ).

‏ Isaiah 14:4-8

4. proverb--The Orientals, having few books, embodied their thoughts in weighty, figurative, briefly expressed gnomes. Here a taunting song of triumph (Mi 2:4; Ha 2:6).

the king--the ideal representative of Babylon; perhaps Belshazzar (Da 5:1-31). The mystical Babylon is ultimately meant.

golden city--rather, "the exactress of gold" [Maurer]. But the old translators read differently in the Hebrew, "oppression," which the parallelism favors (compare Is 3:5).

5. staff--not the scepter (Psa 2:9), but the staff with which one strikes others, as he is speaking of more tyrants than one (Is 9:4; 10:24; 14:29) [Maurer].

rulers--tyrants, as the parallelism "the wicked" proves (compare see on Is 13:2).

6. people--the peoples subjected to Babylon.

is persecuted--the Hebrew is rather, active, "which persecuted them, without any to hinder him" [Vulgate, Jerome, and Horsley].

7. they--the once subject nations of the whole earth. Houbigant places the stop after "fir trees" (Is 14:8), "The very fir trees break forth," &c. But the parallelism is better in English Version.

8. the fir trees--now left undisturbed. Probably a kind of evergreen.

rejoice at thee--(Psa 96:12). At thy fall (Psa 35:19, 24).

no feller--as formerly, when thou wast in power (Is 10:34; 37:24).

Is 14:9-11. The Scene Changes from Earth to Hell.

Hades (the Amenthes of Egypt), the unseen abode of the departed; some of its tenants, once mighty monarchs, are represented by a bold personification as rising from their seats in astonishment at the descent among them of the humbled king of Babylon. This proves, in opposition to Warburton [The Divine Legation], that the belief existed among the Jews that there was a Sheol or Hades, in which the "Rephaim" or manes of the departed abode.