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 (Mic 2:4; Hab 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 Isa 3:5).

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

      rulers—tyrants, as the parallelism "the wicked" proves (compare see on Isa 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" (Isa 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— (Ps 96:12). At thy fall (Ps 35:19, 24).

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

     Isa 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.

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