Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Isaiah 14:24
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:
24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn ] cf. Amo 4:2; Amo 6:8; Amo 8:7; Isa 45:23; Isa 54:9; Isa 62:8. The formula is nowhere else used by Isaiah.
come to pass stand ] Combined as in ch. Isa 7:7.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Ch. Isa 14:24-32. Two Isaianic Fragments
i. Isa 14:24-27. An announcement of Jehovah’s purpose to destroy the Assyrians on the soil of Canaan. In spite of the absence of a title these verses cannot without violence be explained as a continuation of the oracle on Babylon. They bear every evidence of being a genuine prophecy of Isaiah; and both in form and substance they shew an obvious resemblance to those of ch. Isa 10:5 ff. and ch. 18. Some critics, indeed, regard them as a misplaced fragment of one or other of these chapters. Without going so far as this we may at least with some confidence assign the passage to the same period of Isaiah’s ministry, probably the early years of Sennacherib’s reign.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The Lord of hosts – (see the note at Isa 1:9). It is evident that this verse and the three following, is not directly connected with that which goes before, respecting Babylon. This pertains to the Assyrian; that had relation to Babylon. Vitringa says that this is attached to the prophecy respecting Babylon, and is a unique yet not altogether foreign argument, and is a sort of epilogue to the prophecy respecting Babylon. The design, he says, is this. As the events which had been foretold respecting Babylon seemed so great and wonderful as to be almost incredible, the prophet, in order to show the Jews how easily it could be accomplished, refers them to the case of Sennacherib, and the ease with which he and his army had been destroyed. Lowth supposes that the Assyrians and Babylonians here are one people. Rosenmuller supposes that this prophecy respecting Sennacherib has been displaced by the collector of the prophecies of Isaiah, and that it should have been attached to the prophecy respecting the Assyrian monarch (see Isa. 10.) The probable sense of the passage is that which makes it refer to the predicted destruction of Sennacherib Isa. 10; and the design of the prophet in referring to that here is, to assure the Jews of the certain destruction of Babylon, and to comfort them with the assurance that they would be delivered from their captivity there.
The prophecy respecting Babylon was uttered before the destruction of Sennacherib; but it is to be remembered that its design was to comfort the Jews in Babylon. The prophet therefore throws himself beyond the period of their captivity – though it was to occur many years after the prophecy respecting Babylon was uttered; and with this view he introduces the subject of the Assyrian. At that future time, Sennacherib would have been destroyed. And as God would have fulfilled the prophecy respecting the proud and self-confident Assyrian, so they might have the assurance that he would fulfill his predictions respecting the no less proud and self-confident king of Babylon; and as he would have delivered his people from the invasion of the Assyrian, even when he was at the gates of Jerusalem, so he would deliver them in their captivity in Babylon.
Hath sworn – (see Gen 24:7; Exo 13:5, Exo 13:11; Exo 33:1; Num 32:10; Heb 3:18; Heb 6:13). Yahweh is often represented as making use of an oath to denote the strong confirmation, the absolute certainty of what he utters. The oath here was designed to comfort the Jews, when they should be in Babylon, with the assurance that what he had thus solemnly promised would assuredly come to pass.
As I have thought – As I have designed, or intended. Gods promises never fail; his purposes shall all be accomplished (compare Isa 46:10-11). This passage is full proof that God does not change: that whatever his purposes are, they are inflexible. Change supposes imperfection; and it is often affirmed that God is immutable 1Sa 15:29; Mal 3:6; Jam 1:17.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Isa 14:24
Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass
Gods infinite intelligence
To think and to purpose are the attributes of all rational beings, whether created or uncreated.
I. God is such an infinitely perfect being, that His thoughts and purposes are CO-ETERNAL WITH HIMSELF. God cannot possibly exist Without His thoughts and purposes. A child at school in France, was asked whether God reasoned or not. The child paused awhile, and answered, No: God is too perfect to reason. He knows everything without reasoning. Newton himself could not have given a better answer. Everything that exists in God now, has existed in Him from eternity.
II. As His thoughts and put poses flow exclusively from Himself, they are ABSOLUTE; they are, primarily considered, unconditional. This is a necessity that does not militate, in the least degree, against the accountability of man. They must have been absolute, or no being could possibly have existed.
III. The thoughts and purposes of the Almighty are INFINITELY GLORIOUS; in other words, are infinitely worthy of Himself. It is in the fulfilment of His own thoughts and purposes that He develops all the beauty of His own perfections; it is in the development of all the beauty of His own perfections, that He confers every good on the creature. Take two axioms in divinity. All good is from God–all evil is from the creature. Do justice to these truths, and they will, as two keys, unlock some of the most difficult passages in Scripture.
IV. The purpose of God is REPLETE WITH LOVE AND TENDERNESS. The sovereign purpose of God, properly speaking, involves nothing but good. Evil is to be traced to another source. But what does it comprise chiefly? A Saviour. We were suffered to fall into the deepest guilt, that God might display His glory to the utmost in our salvation. (W. Howels.)
Gods purposes must be fulfilled
The wheels in a watch or a clock move contrary one to another, someone way, and some another, yet all serve the intent of the workman, to show the time, or to make the clock to strike. So in the world the providence of God may seem to run cross to His promises. One man takes this way, another runs that way. Good men go one way, wicked men another. Yet all in conclusion accomplish the will, and centre in the purpose of God, the great Creator of all things. (R. Sibbes, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
I will not repent of this threatening, as I did of that against Nineveh, Jon 3:4,10. And this solemn oath is added to confirm the faith of Gods people, because otherwise the destruction of this vast and mighty empire might seem incredible. But it is to be diligently observed, that this verse doth not only concern this present prophecy of Babylons destruction by the Medes and Persians, but is also to be extended unto the foregoing prophecy concerning the overthrow of Sennacherib and the Assyrian host, Isa 10, as appears by the next verse, where the sum of that prophecy is repeated. Nor is this any digression, but very pertinent to the main design and business of this chapter; inasmuch as the overthrow of that great Assyrian host, and of the deliverance of Gods people at that time, was a pledge of the certain accomplishment of that future destruction of the city and empire of Babylon, and of their deliverance out of that captivity.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
24. In this verse the Lord’sthought (purpose) stands in antithesis to the Assyrians’thoughts (Isa 10:7). (SeeIsa 46:10; Isa 46:11;1Sa 15:29; Mal 3:6).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying,…. The Septuagint only read, “these things saith the Lord of hosts”; for, as Kimchi on the place observes, his word is his oath; but for the comfort of his people, and for the confirmation either of the prophecies concerning the fall of Babylon, or of the following concerning the destruction of the Assyrian monarchy, or both, he adds his oath to his word, to show that the sentence passed in his mind, and now expressed, was irrevocable:
surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; as he had shaped and schemed it, and drew the form and image in his own mind, or fixed and settled it there, so should it be done in due time, as every thing is that is determined by the Lord; and this shows that nothing is casual, or comes by chance, but everything as it is purposed of God; and that as everything comes to pass which he has resolved, so every such resolution proceeds from thought, and is the produce of the highest wisdom and prudence:
and as I have purposed, so it shall stand; or “counselled” l; within himself, for he does all things according to the counsel of his will; and which always stands firm, sure, and unalterable, let what devices soever be in the heart of man.
l “consului”, Montanus, Cocceius; “consilium inivi”, Junius Tremellius “consultavi”, Piscator.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
There now follows, apparently out of all connection, another prophecy against Asshur. It is introduced here quite abruptly, like a fragment; and it is an enigma how it got here, and what it means here, though not an enigma without solution. This short Assyrian passage reads as follows. “Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, that takes place; to break Asshur to pieces in my land, and upon my mountain will I tread him under foot: then his yoke departs from them, and his burden will depart from their neck. This is the purpose that is purposed over the whole earth; and this the hand that is stretched out over all nations. For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who could bring it to nought? And His hand that is stretched out, who can turn it back?” It is evidently a totally different judicial catastrophe which is predicted here, inasmuch as the world-power upon which it falls is not called Babel or Chasdim, but Asshur, which cannot possibly be taken as a name for Babylon (Abravanel, Lowth, etc.). Babylon is destroyed by the Medes, whereas Asshur falls to ruin in the mountain-land of Jehovah, which it is seeking to subjugate – a prediction which was literally fulfilled. And only when this had taken place did a fitting occasion present itself for a prophecy against Babel, the heiress of the ruined Assyrian power. Consequently the two prophecies against Babel and Asshur form a hysteron-proteron as they stand here. The thought which occasioned this arrangement, and which it is intended to set forth, is expressed by Jeremiah in Jer 50:18-19, “Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria.” The one event was a pledge of the other. At a time when the prophecy against Assyria had actually been fulfilled, the prophet attached it to the still unfulfilled prophecy against Babylon, to give a pledge of the fulfilment of the latter. This was the pedestal upon which the Massah Babel was raised. And it was doubly suited for this, on account of its purely epilogical tone from Isa 14:26 onwards.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Doom of the Assyrians; The Doom of the Philistines. | B. C. 726. |
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, Heb 6:17; Heb 6:18. 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, Luke ii. 1, 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,Zec 12:3; Zec 12:6. 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, Exod. xxiii. 22. 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, v. 28. 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, 2 Chron. xxvi. 6. 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 (2 Chron. xxviii. 18), 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. 2 Kings xviii. 8, 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, v. 30. “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, Jdg 5:16; Jdg 5:17. 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, Ps. cxxvi. 2. (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, Zep 3:12; Zep 3:13. 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 (Ps. lxxxvii. 1), 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.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Verse 24-27: ORACLE CONCERNING ASSYRIA
1. The Lord has sworn that His plan and purpose will not be thwarted; it will be fulfilled, (Verse 24; Isa 46:10; Psa 33:11; Pro 21:30; comp. Act 2:23; Act 4:28; Eph 1:11; Heb 6:17; Rom 11:33-36).
2. He has purposed to “break the Assyrian” (Isa 10:12; Isa 30:31; Isa 31:8; Isa 37:7; Isa 37:36-38) in the land of promise – Jehovah’s own land, (Verse 25a; Eze 38:21; Eze 39:2; Eze 39:4).
3. When the Lord accomplishes this purpose the yoke of the Assyrian will be broken – liberating His people from bondage and servitude, (Verse 25b; cf. Isa 9:4; Isa 10:27; Nah 1:13).
4. The Lord has a definite purpose for the whole earth, (Isa 23:9; Zep 3:6-9); His outstretched hand will truly bring judgment to the nations, (Exo 15:6; Exo 15:12; etc.).
5. His purpose cannot-be annulled – nor shall any successfully resist His outstretched hand, (Verse 27; Isa 43:13; 2Ch 20:6; Dan 4:24-35).
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn. For more full confirmation an oath was necessary. There is nothing of which it is more difficult to convince us than that wicked men will immediately be ruined, when we see them flourishing, and furnished with all means of defense, and seemingly placed out of danger, and free from all fear. We are therefore stunned by beholding them, and are dazzled by their brightness, so that we can scarcely believe God when he foretells their ruin and destruction. On this account he employs an oath, that he may leave no room for doubt. Hence we learn how great is his forbearance towards us, when he aids our weakness by applying this remedy, for otherwise he might have been satisfied with simply declaring it. This tends to the consolation of the godly, as we shall afterwards see. (Isa 22:14.)
If it hath not been as I thought. The elliptical form of an oath which he employs must be well known, for it occurs frequently in Scripture. The Lord purposely used this guarded language, that we might not be too free in the use of oaths, which burst from us daringly and at random. He suppresses the greater part of the oath. “If I shall not do what I have decreed, let men think that I am a liar, and let them not think that I am God;” or something of this kind (which we shudder to express) is left to be supplied. Men ought, therefore, to lay a bridle on themselves, so as not to break out at random into imprecations, or to pronounce shocking curses against themselves; but let them learn from this to restrain their insolence.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(24) The Lord of hosts hath sworn . . .The long oracle of Babylon is followed by a fragmentary prophecy against Assyria (Isa. 14:24-27), possibly misplaced, possibly, as opening with a solemn asseveration, like that of the preceding verse, added by way of proof, that the word of the Lord of Hosts would be fulfilled on Babylon, as it had been on Assyria, with which, indeed, Babylon was closely connectedalmost, perhaps, identifiedin his thoughts.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
24, 25. A change is here made from the prophetic scene in the distance, to a nearer view: to that of the Assyrian power with which Judah is more or less to be concerned for a hundred or more years before reaching the Babylonian era. This is done either to make the events predicted of Assyria accredit those predicted of Babylon, or to assure the prophet’s own generation of Jews that God is as interested to protect them from Assyria as he is to deliver the coming generations from Babylon.
I have sworn To this God’s oath is interposed.
I will break the Assyrian To Isaiah this event is quite in the near future, and Sennacherib is the prominent sufferer.
In my land So claimed Lev 25:23. Immanuel’s land, Isa 8:8.
My mountains Isa 49:11; Isa 65:9.
Yoke burden Same as in Isa 9:4; Isa 10:27. In this land and upon these mountains Assyria virtually fell to pieces for a season, so far forth as Jerusalem was concerned, in the destruction of Sennacherib’s army. See the vision of this event in Isa 10:33-34. If further words be necessary as to the allusion again to Assyria, and just in this place, they may be to this effect: The fate of both Assyria and Babylon were, in the absolute sense, in far future to Isaiah. The prophecy against Assyria had, in partial form, already gone forth. The foregoing prophecy against Babylon is complete. As a pledge of its fulfilment the matter of these two verses is placed here, in accordance with assurances common to the prophets, as appears in Jer 50:18, “Behold, I will punish the king of Babylon and his land, as I have punished the king of Assyria.” The purpose and certainty against Assyria are a pledge for the purpose and certainty against Babylon. There is another view less probable, but having plausibility, namely, that Isaiah quite survived what seemed the assured fate of Assyria, and then himself confidently appended these verses as God’s pledge against Babylon, thus reaffirming predictions against Assyria formerly made.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Judgment on Assyria ( Isa 14:24-27 ).
But the reader is asking, what of Assyria? Thus Assyria is dealt with briefly and for the last time judgmentwise in this section. To Isaiah it is of no more consequence. But the picture of the destruction of Babylon reminds him that Assyria must also be destroyed. Its days are numbered (even though its empire would last for another hundred years) until it is ready to worship Yahweh (Isa 19:23-24).
Analysis of Isa 14:24-27.
a Yahweh of hosts has sworn saying, “Surely as I have thought, so will it come about, and as I have purposed, so will it stand” (Isa 14:24).
b “That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and on my mountain tread him under foot” (Isa 14:25 a).
b Then his yoke will depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder (Isa 14:25 b).
a This is the purpose which is purposed on the whole earth (or ‘land’), and this is the hand that is stretched out on all the nations. For Yahweh of hosts has purposed, and who will disannul it, and His hand is stretched out and who will turn it back?
In ‘a’ Yahweh’s purpose is stated, and in the parallel the fact that He has purposed it and it is His purpose is repeated threefold stressing that it is so. In ‘b’ the Assyrian is to be broken and trodden underfoot, and the result will be that that his yoke is removed from them, and the burden of him removed from His people’s shoulders.
Isa 14:24-25
‘Yahweh of hosts has sworn saying,
“Surely as I have thought, so will it come about,
And as I have purposed, so will it stand,
That I will break the Assyrian in my land,
And on my mountain tread him under foot.
Then his yoke will depart from off them,
And his burden depart from off their shoulder.”
Isaiah now declares God’s thoughts and purpose for Assyria, certain because sworn by an oath. What God thinks concerning Assyria will become fact, what God purposes will become a reality. The thought (or plan) refers to the initial idea, the purpose to its worked out fulfilment. And His thought and purpose are that He is about to break the Assyrian in His own land, in Judah. Assyria had presumptuously invaded God’s land and trodden on His mountain (the central highlands are regularly called ‘the mountain’ in Scripture – e.g. Exo 15:17; Psa 78:54). Now God would break him and tread him underfoot, and it would be in His land because of his effrontery in so behaving towards God’s land. Thus would Judah’s burden be removed, the yoke would be removed from his shoulder (compare Isa 10:27). They would no longer be subservient to Assyria.
In about 701 BC this was fulfilled when Assyria’s might was indeed broken in God’s land by the mysterious death of a large proportion of its army as they were investing Jerusalem and Libnah (Isa 37:36) which resulted in the Assyrian retreat. So much for their previous derision about what Yahweh could do (Isa 36:18-20).
Isa 14:26-27
‘This is the purpose which is purposed on the whole earth (or ‘land’),
And this is the hand that is stretched out on all the nations.
For Yahweh of hosts has purposed, and who will disannul it,
And his hand is stretched out and who will turn it back?’
As he does regularly Isaiah now speaks universally (that is, universally in the terms of his day). God is not just concerned for His own land. The whole earth is His. Thus all the known earth will be affected, and His hand will be stretched out on all nations. Thus Assyria is doomed and will finally be totally broken. No one can prevent it for it is Yahweh’s purpose and will be accomplished by His hand which no one can turn back once it has begun to act. And that will be the end of Assyria.
Note ‘the purpose which is purposed — for Yahweh has purposed’, a threefold emphasis on the fact that this is the purpose of Yahweh. His people need not fear. Assyria may appear invulnerable, but not in the face of Yahweh’s purposing.
The brevity of this whole declaration emphasises its certainty. Assyria is already doomed, and can be dismissed in a couple of sentences.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Isa 14:24-27. The Lord of Hosts hath sworn This period, though of a peculiar and different, is not of a totally foreign argument: it contains the epilogue and conclusion of the foregoing prophesy. As what the prophet foretold concerning the destruction of Babylon might justly seem great beyond expectation, he was desirous that the truth of the prediction should be collected from another remarkable and not dissimilar divine judgment, which should precede the completion of this prophesy; namely, the wonderful slaughter which the king of Assyria should meet with in Canaan itself, as an example of the divine indignation, and a pledge of the truth of similar predictions, denouncing the destruction of the enemies of the people of God. This is the scope and sense of the present period; which moreover contains a preface or introduction to the divine oath, and the subject matter of that oath; Isa 14:24-25 together with the basis and foundation of it, the divine purpose and power; Isa 14:26-27. And no one can doubt of the completion of this prophesy, who reads the account of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army. See chap. 36: and 37: Vitringa has annexed to his explanation of the letter of this prophesy, an account of the mystical sense of it; which he considers as referring to the spiritual Babylon or papal power. See 2Th 2:4 and the book of Revelation.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
II. PROPHECIES RELATING TO ASSYRIA AND TO THE NATIONS THREATENED BY ASSYRIA, PHILISTIA, MOAB, SYRIA, AND ARAM-EPHRAIM, ETHIOPIA AND EGYPT
Isa 14:24 to Isa 20:6
a) Prophecy against Assyria
Isa 14:24-27
We have explained above why the prophecy against Assyria occupies the second place and after the one against Babylon. A prophecy against Assyria could not be omitted. It was necessary as a background to the prophecies that follow. But it needed only to be a short one. For the Prophet is sensible that the power of Assyria is shattered by the overthrow of Sennacheribtherefore fore that, in a prophetic sense, it is in principle a thing done away. But to Assyria and the other nations named in the superscription above, the Prophet does not proclaim merely temporal destruction. He sets before all more or less plainly the prospect of partaking of the Messianic salvation of the future.
____________________
24The Lord of hosts hath sworn, saying,
Surely as I have thought, so 35shall it come to pass;
And as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
2536That 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.
26This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth:
And this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations.
27For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?
37And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa 14:24. in the sense of animo componere, to dispose in thought, only again Isa 10:7; moreover the Prophet seems to have had in mind in this place, Num 33:56.The Perfect expresses the coincidence of the realization with the thought. No sooner said than done, i.e., as God conceives a thought, it is also (as to principle) realized. The following imperf. has then the meaning that what is, as to principle, realized, must arise, set up as actual, outward circumstance. Before the is not repeated, but is used, evidently for the sake of variety. The thought is essentially the same. It is a sort of Anacoluthon and are used as in Isa 7:7; Isa 8:10.
Isa 14:25. The infin. depends on the oath-clause Isa 14:24 b; what is determined shall be fulfilled frangendo Assyrios, etc. is therefore inf. modalis or gerundivus.With (comp. Isa 14:19; Isa 63:6; Isa 63:18) the language returns from the infinitive construction to the verbum fin., according to a frequent Hebrew usage.The suffixes in and have nothing to which they can relate in the words of Isa 14:24-25.Moreover from Isa 14:4 onwards, Israel is not referred to. True, in Isa 14:1-2, Israel is likewise spoken of in the third person, and with quite similar suffixes ( Isa 14:1, , Isa 14:2); but then Isa 14:3 intervenes, in which Israel is spoken of in the second person. It must, therefore, be assumed that the suffixes Isa 14:25 refer back, not only over the entire Maschal (423), but also away over Isa 14:3 to Isa 14:1-2, and that these verses originated, not at the same time with the rest of the prophecy against Babylon, but much earlier. All this is very improbable. I cannot therefore agree with Vitringa and Drechsler, but must side with the view, that the present verses are a fragment of a greater prophecy for Israel of a comforting nature, which, however, cannot be identical with 712 because in these Assyria is regarded in a totally different light from that which appears in the present verses.
Isa 14:27. comp. Isa 8:10. [This has been variously translated scatter (LXX.), weaken (Vulg.), avert (Luth.), dissolve (Calvin), change (J. D. Michaelis), hinder (Gesen.), break (Ewald [Naegelsb.]); but its true sense is that given in the Eng. Version and by De Wette (vereiteln) [see Fuerst Lex.]. The meaning of the last clause is not simply that his hand is stretched out, as most writers give it, but that the hand stretched out is his, as appears from the article prefixed to the participle . (See Gesen. 108, 3. Ewald, 560.J. A. A.].
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. Whoever reads the prophecies of Isaiah against the heathen nations with attention, must feel surprise that in them, there is relatively little more said about Assyria. After occupying in 712 the foreground, it retreats in 13 and onward into the background. On the other hand Babylon now stands front and the Prophet recognizes in it the representative of the perfectly developed world-power that has attained to the exclusive possession of dominion. Now the question arises: how are Assyria and Babylon related? What becomes of Assyria if now Babylon is called the world-power? How is it to be explained that according to Isa 10:24-27 Israel at the end of days is delivered out of bondage to Assyria, if at that end-period not Assyria but Babylon stands at the summit of the world-power? These questions are solved by the short section before us, Isa 14:24-27. It appears therein that in the immediate future Assyria must be destroyed, that, therefore, Israel may expect deliverance from the yoke of Assyria in a brief season, but that therewith Israel is neither delivered forever, nor is the world-power for ever broken up. But Babylon walks in the footsteps of Assyria; and if in 712 the world-power appeared solely under the name of Assyria, it happened only because the Prophet could not then distinguish that which followed Assyria from Assyria itself, and therefore comprehended it under one name.
2. The Lord of hoststurn it back.
Isa 14:24-27. Drechsler attaches great weight to the fact that the phrase the Lord of hosts hath sworn, is preceded by a thrice repeated saith the Lord of hosts, Isa 14:22-23. He says the former is only a climax of these latter. He lays stress, too, on the fact that the thrice repeated Lord of hosts of Isa 14:22-23 has its correlative in the double use of the same in Isa 14:24; Isa 14:27, and that the same words which in Isa 14:23 conclude the proper body of the discourse, in Isa 14:24 begin the appendix. He, therefore, regards Isa 14:24-27 as an integral part of the discourse that extends through Isa 13:1 to Isa 14:27, and therefore as having originated at the same time. But that is impossible. The words Isa 14:24-27 must be older than, the catastrophe of Sennacherib before Jerusalem, for they foretell it. But the prophecy against Babylon Isa 13:1 to Isa 14:23 must be much more recent, for it is the product of a much higher and, therefore, of a much later prophetic knowledge [? Tr.]. If, too, in the points named there appears a certain correspondence, yet it remains very much a question whether that is intentional. The expressions in question, so far as they correspond, occur exceedingly often in all sorts of connections.
The expression the Lord hath sworn is especially frequent in Deuteronomy, but always with the Dative of the person whom the oath concerns (Deu 1:8; Deu 2:14; Deu 4:31, etc.). In Isaiah it occurs again, Isa 45:23; Isa 54:9; Isa 62:8.The contents of the oath is: as I have thought so shall it stand.
[From the distant view of the destruction of Babylon, the Prophet suddenly reverts to that of the Assyrian host, either for the purpose of making one of these events accredit the prediction of the other, or for the purpose of assuring true believers, that while God had decreed the deliverance of the people from remoter dangers, He would also protect them from those at hand.On the formula of swearing vide supra, v. 9.Kimchi explains to be a preterite used for a future, and this construction is adopted in most versions, ancient and modern. It is, however, altogether arbitrary and in violation of the only safe rule as to the use of tenses, viz., that they should have their proper and distinctive force, unless forbidden by the context, or the nature of the subject; which is very far from being the case here.The true force of the preterite and future forms, as here employed, is recognized by Aben Ezra, who explains the clause to mean that according to Gods purpose, it has come to pass and will come to pass hereafter. The antithesis is rendered still more prominent by Jarchi, by whom this verse is paraphrased as followsThou hast seen, oh Nebuchadnezzar, how the words of the prophets of Israel have been fulfilled in Sennacherib, to break Assyria in my land, and by this thou mayest know that what I have purposed against thee shall also come to pass (comp. Eze 31:3-18).The only objection to this view is that the next verse goes on to speak of the Assyrian overthrow, which would seem to imply that the last clause of this verse (24) as well as the first relates to that event. Another method of expounding the verse, therefore, is to apply and to the same events, but in a somewhat different sense,As I intended it has come to pass, and as I purposed, it shall continue. The Assyrian power is already broken, and shall never be restored. This strict interpretation of the preterite does not necessarily imply that the prophecy was actually uttered after the destruction of Sennacheribs army. Such would indeed be the natural inference from this verse alone: but for reasons which will be explained below, [viz., in comment on Isa 14:26.Tr.] it is more probable that the Prophet merely takes his stand in vision at a point of time between the two events of which he speaks, so that both verbs are really prophetic, the one of a remote the other of a proximate futurity, but for that very reason their distinctive forms should be retained and recognized. Yet the only modern writers who appear to do so in translation are Calvin and Cocceius, who have factum est, and J. D. Michaelis, who has ist geschehen.J. J. A. So also substantially Barnes.]
In my land and on my mountain the Lord says. Therefore not in his own land or some other land, but in Palestine the annihilating blow shall fall on Assyria. This evidently points to the overthrow of Sennacherib before Jerusalem (2Ki 19:35; Isa 37:36). Though even after this overthrow Assyrias power did not at once appear broken, still it was such inwardly and in principle. As much as Nebuchadnezzar after his victory at Carchemish was ruler of the world, though outwardly he had not that appearance (Jeremiah 25), so Assyria, after the Lord had smitten him in his territory, from the view-point of God, and according to inward and divine reality, was broken to pieces and trodden down.The consequence of that overthrow of Assyria is that Israel shall be freed from his dominion.
The words his yoke shall depart,etc. sound essentially the same as Isa 10:27. Other resemblances are of Isa 14:24 to Isa 7:5; Isa 7:7; Isa 8:10; Isa 10:7; Isa 14:25 to Isa 9:3; Isa 10:27; Isa 14:26 to Isa 9:11; Isa 9:16; Isa 9:20; Isa 10:4; Isa 11:11; Isa 14:27 to Isa 8:10. But much as Isa 14:24-27 remind one of chapts. 712, there is still this essential difference, that in the last named chapters there is no where a prophecy of an overthrow of Assyria in the holy land itself. In general the gaze of the Prophet in those chapters is directed to a much more remote distance. There he looks on Assyria still as representative of the world-power generally, and thus, too, Assyrias overthrow coincides for him with the overthrow of the world-power in general by the Messiah. Here we encounter a look into the immediate future. It must belong to the time before the defeat of Sennacherib. Therefore our verses cannot belong originally to the prophecy against Babylon. [See above in Text. and Gram.].
When the Prophet (Isa 14:26) declares that the catastrophe predicted for Assyria is significant for the whole earth, and for all nations, he does it by reason of the connection that exists between all acts of the Godhead. That defeat of Sennacherib, too, is an integral moment of the decree that the Lord has determined concerning the whole earth, and all nations. This counsel of God stands so firm that no power of the world can hinder its execution; the hand which the Lord has stretched out to do this execution nothing can turn aside from its doing.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. How grand is the Prophets contemplation of history! How the mighty Assyria shrivels up, which in chapters 712, played so great a part! Only a line or so is devoted to it here, Das macht, es ist gericht, eir Wrtlein bann es fllen. The Prophet knows that Sennacheribs defeat before Jerusalem is at once the overthrow of the Assyrian world-power, and the deliverance of Israel from his yoke, although Assyria stood yet a hundred years and did harm enough to Judah still (2Ch 33:11). But God always sees the essence of things. What He wills, comes to pass; and when it has happened, perhaps no one knows what that which has come to pass means: only the future makes it plain. The fruit germ frosted in the blossom, may remain green for days. Only by degrees it becomes yellow, then black, and evidently dead.
[By this assurance (Isa 14:24-27) God designed to comfort His people, when they should be in Babylon in a long and dreary captivity. Comp. Psalms 137. And by the same consideration His people may be comforted in all times. His plans shall stand. None can disannul them. No arm has power to resist Him. None of the schemes formed against Him shall ever prosper. Whatever ills, therefore, may befall His people; however thick, gloomy, and sad their calamities may be; and however dark His dispensations may appear, yet they may have the assurance that all His plans are wise, and that they all shall stand.Barnes].
Footnotes:
[35]it has come to pass.
[36]To break.
[37]And his is the hand that is stretched out.
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Isa 14:24 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:
Ver. 24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn. ] If he had but said it only it had been sure enough, for he cannot lie, he cannot deny himself; but when he sweareth anything we may build upon it, especially since he is Lord of hosts. He can do more than he will, but whatsoever he willeth shall undoubtedly be done; for what should hinder? Iuravit Iehovah, is the best assurance.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
as = according as.
thought = intended.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Isa 14:24-27
Isa 14:24-27
PROPHECY AGAINST ASSYRIA
Some writers love to refer to this brief paragraph as “a fragment”; but it is no such thing. It is merely the inspired prophet’s manner of revealing God’s Word to men, “here a little, there a little, line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, line upon line, etc.” See the Introduction.
“Jehovah of hosts hath sworn, saying, Surely, as I have thought, so shall it surely come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand: that I will break the Assyrian in my hand, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulder. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth; and this is the hand that it stretched out upon all the nations. For Jehovah of hosts hath purposed, and who shall annul it? and his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?”
God’s promise here that he would “break the Assyrian” came at the very zenith of Assyrian domination; and the complete, astounding fulfillment of it came very swiftly after the promise was revealed, so that the rapid fulfillment became a pledge of the ultimate fulfillment of the promised doom of Babylon. The date usually given for this little prophecy is about 713 B.C. The date of its fulfillment in the destruction of Sennacherib’s army was 701 B.C.
The common view that this brief paragraph is merely a summary or repetition of the previous prophecies about Assyria is incorrect. “The new thing in the prophecy here is the information that God `hath sworn’ to destroy Assyria. This conforms to the usual pattern observed in Holy Scripture.
Isa 14:24-27 ASSYRIAS DEMISE: Assyria and Babylon were world- engulfing empires. They were representatives of mankind in rebellion against Gods rule of the earth and man. Man, in sin and rebellion, is carrying out a war against Gods sovereignty. Man, by force or by persuasive falsehood, attempts to rule this terrestrial planet and its occupants. God has vowed that He will not permit this to happen. Man may rule in subservience to and in harmony with Gods sovereignty but man must conform to the revealed will of God and enter into covenant relationship with Him to receive this honor of ruling with God. Gods program for providing man with co-rulership would be to establish His kingdom here upon the earth (the church). When men willingly become members of His kingdom He assures them they have entered a kingdom that will be victorious over all rebellious kingdoms of man and will rule with Him. God demonstrated time after time that He has the power to deal with His enemies and did deal with them. So God defeating Babylon and Assyria (and numerous other pagan nations) literally and historically is a typical and symbolic message as well as a literal account. The typical message is that God will keep His word to defeat all His enemies and give rule to His kingdom. Actually, as Revelation portrays, the old dragon, Satan, is the leader of all of mankinds rebellion. Satans war against God is joined and executed on the earth by godless political forces, godless materialism and sensuality and by godless religion. Through the centuries God proves again and again He and His saints will be the ultimate victors. What His saints must do is believe Him! When has history ever proven God to fail? !
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
In this section we have three prophecies: concerning Assyria ( Isa 14:24-27), concerning Philistia (Isa 14:28-32), and the commencement of one concerning Moab (15). This fragment concerning Assyria consists of the reaffirmation of Jehovah’s intention to break its power. The oath of Jehovah is declared, and its irrevocable certainty affirmed.
The fragment concerning Philistia is of the nature of a warning spoken to her. Although she oppresses the people of God, she is herself in peril. She is not to rejoice because the rod that smote her is broken, for there are other forces at the disposal of Jehovah, and they threaten Philistia.
The prophecy concerning Moab commences by describing her desolation. A catastrophe will overtake her in a night, the result of which will be the mourning of her people, and their scattering far and wide. In this chapter, moreover, we have an incidental record of the death of Ahaz.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Lord: Exo 17:16, Psa 110:4, Jer 44:26, Amo 8:7, Heb 4:3, Heb 6:16-18
Surely: Isa 46:10, Isa 46:11, Job 23:13, Psa 33:10, Psa 92:5, Pro 19:21, Pro 21:30, Jer 23:20, Jer 29:11, Lam 3:37, Mat 11:25, Act 4:28, Eph 1:9
Reciprocal: Gen 41:32 – it is because Exo 14:23 – General 1Ki 11:40 – Solomon sought Psa 33:11 – The counsel Isa 10:12 – when the Lord Isa 10:16 – the Lord of hosts Isa 10:25 – For yet Isa 19:17 – because Isa 23:9 – Lord Jer 4:28 – because Jer 25:28 – Ye Jer 30:24 – fierce Jer 44:28 – shall know Jer 49:20 – the counsel Jer 50:45 – hear Jer 51:29 – every Eze 12:25 – I will Dan 4:24 – the decree Dan 4:35 – and he Amo 3:6 – shall there Nah 1:12 – Through Zec 8:14 – As Rom 9:11 – that the Eph 3:11 – General 1Th 5:24 – who Heb 6:17 – the immutability
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Isa 14:24-27. The Lord of hosts hath sworn, &c. Here begins another prophecy against the Assyrians, which was to be fulfilled much sooner than the foregoing, even in the life-time of the prophet. But, though of a peculiar and different, it is not of a totally foreign argument: it contains the epilogue and conclusion of the foregoing prophecy. As what the prophet foretold concerning the destruction of Babylon might justly seem great beyond expectation, he was desirous that the truth of the prediction should be collected from another remarkable and not dissimilar divine judgment, which should precede the completion of this prophecy, namely, the wonderful slaughter which the king of Assyria should meet with in Canaan itself, as an example of the divine indignation, and a pledge of the truth of similar predictions denouncing the destruction of the enemies of the people of God. And here, to give his people greater assurance of the accomplishment of this prediction, and thereby to confirm their faith in it, and all other prophecies which his prophet was commissioned to deliver, God adds his solemn oath; saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass, that I will break the Assyrian Sennacherib and his Assyrian army; in my land In Judea, which was Gods land in a peculiar sense, chosen by him, and inhabited by his people; and upon my mountains tread him under foot In my mountainous country, for such Judea was, especially about Jerusalem, where his army was destroyed; then shall his yoke depart, &c. See on Isa 10:27. This the purpose upon the whole earth Upon this vast empire, now in the hands of the Assyrians, and shortly to come into the hands of the Babylonians; and this is the hand, &c. The providence of God executing his purpose.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Isa 14:24-27. The Destruction of Assyria.This is usually regarded as a genuine fragment by Isaiah, asserting, as in Isa 10:5-34, the approaching destruction of Assyria in Palestine, and uttered probably not long before Sennacheribs invasion in 701. Some take it to be post-exilic, mainly on the ground that, just as in the later eschatology, the judgment is to be inflicted on all the nations, while Isaiah limits his view to a much narrower horizon. It is also said to be put together out of Isaianic phrases. It is true that numerous parallels occur in the other prophecies, but the piece is so free and vigorous in style, that it does not make the impression of having been composed by a mere copyist. Nor was it possible for the Assyrian Empire to be broken up without affecting the other nations in a vital and far-reaching way. The view taken of a fragment like this necessarily depends to a large extent on the attitude adopted to some of the larger critical questions raised by the book.
Yahweh has sworn to accomplish His purpose of breaking Assyria to pieces in the mountainous land of Palestine. It is a purpose of world-wide import, and, since Yahweh has decreed it, none will be able to thwart His design.
Isa 14:25 a. The destruction takes place in Yahwehs land, that it may be plain to the world that Yahweh has accomplished it. It was a common feature in Apocalyptic that the judgment on the nations should take place before Jerusalem.
Isa 14:25 b. Perhaps a gloss. We are not told whom the prophet means by them. If the passage is original here, this should have been clearly expressed. We naturally think of the people of Judah as in the writers mind, but the next verse contemplates a wider field. Besides, Isa 14:26 connects better with Isa 14:25 a than with Isa 14:25 b. It is very similar to Isa 10:27 (cf. Isa 9:4), and may have been written on the margin and then admitted to the text.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
This section of the oracle particularizes the judgment of Babylon in Isaiah’s day. Here we see the exemplification and validation of God’s universal purpose to judge human hubris that the prophet earlier declared (Isa 13:2-16). The particular manifestation of Babylonian pride that threatened Israel when Isaiah wrote was Assyria.
"Having announced the downfall of the Chaldean empire, the LORD appends to this prophecy a solemn reminder that the Assyrians, the major Mesopotamian power of Isaiah’s day, would be annihilated, foreshadowing what would subsequently happen to Babylon and the other hostile nations." [Note: The NET Bible note on 14:24.]
Yahweh of armies proceeded to swear that what He had purposed would happen (cf. Heb 6:13-14), namely, the destruction of Assyria (Isa 14:24). A stronger assurance is hard to imagine. God would defeat the Assyrians in His land, the Promised Land (cf. Isa 37:36-37). He would break the Assyrian yoke off of His people, and thus remove the burden that the Assyrians were to the Israelites (Isa 14:25; cf. Isa 9:3; Isa 10:27). This would be representative of what He would do to the whole world in judging sin and pride in the future (Isa 14:26). No one would be able to turn aside His hand stretched out in judgment because He is God Almighty (Isa 14:27; cf. Isa 13:2).
The near fulfillment came in 701 B.C. when the angel of the Lord slew 185,000 Assyrian soldiers who had surrounded Jerusalem (Isa 37:36-37). Later fulfillments came in 689 B.C., when the Assyrians under Sennacherib sacked Babylon, and in 539 B.C., when Cyrus the Persian destroyed it.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER XVII
ISAIAH TO THE FOREIGN NATIONS
736-702 B.C.
Isa 14:24-32; Isa 15:1-9; Isa 16:1-14; Isa 17:1-14; Isa 18:1-7; Isa 19:1-25; Isa 20:1-6; Isa 21:1-17; Isa 23:1-18
THE centre of the Book of Isaiah (chapters 13 to 23) is occupied by a number of long and short prophecies which are a fertile source of perplexity to the conscientious reader of the Bible. With the exhilaration of one who traverses plain roads and beholds vast prospects, he has passed through the opening chapters of the book as far as the end of the twelfth; and he may look forward to enjoying a similar experience when he reaches those other clear stretches of vision from the twenty-fourth to the twenty-seventh and from the thirtieth to the thirty-second. But here he loses himself among a series of prophecies obscure in themselves and without obvious relation to one another. The subjects of them are the nations, tribes, and cities with which in Isaiahs day, by war or treaty or common fear in face of the Assyrian conquest, Judah was being brought into contact. There are none of the familiar names of the land and tribes of Israel which meet the reader in other obscure prophecies and lighten their darkness with the face of a friend. The names and allusions are foreign, some of them the names of tribes long since extinct, and of places which it is no more possible to identify. It is a very jungle of prophecy, in which, without much Gospel or geographical light, we have to grope our way, thankful for an occasional gleam of the picturesque-a sandstorm in the desert, the forsaken ruins of Babylon haunted by wild beasts, a view of Egypts canals or Phoenicias harbours, a glimpse of an Arab raid or of a grave Ethiopian embassy.
But in order to understand the Book of Isaiah, in order to understand Isaiah himself in some of the largest of his activities and hopes; we must traverse this thicket. It would be tedious and unprofitable to search every corner of it. We propose, therefore, to give a list of the various oracles, with their dates and titles, for the guidance of Bible-readers, then to take three representative texts and gather the meaning of all the oracles round them.
First, however, two of the prophecies must be put aside. The twenty-second chapter does not refer to a foreign State, but to Jerusalem itself; and the large prophecy which opens the series (chapters 13-14:23) deals with the overthrow of Babylon in circumstances that did not arise till long after Isaiahs time, and so falls to be considered by us along with similar prophecies at the close of this volume. (See Book V)
All the rest of these chapters-14-21 and 23-refer to Isaiahs own day. They were delivered by the prophet at various times throughout his career; but the most of them evidently date from immediately after the year 705, when, on the death of Sargon, there was a general rebellion of the Assyrian vassals.
1. Isa 14:24-27 -OATH OF JEHOVAH that the Assyrian shall be broken. Probable date, towards 701.
2. Isa 14:28-32 -ORACLE FOR PHILISTIA. Warning to Philistia not to rejoice because one Assyrian king is dead, for a worse one shall arise: “Out of the serpents root shall come forth a basilisk. Philistia shall be melted away, but Zion shall stand.” The inscription to this oracle (Isa 14:28) is not genuine. The oracle plainly speaks of the death and accession of Assyrian, not Judaean, kings. It may be ascribed to 705, the date of the death of Sargon and accession of Sennacherib. But some hold that it refers to the previous change on the Assyrian throne-the death of Salmanassar and the accession of Sargon.
3 Isa 15:1-9 – Isa 16:12 -ORACLE FOR MOAB. A long prophecy against Moab. This oracle, whether originally by himself at an earlier period of his life, or more probably by an older prophet, Isaiah adopts and ratifies, and intimates its immediate fulfilment, in Isa 16:13-14 : “This is the word which Jehovah spake concerning Moab long ago. But now Jehovah hath spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, and the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt with all the great multitude, and the remnant shall be very small and of no account.” The dates both of the original publication of this prophecy and of its reissue with the appendix are quite uncertain. The latter may fall about 711, when Moab was threatened by Sargon for complicity in the Ashdod conspiracy or in 704, when, with other states, Moab came under the cloud of Sennacheribs invasion. The main prophecy is remarkable for its vivid picture of the disaster that has overtaken Moab and for the sympathy with her which the Jewish prophet expresses; for the mention of a “remnant” of Moab; for the exhortation to her to send tribute in her adversity “to the mount of the daughter of Zion”; {Isa 16:1} for an appeal to Zion to shelter the outcasts of Moab and to take up her cause: “Bring counsel, make a decision, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts, bewray not the wanderer;” for a statement of the Messiah similar to those in chapters 9 and 11; and for the offer to the oppressed Moabites of the security of Judah in Messianic times (Isa 16:4-5). But there is one great obstacle to this prospect of Moab lying down in the shadow of Judah-Moabs arrogance. “We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud,” {Isa 16:6, cf. Jer 48:29; Jer 48:42; Zep 2:10} which pride shall not only keep this country in ruin, but prevent the Moabites prevailing in prayer at their own sanctuary (Isa 16:12)-a very remarkable admission about the worship of another god than Jehovah.
4. Isa 17:1-11 -ORACLE FOR DAMASCUS. One of the earliest and most crisp of Isaiahs prophecies. Of the time of Syrias and Ephraims league against Judah, somewhere between 736 and 732.
5. Isa 17:12-14 -UNTITLED. The crash of the peoples upon Jerusalem and their dispersion. This magnificent piece of sound, which we analyse below, is usually understood of Sennacheribs rush upon Jerusalem. Isa 17:14 is an accurate summary of the sudden break-up and “retreat from Moscow” of his army. The Assyrian hosts are described as “nations,” as they are elsewhere more than once by Isaiah. {Isa 22:6; Isa 29:7} But in all this there is no final reason for referring the oracle to Sennacheribs invasion, and it may just as well be interpreted of Isaiahs confidence of the defeat of Syria and Ephraim (734-723). Its proximity to the oracle against Damascus would then be very natural, and it would stand as a parallel prophecy to Isa 8:9 : “Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of the distances of the earth: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces”-a prophecy which we know belongs to the period of the Syro-Ephraimitic league.
6. Isa 18:1-7 -UNTITLED. An address to Ethiopia, “land of a rustling of wings, land of many sails, whose messengers dart to and fro upon the rivers in their skiffs of reed.” The prophet tells Ethiopia, cast into excitement by the news of the Assyrian advance, how Jehovah is resting quietly till the Assyrian be ripe for destruction. When the Ethiopians shall see His sudden miracle they shall send their tribute to Jehovah, “to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, Mount Zion.” It is difficult to know to which southward march of Assyria to ascribe this prophecy-Sargons or Sennacheribs? For at the time of both of these an Ethiopian ruled Egypt.
7. Isa 19:1-25 -ORACLE FOR EGYPT. The first fifteen verses (Isa 19:1-15) describe judgment as ready to fall on the land of the Pharaohs. The last ten speak of the religious results to Egypt of that judgment, and they form the most universal and “missionary” of all Isaiahs prophecies. Although doubts have been expressed of the Isaiah authorship of the second half of this chapter on the score of its universalism, as well as of its literary style, which is judged to be “a pale reflection” of Isaiahs own, there is no final reason for declining the credit of it to Isaiah, while there are insuperable difficulties against relegating it to the late date which is sometimes demanded for it. On the date and authenticity of this prophecy, which are of great importance for the question of Isaiahs “missionary” opinions, see Cheynes introduction to the chapter and Robertson Smiths notes in “The Prophets of Israel” (p. 433). The latter puts it in 703, during Sennacheribs advance upon the south. The former suggests that the second half may have been written by the prophet much later than the first, and justly says, “We can hardly imagine a more swan-like end for the dying prophet.”
8. Isa 20:1-6 -UNTITLED. Also upon Egypt, but in narrative and of an earlier date than at least the latter half of chapter 19. Tells how Isaiah walked naked and barefoot in the streets of Jerusalem for a sign against Egypt and against the help Judah hoped to get from her in the years 711-709, when the Tartan, or Assyrian commander-in-chief, came south to subdue Ashdod.
9. Isa 21:1-10 -ORACLE FOR THE WILDERNESS OF THESEA, announcing but lamenting the fall of Babylon. Probably 709.
10. Isa 21:11-12 -ORACLE FOR DUMAH. Dumah, or Silence – Psa 94:17; Psa 115:17, “the land of the silence of death,” the grave – is probably used as an anagram for Edom and an enigmatic sign to the wise Edomites, in their own fashion, of the kind of silence their land is lying under-the silence of rapid decay. The prophet hears this silence at last broken by a cry. Edom cannot bear the darkness any more. “Unto me one is calling from Seir, Watchman, how much off the night? how much off the night? Said the watchman, Cometh the morning, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire, come back again.” What other answer is possible for a land on which the silence of decay seems to have settled down? He may, however, give them an answer later on, if they will come back. Date uncertain, perhaps between 704 and 701.
11. 21:13-17 -ORACLE FOR ARABIA. From Edom the prophet passes to their neighbours the Dedanites, travelling merchants. And as he saw night upon Edom, so, by a play upon words, he speaks of evening upon Arabia: “in the forest, in Arabia,” or with the same consonants, “in the evening.” In the time of the insecurity of the Assyrian invasion the travelling merchants have to go aside from their great trading roads “in the evening to lodge in the thickets.” There they entertain fugitives, or (for the sense is not quite clear) are themselves as fugitives entertained. It is a picture of the “grievousness of war,” which was now upon the world, flowing down even those distant, desert roads. But things have not yet reached the worst. The fugitives are but the heralds of armies, that “within a year” shall waste the “children of Kedar,” for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it. So did the prophet of little Jerusalem take possession of even the far deserts in the name of his nations God.
12. Isa 23:1-18 -ORACLE FOR TYRE. Elegy over its fall, probably as Sennacherib came south upon it in 703 or 702. To be further considered by us.
These, then, are Isaiahs oracles for the Nations, who tremble, intrigue, and go down before the might of Assyria.
We have promised to gather the circumstances and meaning of these prophecies round three representative texts. These are-
1. “Ah! the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of mighty waters they rush; nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He rebuketh it, and it fleeth afar off, and is chased like the chaff on the mountains before the wind and like whirling dust before the whirlwind.” {Isa 17:12-13}
2. “What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find refuge the afflicted of His people.” {Isa 14:32}
3. “In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be My people Egypt, and the work of My hands Assyria, and Mine inheritance Israel”. {Isa 19:24-25}
I.
The first of these texts shows all the prophets prospect filled with storm, the second of them the solitary rock and lighthouse in the midst of the storm: Zion, His own watchtower and His peoples refuge; while the third of them, looking far into the future, tells us, as it were, of the firm continent which shall rise out of the waters-Israel no longer a solitary lighthouse, “but in that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth.” These three texts give us a summary of the meaning of all Isaiahs obscure prophecies to the foreign nations-a stormy ocean, a solitary rock in the midst of it, and the new continent that shall rise out of the waters about the rock.
The restlessness of Western Asia beneath the Assyrian rule (from 719, when Sargons victory at Rafia extended that rule to the borders of Egypt) found vent, as we saw, in two great Explosions, for both of which the mine was laid by Egyptian intrigue. The first Explosion happened in 711, and was confined to Ashdod. The second took place on Sargons death in 705, and was universal. Till Sennacherib marched south on Palestine in 701, there were all over Western Asia hurryings to and fro, consultations and intrigues, embassies and engineerings from Babylon to Meroe in far Ethiopia, and from the tents of Kedar to the cities of the Philistines. For these Jerusalem, the one inviolate capital from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt, was the natural centre. And the one far-seeing, steady-hearted man in Jerusalem was Isaiah. We have already seen that there was enough within the city to occupy Isaiahs attention, especially from 705 onward; but for Isaiah the walls of Jerusalem, dear as they were and thronged with duty, neither limited his sympathies nor marked the scope of the gospel he had to preach. Jerusalem is simply his watchtower. His field-and this is the peculiar glory of the prophets later life-his field is the world.
How well fitted Jerusalem then was to be the worlds watchtower, the traveller may see to this day. The city lies upon the great central ridge of Palestine, at an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. If you ascend the hill behind the city, you stand upon one of the great view-points of the earth. It is a forepost of Asia. To the east rise the red hills of Moab and the uplands of Gilead and Bashan, on to which wandering tribes of the Arabian deserts beyond still push their foremost camps. Just beyond the horizon lie the immemorial paths from Northern Syria into Arabia. Within a few hours walk along the same central ridge, and still within the territory of Judah, you may see to the north, over a wilderness of blue hills, Hermons snowy crest; you know that Damascus is lying just beyond, and that through it and round the base of Hermon swings one of the longest of the old worlds highways-the main caravan road from the Euphrates to the Nile. Stand at gaze for a little, while down that road there sweep into your mind thoughts of the great empire whose troops and commerce it used to carry. Then, bearing these thoughts with you, follow the line of the road across the hills to the western coastland, and so out upon the great Egyptian desert, where you may wait till it has brought you imagination of the southern empire to which it travels. Then, lifting your eyes a little further, let them sweep back again from south to north, and you have the whole of the west, the new world, open to you, across the fringe of yellow haze that marks the sands of the Mediterranean. It is even now one of the most comprehensive prospects in the world. But in Isaiahs day, when the world was smaller, the high places of Judah either revealed or suggested the whole of it.
But Isaiah was more than a spectator of this vast theatre. He was an actor upon it. The court of Judah, of which during Hezekiahs reign he was the most prominent member, stood in more or less close connection with the courts of all the kingdoms of Western Asia; and in those days, when the nations were busy with intrigue against their common enemy, this little highland town and fortress became a gathering place of peoples. From Babylon, from far-off Ethiopia, from Edom, from Philistia, and no doubt from many other places also, embassies came to King Hezekiah, or to inquire of his prophet. The appearance of some of them lives for us still in Isaiahs descriptions: “tall and shiny” figures of Ethiopians {Isa 18:2}, with whom we are able to identify the lithe, silky-skinned, shining-black bodies of the present tribes of the Upper Nile. Now the prophet must have talked much with these strangers, for he displays a knowledge of their several countries and ways of life that is full and accurate. The agricultural conditions of Egypt; her social ranks and her industries (chapter 19); the harbours and markets of Tyre (chapter 23); the caravans of the Arab nomads, as in times of war they shun the open desert and seek the thickets {Isa 21:14} -Isaiah paints these for us with a vivid realism. We see how this statesman of the least of States, this prophet of a religion which was confessed over only a few square miles, was aware of the wide world, and how he loved the life that filled it. They are no mere geographical terms with which Isaiah thickly studs these prophecies. He looks out upon and paints for us, lands and cities surging with men-their trades, their castes, their religions, their besetting tempers and sins, their social structures and national policies, all quick and bending to the breeze and the shadow of the coming storm from the north.
We have said that in nothing is the legal power of our prophets style so manifest as in the vast horizons, which, by the use of a few words, he calls up before us. Some of the finest of these revelations are made in this part of his book, so obscure and unknown to most. Who can ever forget those descriptions-of Ethiopia in the eighteenth chapter?-“Ah! the land of the rustling of wings, which borders on the rivers of Cush, which sendeth heralds on the sea, and in vessels of reed on the face of the waters! Travel, fleet messengers, to a people lithe and shining, to a nation feared from ever it began to be, a people strong, strong and trampling, whose land the rivers divide”; or of Tyre in chapter 23?-“And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations.” What expanses of sea! what fleets of ships! what floating loads of grain! what concourse of merchants moving on stately wharves beneath high warehouses!
Yet these are only segments of horizons, and perhaps the prophet reaches the height of his power of expression in the first of the three texts, which we have given as representative of his prophecies on foreign nations. Here three or four lines of marvellous sound repeat the effect of the rage of the restless world as it rises, storms, and breaks upon the steadfast will of God. The phonetics of the passage are wonderful. The general impression is that of a stormy ocean booming in to the shore and then crashing itself out into one long hiss of spray and foam upon its barriers. The details are noteworthy. In Isa 17:12 we have thirteen heavy M-sounds, besides two heavy Bs, to five Ns, five Hs, and four sibilants. But in Isa 17:13 the sibilants predominate; and before the sharp rebuke of the Lord the great, booming sound of Isa 17:12 scatters out into a long yish-sha oon. The occasional use of a prolonged vowel amid so many hurrying consonants produces exactly the effect now of the lift of a storm swell out at sea and now of the pause of a great wave before it crashes on the shore. “Ah, the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of the mighty waters they rush: nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He checketh it”-a short, sharp word with a choke and a snort in it-“and it fleeth far away, and is chased like chaff on mountains before wind, and like swirling dust before a whirlwind.”
So did the rage of the world sound to Isaiah as it crashed into pieces upon the steadfast providence of God. To those who can feel the force of such language nothing need be added upon the prophets view of the politics of the outside world these twenty years, whether portions of it threatened Judah in their own strength, or the whole power of storm that was in it rose with the Assyrian, as in all his flood he rushed upon Zion in the year 701.
II.
But amid this storm Zion stands immovable. It is upon Zion that the storm crashes itself into impotence. This becomes explicit in the second of our representative texts: “What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find a refuge the afflicted of His people”. {Isa 14:32} This oracle was drawn from Isaiah by an embassy of the Philistines. Stricken with panic at the Assyrian advance, they had sent messengers to Jerusalem, as other tribes did, with questions and proposals of defences, escapes, and alliances. They got their answer, Alliances are useless. Everything human is going down. Here, here alone, is safety, because the Lord hath decreed it.
With what light and peace do Isaiahs words break out across that unquiet, hungry sea! How they tell the world for the first time, and have been telling it ever since, that, apart from all the struggle and strife of history, there is a refuge and security of men, which God Himself has assured. The troubled surface of life, nations heaving uneasily, kings of Assyria and their armies carrying the world before them-these are not all. The world and her powers are not all. Religion, in the very teeth of life, builds her a refuge for the afflicted.
The world seems wholly divided between force and fear. Isaiah says, It is not true. Faith has her abiding citadel in the midst, a house of God, which neither force can harm nor fear enter.
This then was Isaiahs Interim-Answer to the Nations-Zion at least is secure for the people of Jehovah.
III.
Isaiah could not remain content, however, with so narrow an interim-answer: Zion at least is secure, whatever happens to the rest of you. The world was there, and had to be dealt with and accounted for-had even to be saved. As we have already seen, this was the problem of Isaiahs generation; and to have shirked it would have meant the failure of his faith to rank as universal.
Isaiah did not shirk it. He said boldly to his people, and to the nations: “The faith we have covers this vaster life. Jehovah is not only God of Israel. He rules the world.” These prophecies to the foreign nations are full of revelations of the sovereignty and providence of God. The Assyrian may seem to be growing in glory; but Jehovah is watching from the heavens, till he be ripe for cutting down. {Isa 18:4} Egypts statesmen may be perverse and wilful; but Jehovah of hosts swingeth His hand against the land: “they shall tremble and shudder”. {Isa 19:16} Egypt shall obey His purposes (chapter 17). Confusion may reign for a time, but a signal and a centre shall be lifted up, and the world gather itself in order round the revealed will of God. The audacity of such a claim for his God becomes more striking when we remember that Isaiahs faith was not the faith of a majestic or a conquering people. When he made his claim, Judah was still tributary to Assyria, a petty highland principality, that could not hope to stand by material means against the forces which had thrown down her more powerful neighbours. It was. no experience of success, no mere instinct of being on the side of fate, which led Isaiah so resolutely to pronounce that not only should his people be secure, but that his God would vindicate His purposes upon empires like Egypt and Assyria. It was simply his sense that Jehovah was exalted in righteousness. Therefore, while inside Judah only the remnant that took the side of righteousness would be saved, outside Judah wherever there was unrighteousness, it would be rebuked, and wherever righteousness, it would be vindicated. This is the supremacy which Isaiah proclaimed for Jehovah over the whole world.
How spiritual this faith of Isaiah was, is seen from the next step the prophet took. Looking out on the troubled world, he did not merely assert that his God ruled it, but he emphatically said, what was a far more difficult thing to say, that it would all be consciously and willingly Gods. God rules this, not to restrain it only, but to make it His own. The knowledge of Him, which is today our privilege, shall be tomorrow the blessing of the whole world.
When we point to the Jewish desire, so often expressed in the Old Testament, of making the whole world subject to Jehovah, we are told that it is simply a proof of religious ambition and jealousy. We are told that this wish to convert the world no more stamps the Jewish religion as being a universal, and therefore presumably a Divine, religion than the Mohammedans zeal to force their tenets on men at the point of the sword is a proof of the truth of Islam.
Now we need not be concerned to defend the Jewish religion in its every particular, even as propounded by an Isaiah. It is an article of the Christian creed that Judaism was a minor and imperfect dispensation, where truth was only half revealed and virtue half developed. But at least let us do the Jewish religion justice; and we shall never do it justice till we pay attention to what its greatest prophets thought of the outside world, how they sympathised with this, and in what way they proposed to make it subject to their own faith.
Firstly then, there is something in the very manner of Isaiahs treatment of foreign nations, which causes the old charges of religious exclusiveness to sink in our throats. Isaiah treats these foreigners at least as men. Take his prophecies on Egypt or on Tyre or on Babylon-nations which were the hereditary enemies of his nation-and you find him speaking of their natural misfortunes, their social decays, their national follies and disasters, with the same pity and with the same purely moral considerations with which he has treated his own land. When news of those far-away sorrows comes to Jerusalem, it moves this large-hearted prophet to mourning and tears. He breathes out to distant lands elegies as beautiful as he has poured upon Jerusalem. He shows as intelligent an interest in their social evolutions as he does in those of the Jewish State. He gives a picture of the industry and politics of Egypt as careful as his pictures of the fashions and statecraft of Judah. In short, as you read his prophecies upon foreign nations, you perceive that before the eyes of this man humanity, broken and scattered in his days as it was, rose up one great whole, every part of which was subject to the same laws of righteousness, and deserved from the prophet of God the same love and pity. To some few tribes he says decisively that they shall certainly be wiped out, but even them he does not address in contempt or in hatred. The large empire of Egypt, the great commercial power of Tyre, he speaks of in language of respect and admiration; but that does not prevent him from putting the plain issue to them which he put to his own countrymen: If you are unrighteous, intemperate, impure-lying diplomats and dishonest rulers-you shall certainly perish before Assyria. If you are righteous, temperate, pure, if you do trust in truth and God, nothing can move you.
But, secondly, he, who thus treated all nations with the same strict measures of justice and the same fulness of pity with which he treated his own, was surely not far from extending to the world the religious privileges which he has so frequently identified with Jerusalem. In his old age, at least, Isaiah looked forward to the time when the particular religious opportunities of the Jew should be the inheritance of humanity. For their old oppressor Egypt, for their new enemy Assyria, he anticipates the same experience and education which have made Israel the firstborn of God. Speaking to Egypt, Isaiah concludes a missionary sermon, fit to take its place beside that which Paul uttered on the Areopagus to the younger Greek civilisation, with the words, “In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands and Israel Mine inheritance.”