A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 15: The Sceptre of the Rulers

A Commentary on Isaiah, Part 15: The Sceptre of the Rulers

There are many examples in Scripture which exhibit the fact that Yahweh God punishes those whom He has employed in the chastisement of His children. This is fully apparent in Isaiah chapter 10, where the Word of Yahweh had declared: “5 O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation.” But then, just a few verses later in that chapter, Yahweh had attested: “12 Wherefore it shall come to pass, that when the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks.” Likewise, here and throughout subsequent chapters of Isaiah, the destruction of Babylon is prophesied, but evidently not until Babylon had, or has, also been utilized in the punishment of the children of Israel. So in Isaiah chapter 39, the prophet was told to warn Hezekiah king of Judah, in part: “6 Behold, the days come, that all that is in thine house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, saith the LORD.” Then later, in Isaiah chapter 43 we read: “14 Thus saith the LORD, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel; For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and have brought down all their nobles, and the Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.”

Although it is on a smaller scale, this same pattern is evident in the earliest records of the history of Israel, particularly in the book of Judges, where at diverse times the Philistines, Midianites, Canaanites, Moab, Ammon and others had all been employed at one time or another to chastise Israel, and ultimately each of them had been overcome and diminished by Israel, once Yahweh decided that the chastisement was sufficient and He permitted Israel to prevail. For example, in Judges chapter 3 we read: “7 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD, and forgat the LORD their God, and served Baalim and the groves. 8 Therefore the anger of the LORD was hot against Israel, and he sold them into the hand of Chushanrishathaim king of Mesopotamia: and the children of Israel served Chushanrishathaim eight years. 9 And when the children of Israel cried unto the LORD, the LORD raised up a deliverer to the children of Israel, who delivered them, even Othniel the son of Kenaz, Caleb's younger brother. 10 And the Spirit of the LORD came upon him, and he judged Israel, and went out to war: and the LORD delivered Chushanrishathaim king of Mesopotamia into his hand; and his hand prevailed against Chushanrishathaim.” The name Chushanrishathaim apparently means “twice wicked Cushan”, and the word Cushan seems to be a reference to the land of Cush in Mesopotamia, as it also does where the word appears in Habakkuk chapter 3. So Chushanrishathaim is not even a name, but only an epithet by which the writers of Judges decided to describe a certain Mesopotamian king.

Following that, forty years later the pattern repeated itself, and the Moabites oppressed Israel for eighteen years before Yahweh gave them a deliverance. Then even later, in the opening verses of Judges chapter 6 we read: “1 And the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the LORD: and the LORD delivered them into the hand of Midian seven years. 2 And the hand of Midian prevailed against Israel: and because of the Midianites the children of Israel made them the dens which are in the mountains, and caves, and strong holds.” Once Midian prevailed, the children of Israel cried unto Yahweh, and He sent a prophet to inform them of their sins, as an explanation of why Midian had prevailed over them. A short time later, once Yahweh had determined that the oppression of Israel should end, He had Gideon called and employed for the process of releasing Israel from the oppression. In that process, Gideon was told in Judges chapter 7 that Yahweh “15… hath delivered into your hand the host of Midian.” A short time later, Midian was routed, the armies destroyed, and the princes of Midian were slain.

As Paul of Tarsus had said in Romans chapter 15, “4 For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.” But Christians, even though they have had these examples for two thousand years, still do not understand the patterns of sin and punishment which the Scriptures teach. So this pattern of sin, the resulting punishment at the hands of other peoples, or at the hands of tyrants, eventual repentance, and ultimate deliverance is repeated throughout Scripture, and it is the same pattern which is found here in Isaiah and the later prophets, where the children of Israel are being taken into captivity by the Assyrians and Babylonians on account of their sins.

However those early periods of chastisement had lasted no more than twenty years, in the case of the Canaanites in Judges chapter 4, or in the case of the Midianites, as little as seven years. But as we had explained in our commentaries on earlier chapters of Isaiah, the punishment and captivity of Israel which had begun here in Isaiah’s time would last much longer, for seven prophetic times, which seems to be a period of 2,520 years. As we progress through Isaiah, that length of time should also become evident in other ways, especially in the last 26 chapters of his prophecy, which had been expressly written for Israel in captivity. In the course of those years, Assyria and Babylon are assured destruction as Isaiah prophesies here in these early chapters, 10 through 14, and while they had been employed in the chastisement of Israel, in the end they shall be destroyed in the same manner in which Chushanrishathaim, the Midianites, and all of the other oppressors of Israel had been destroyed. However just as it was with them, if the children of Israel are to ever break the rod of their oppressors, first they must repent of their sins and cry out to Yahweh their God for deliverance.

The prophecy of the fall of ancient Babylon here had begun in the opening verses of Isaiah chapter 13. As we had explained, while in these chapters Babylon was portrayed as an empire, Babylon did not develop into an empire for at least a hundred and twenty years after Isaiah wrote these words, so that is also an element of this prophecy, that Babylon would be an empire . Then in the opening verses of chapter 14, the prophet began to prophesy against the king of Babylon, a king who had not yet been born, who is described as a man. However this man was portrayed as if he had appeared to be larger-than-life even in the eyes of the other kings of the nations, as they are depicted as having asked him upon his fall “10… Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?” So once the king of Babylon falls, in spite of all of his former magnificence, his fleshly mortality would become readily apparent to all.

Here in this chapter, this future king of Babylon is also portrayed as having said that “I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God”, something which seems to correlate with the stated purpose of the people as they built the first Tower of Babel on the plain of Shinar, in Genesis chapter 11. With this we should realize that Babylon certainly is an appropriate name for the place of captivity of the children of Israel in the time of their punishment and chastisement for their sins. This is also described in a later vision of the prophet Zechariah, although it may otherwise be obscure.

In Zechariah chapter 4 we read: “5 Then the angel that talked with me went forth, and said unto me, Lift up now thine eyes, and see what is this that goeth forth. 6 And I said, What is it? And he said, This is an ephah that goeth forth. He said moreover, This is their resemblance through all the earth. 7 And, behold, there was lifted up a talent of lead: and this is a woman that sitteth in the midst of the ephah. 8 And he said, This is wickedness. And he cast it into the midst of the ephah; and he cast the weight of lead upon the mouth thereof. 9 Then lifted I up mine eyes, and looked, and, behold, there came out two women, and the wind was in their wings; for they had wings like the wings of a stork: and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heaven. 10 Then said I to the angel that talked with me, Whither do these bear the ephah? 11 And he said unto me, To build it an house in the land of Shinar: and it shall be established, and set there upon her own base.”

In that vision, the woman in the ephah represents the children of Israel, and the plain of Shinar, which was the location of ancient Babel as well as ancient Babylon, is described as the place to which she was taken on account of her sins. This also correlates to the woman of Revelation chapter 12, who had the crown of twelve stars, and who also represents the children of Israel, who had been carried off into the wilderness. But in Revelation chapter 17, when John was taken back to see what had become of the woman, she had become a great whore sitting upon many waters, with whom all the kings of the earth had committed fornication, “5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH.”

This is the state of the children of Israel at the end of their captivity, for which reason we read in Revelation chapter 18 that “2 … Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. 3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. 4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.”

As a digression, in our last presentation we had discussed another aspect of the arrogance of ancient kings wherein they had often professed to be gods, or they believed that they would become gods at the moment of their death. So we had read where Amar-Sin, a Mesopotamian king who lived and ruled about a hundred years before the birth of Abraham, had called himself "a true god, the sun of his land." But Hammurabi, the Amorite king of Babylon, around the time of Isaac, had only claimed to have been granted the functions of the god Enlil, rather than having claimed to be a god, although he did claim to be "the sun of Babylon who causes light to rise over the land of Sumer and Akkad", and perhaps the word translated as sun in that passage may also mean sun-god. Then, in an inscription of the Hittite king Mursilis I, he described his ascension to his throne: “These are the words of the Sun Mursilis, the great king, the king of the Hatti land… When my father became god and I seated myself on the throne of my father…” As we had also discussed, the Egyptian pharaohs had held beliefs similar to those wich were expressed in these declarations, and they are also recorded in their inscriptions.

The later Greek kings of Asia, the Seleucids, gave themselves titles which had reflected their presumed god-like status. So from about 281 BC Antiochus I Soter ruled Asia, and after him, Antiochus II Theos. Soter is Greek for savior, and Theos for god. Later Seleucid kings bore these or similar titles. Then even later, after a declaration of the Roman Senate, Julius Caesar was often referred to in writing as “the deified Caesar”, as was his successor Augustus. From that time, a cult developed in Rome, for various of the emperors who were considered to be gods, and they built temples and altars to them. This is all depicted here in Isaiah, where the kings of the nations who witness the fall of the king of Babylon in this prophecy are described as having exclaimed “10… Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?” Perhaps the claim to become a god at death was the way in which the ancient emperors, who had waxed arrogant in their power, could cope with their own mortality, because at the ends of their lives they would all die like the rest of men.

As another great king, Solomon, had written in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, “15 As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand.” The kings of medieval England did not claim to be gods, but they had often spoken of the so-called “divine right of kings”. The very King James who had commissioned the King James Bible was probably the most vocal advocate of this claim, which was obviously held in common with Hammurabi and other ancient rulers. If King James had actually studied Scripture, he should have realized that kings are a punishment from God, and not a blessing, as the Word of Yahweh God had explained in 1 Samuel chapter 8 and elsewhere.

Now, where we had left off in our last presentation here, titled Lucifer, Son of the Morning, there was a criticism of the fallen king of Babylon which stated in part: “16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying, Is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms; 17 That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners? ” So once again, the people are described as having expressed wonder at the fallen state of a man who formerly had seemed to be a god. That man is described as having “made the world a wilderness”, a statement very much like that which the first century Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus had recorded in the words of a British chieftain, Calgacus. In chapter 30 of his Agricola, Calgacus is portrayed as having said of the expanding Roman empire, in part: “To robbery, butchery and rapine they give the lying name of ‘government’; they create a desolation and call it peace.” [2] Just as it is here in Isaiah, that describes a historical pattern found in every empire, both ancient and modern, that peace within is a feigned peace, forced under the authority of the empire.

Now we shall continue where we had left off in Isaiah chapter 14, and our discussion of the prophesied aftermath of the fall of the king of Babylon which is described therein:

18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house. 19 But thou art cast out of thy grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those that are slain, thrust through with a sword, that go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. 

In the course of our commentary on this chapter, we could not help but to have preempted ourselves in our discussion of verse 5, which had prophesied that “5 The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers.” That prophecy is yet another example of something which is stated as if it had already occurred, but at the point where Isaiah had written the words, it had not yet occurred. However it is evident that at the time when it was written, it was stated in a such a manner as an expression of absolute certainty that it would occur. 

The staff of the wicked, the sceptre of the rulers would, and shall indeed be broken by Yahweh. So in spite of the fact that here, upon the fall of Babylon, “18 All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, every one in his own house”, in subsequent chapters here in Isaiah, oracles of doom are uttered regarding Egypt and many of the neighboring nations which had been allied with Babylon at the time of the captivity of Judah. As we had seen earlier in Isaiah, discussing Isaiah chapter 11 where there are also prophesies concerning the destruction of those nations, they stand as a type for the nations which are prophesied to encompass the children of Israel at the fall of Mystery Babylon, an event which is described in different ways in each of Revelation chapters 19 and 20. 

So these chapters are a type for the fall of Mystery Babylon in the Revelation, and just as it is described here in verse 3 that all of the kings of the earth would be disrupted with the fall of ancient Babylon, there in Revelation chapter 18 we read: “3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.” Then, as it is here where we see that after the fall of Babylon the kings of the earth are in their own houses, a little further on in Revelation chapter 18 we read: “9 And the kings of the earth, who have committed fornication and lived deliciously with her, shall bewail her, and lament for her, when they shall see the smoke of her burning, 10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas, that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.” So although they marvel in a somewhat different way, as the kings of the earth marvelled over the fall of the king of Babylon here, they shall also be in their places in order to marvel over the fall of Mystery Babylon.

However just as there are here in Isaiah several oracles against the surrounding nations after this prophecy of the fall of the king of Babylon, in Revelation chapter 19 we see the ultimate fate of the kings of the earth and all of the surrounding nations after Mystery Babylon falls, where we read: “19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army.” Further parallels can be drawn from the fact that not long after the fall of Babylon at the hands of the Persians, Persia was destroyed by the Macedonian Greeks, and practically all of the nations mentioned here had virtually disappeared from history in the subsequent centuries. The Macedonian Greeks, as well as the Romans who had followed them, were chiefly descended from Dorian and Danaan Greeks as well as Trojans, tribes which had in ancient times descended from the children of Israel. [1] So although other and later prophecies, especially those of the prophet Daniel, had forewarned that the world of the Romans would also be destroyed and, to a great extent, overrun with aliens, the world of the time of Christ was predominantly governed by the children of Israel, in spite of the fact that at that time, they were all pagans of one sort or another. This had happened in fulfillment of another prophecy found here in Isaiah chapter 60: “16 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.” That is also a type for His anticipated return.

Once again, where the Word of Yahweh had said earlier in this chapter that “5 The LORD hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers”, the staff of the wicked and the sceptre of the rulers is portrayed here as being Babylon itself, and Mystery Babylon, which represents the system of oppression by which the wicked and the rulers have acquired their sceptres and are able to prosper and maintain their rule over the people. The rulers themselves are not legitimate, since only Yahweh God is the rightful King of Israel. Therefore they have no just basis for their rule, but the system itself supports their rule. One outstanding example of this is the rule of the first Herod in Judaea, who was made king by the Romans, after he had betrayed the Judaeans who had given him a high office, and he sided with Rome, and then having been a sycophant of Caesar and Antony, he was rewarded for his treachery when he was made king. Throughout history and even today, world empires appoint puppet kings over smaller nations for political reasons. When Mystery Babylon falls, as we had seen here earlier, men will say to such kings “10… Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?”

So for now, while the kings over whom he had ruled are still in their places, here in Isaiah chapter 14 the king of Babylon is warned that being dead, he shall also be dishonored in death on account of his insolence. But as the chastisement continues, the parable does seem to have an even greater meaning:

20 Thou shalt not be joined with them in burial, because thou hast destroyed thy land, and slain thy people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned. 

In this regard, the king of Babylon, who considered himself a god and who had sought to rule over the stars of God, is a type for the beast of Revelation chapter 19: “19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army. 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.”

In Judges chapter 9, there is a parable of the trees of the forest which should have served as a warning to men, not to seek earthly rulers. Doing so, they would be ruled over by the most wicked and most useless of men. So the Olive, the Fig and the Vine all refused an opportunity to rule over their fellows, preferring instead to abide in the production of their fruits, and when the opportunity fell to the Bramble, he was dismayed that he could rule over them all, whereupon he had threatened to tyrannize them and even devour the most noble of them, the cedars of Lebanon. That parable had apparently been extant in Israel for about three hundred years before the people began to demand an earthly king, as it is recorded in 1 Samuel chapter 8.

Then where it says here that “the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned”, this also evokes the words of Solomon in Wisdom chapter 2, where the wicked are portrayed as having declared to themselves that “11 Our strength must be the law of righteousness, for that which is weak is proved to be useless.” Throughout the balance of that work, Solomon wrote of the miserable end of such men, even portraying them as having regretted their actions where in chapter 5 they are depicted as having said “13 Thusly also we having been born have failed, and indeed we had no sign of virtue to display since we were consumed in our wickedness.”

However there Solomon spoke of Adamic men, and while having explained that such men would ultimately spawn bastards in their rebellion from Yahweh and the law, he was not offering any hope for bastards. For that, in chapter 4 he wrote: “1 Better is childlessness with virtue, for immortality is its remembrance, that is also known with God and with men. 2 Being present, they imitate it, and desire it when it is gone, and forever wearing a crown, prevailing it leads the contest of the undefiled in the struggle. 3 But the many-breeding multitude of the impious shall not be useful, and from bastard seedlings it shall not give a deep root, nor shall it establish a firm foundation. 4 For even if it sprouts up in branches for a time, standing unsafely it is shaken by the wind and by the force of the winds it is uprooted. 5 The imperfected branches shall be broken off and their fruit useless, unseasonable for food and suitable for nothing. 6 For children begotten from of lawless slumber are witnesses of wickedness against their parents at their examination.” Lawless slumber would be a reference to fornication, which is race-mixing. The children, who are bastards, would not actually testify against their parents, but their very existence is a testimony against their parents.

This serves to help explain what follows here in Isaiah:

21 Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities. 

At the end of verse 21 the Septuagint has the final clause to read “nor fill the earth with wars”, as Brenton has it. The reading in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible supports the reading found in the Masoretic Text. It is apparent that Brenton had made an error here, as the Greek text has a Genitive plural form of πόλις, or city, which is πόλεων, and the same form of the word πόλεμος, which is war, is πολέμων, a difference of only one letter: the presence of an μ. As a digression, when bastards fill the face of the earth with cities, they are also filling the face of the earth with wars.

While Solomon had portrayed the end of the rebellious who had gone off into fornication, and who had begotten children in unlawful beds, in Revelation chapter 2 Christ Himself said this same thing of the children of such fornicators, which seems to explain this passage in Isaiah, in His message to the church in Thyatira: “19 I know thy works, and charity, and service, and faith, and thy patience, and thy works; and the last to be more than the first. 20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. 21 And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. 22 Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds. 23 And I will kill her children with death; and all the churches shall know that I am he which searcheth the reins and hearts: and I will give unto every one of you according to your works.”

In that passage Jezebel is a type for those who would advocate for fornication, and the children would be killed, not the parents, ostensibly because they are the products of such fornication, which is race-mixing. Jezebel was a lover of Baal, and Baal was also the god of the ancient Babylonians. Just as the last prince of ancient Babylon was named Belshazar, Jezebel also had the idol’s name as a component of her own. The confusion of ancient Babylon, and its disturbances of entire populations of men, served to produce bastards, and today, Mystery Babylon and its population movements also produces bastards, so today all world governments are playing the role of this Jezebel, and also the role of the ancient king of Babylon.

The law in Deuteronomy chapter 23 states that “A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD”, and Paul of Tarsus had explained in Hebrews chapter 12 that “8 … if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons.” That helps explain why the parents who had committed fornication in the church of Revelation chapter 2 were not killed, but only their children. Being children of Yahweh, the parents would be chastised for their correction, but a bastard cannot be corrected. That such chastisement is for correction is evident in the very next verse in that chapter of the epistle to the Hebrews: “9 Furthermore we have had fathers of our flesh which corrected us, and we gave them reverence: shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits, and live?” Chastisement is for the correction of Yahweh’s children, but it is for the disposal of bastards. The children of the king of Babylon evidently had no opportunity for correction, and they would die for the iniquity of their fathers, ostensibly because they were also bastards. Babylon, which is from a word that means confusion, is the mother of such fornication, and for that reason it is associated with fornication throughout the Revelation. However that role is apparent in the prophets.

Here it should be noted, that the Babylon of the time of Isaiah in the 8th century BC was not quite the same as the ancient Babylon of the time of Hammurabi the Amorite king in the 18th century BC. The kingdom of Hammurabi had been reduced to the status of a city-state after his death, and in the early 16th century BC, it was sacked by the same Hittite king, Mursilis I, whose inscriptions we have cited here and in previous presentations of this commentary on Isaiah. After that, Kassites dominated Babylon, but they were reduced to the status of tributaries of Pharaoh Thutmose III in the course of his wars with the Mitanni Kingdom. From the 12th through the 9th centuries BC, Aramaean populations, among whom we would also reckon the Chaldaeans, had occupied large portions of Babylonia. However Babylon fell subject to the Assyrians, and was subject to them for most of the time from the late 10th century until the fall of Assyria in the later decades of the 7th century BC. The Chaldaeans originally seem to have occupied only the extreme southern portion of Mesopotamia. The coast of the Persian Gulf, where the rivers forming Mesopotamia flow into the sea, is currently about three hundred miles south of the ruins of ancient Babylon.

This is how the archaeologists generally view the history of Babylon, and it mostly seems to be accurate even if we have some differences. In the 12th century, an Akkadian dynasty ruled in Babylon which is sometimes associated with the Assyrians, although we may hesitate to make that association, since Akkadian was also the language of Cush, or the Kassites. However in Scripture there is an obscure passage later in Isaiah, in chapter 23, which suggests that the Assyrians certainly had been in control of Babylon when it became inhabited by the Chaldaeans, where we read: “13 Behold the land of the Chaldeans; this people was not, till the Assyrian founded it for them that dwell in the wilderness: they set up the towers thereof, they raised up the palaces thereof; and he brought it to ruin.” Of course, this is what we are inclined to believe: that the earlier Assyrians had reestablished the fallen Kassite city with imported Chaldaeans and other Aramaeans, whom they may have even defeated in Syria and deported to Babylonia, which is the pattern throughout the history of the Assyrian empire.

Now it may be even more evident, that this ancient Babylon is a type for the Mystery Babylon of the Revelation:

22 For I will rise up against them, saith the LORD of hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, saith the LORD. 

The words son and nephew do not quite capture the essence of the meaning of the clause. The word son is from the Hebrew word נין or niyn (# 5209), which Strong’s defines as progeny, and the word nephew is from a very similar Hebrew word נכד or neked (# 5220), which Strong’s defines as offspring. Oddly, Strong’s informs us that the root of niyn is נכח or nekech (# 5225), which is even closer to neked in form and which is defined as “to prepare”, while the same lexicon states that neked is from an unused root meaning “to propagate”. 

In any event, the New American Standard Bible better captures the essence of the meaning of the clause where it has “22 ‘And I will rise up against them,’ declares the LORD of hosts, ‘and will cut off from Babylon name and survivors, offspring and posterity,’ declares the LORD.” This is also quite similar to the translation of this verse as it is found in The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible.

23 I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the LORD of hosts. 

The word besom is an archaic English term for broom, which is akin to a similar archaic German term, besmo, and also to a modern German word for broom, which is besen. So Yahweh shall sweep Babylon with a broom of destruction. The word sweep is used allegorically once again in Isaiah chapter 28 where speaking of Jerusalem we read “17 Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.”

The site of the ruins of ancient Babylon is about 25 or 30 miles south of modern Baghdad, in a place that is now virtually uninhabited although there are apparently some farms in the area, and some roads lined with rural houses. Of course, the arabs dwelling in Mesopotamia today are not Chaldaeans, or Assyrians, Kassites, or any other of the original ancient tribes. As we had read in Isaiah chapter 13, Babylon is now a habitation for satyrs, owls, and other doleful creatures. The same was said of Mystery Babylon in the Revelation, where we read in chapter 18 that it “is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”

Now the focus rather suddenly shifts back to the Assyrians:

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. 

Here Yahweh God seems to be tying the fate of the Assyrians to that of Babylon and its king, even though Assyria was still an empire at this time, and Babylon would not become an empire for about another hundred twenty years, after the fall of Assyria.

But as we have seen, according to Isaiah it was Assyria which had created the Babylon of this time, and as we had explained in our commentary for Isaiah chapter 13, titled Visions of Empires, which is where the prophecy against Babylon had begun, the Assyrian king of this very time in which Isaiah had written here, in the year leading up to the death of Ahaz king of Judah, was Tiglath-Pileser III, and at that time he had recently taken upon himself the title of King of Babylon, in addition to his title of King of Assyria. So the switch in focus to Assyria here seems to symbolize a perception that the empire of Babylon was really just another manifestation of the empire of Assyria, as the vision in Daniel chapter 2 also portrays all of the world empires subsequent to Babylon, those of Persia, Greece and Rome, as parts of the same body of which Babylon was the head. We shall see certain evidence of this as we proceed through the balance of this chapter.

The Word of Yahweh now broadens the perspective even further:

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. 

With the children of Israel in captivity, later chapters of Isaiah shall reveal the fact that Yahweh God had fully intended on fulfilling the promise to Abraham, that his seed would inherit the nations, with Israel in the time of their captivity, although they would nevertheless remain in their blindness. So in the centuries subsequent to their deportations, Assyria, Babylon and nearly all of the nations which were once subject to the Assyrians were destroyed, and their remnants were dominated and marginalized by Greeks and Romans, and in the outlying areas of the north, by Kimmerians or Scythians. So by the time of Christ, nations dominated by the descendants of the ancient children of Israel had indeed possessed the nations, all of the Adamic nations of the old Genesis chapter 11 world.

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? 

On just a few occasions which are recorded in the book of Acts, Paul of Tarsus had addressed men who were not descended from the ancient Israelites, and he always addressed them in more general terms than those which he had used to address Israelites. On of these is in Acts chapter 14, where he had addressed Lycaonians, a people with obscure origins who may have been of the Shemitic Lydians, or of the Japhethite Ionians, or some other Genesis 10 group, and he told them in part that “… We also are men of like passions with you, and preach unto you that ye should turn from these vanities unto the living God, which made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and all things that are therein: 16 Who in times past suffered all nations to walk in their own ways. 17 Nevertheless he left not himself without witness, in that he did good, and gave us rain from heaven, and fruitful seasons, filling our hearts with food and gladness.” Then some years later, as it is recorded in Acts chapter 17, Paul had addressed certain of the Athenians, in Athens, and the Athenians were Ionian Greeks.

The word Greek only refers to certain language and customs which were held in common by various tribes in the eastern Mediterranean, but it was not a nationality or ethnicity in ancient times. The Ionians are demonstrably the tribe of Javan, a son of Japheth who is mentioned in Genesis chapter 10, and also elsewhere in contexts where the reference is certainly referring to Greeks. But the association is also clear in certain Persian inscriptions, as well as in the language of the Septuagint. So Paul is recorded as having told the Athenians, in part, that God: “26 … hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 That they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and find him, though he be not far from every one of us: 28 For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.”

There Paul alluded to Deuteronomy 32:8 as well as to Genesis chapter 11, and the one from which all of the nations descended, which he had described is Adam, whom Luke professes was the son of God. Therefore all of Adam’s descendants are his children, as Paul had said that even the Greek poets had attested. So both the Assyrians and the Chaldaeans having been of the Genesis 10 nations, they also had this opportunity of which Paul had spoken, that in spite of the fact that they were permitted “to walk in their own ways”, as Paul had told the Lycaonians, they were also able to seek Him, as he had told the Athenians. But instead, as history elucidates, they had all gone off into paganism, and followed the ways of the ancient Nephilim with whom the Canaanites had also mingled in Palestine. Therefore the purpose of Yahweh for those nations, which is explained here through Isaiah, is fully justified.

In an immediate sense, Yahweh was speaking in reference to the patriarch Jacob where we read in Isaiah chapter 41: “1 Keep silence before me, O islands; and let the people renew their strength: let them come near; then let them speak: let us come near together to judgment. 2 Who raised up the righteous man from the east, called him to his foot, gave the nations before him, and made him rule over kings? he gave them as the dust to his sword, and as driven stubble to his bow. 3 He pursued them, and passed safely; even by the way that he had not gone with his feet. 4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.”

Now Isaiah informs us as to when this prophecy was written:

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

So Hezekiah would succeed to the throne of Judah that same year, and according to 2 Kings chapter 18, Samaria would fall in the sixth year of Hezekiah, which is some time more than five years from the death of Ahaz. Likewise, Tiglath-Pileser III apparently died this same year, since his successor Shalmaneser V ruled for five years, when he was replaced by Sargon II, and Samaria fell in the first year of the reign of Sargon, so that was apparently also the sixth year of Hezekiah, and it would have been the sixth year of Shalmaneser, if he had lived. This is probably a good anchor for reconstructing a chronology of the period, since as we had expressed earlier in this commentary, there are problems with the existing chronologies.

Now there are foreboding words for Palestine. The word Palestine rarely occurs in the Old Testament. With this spelling it is found in Exodus chapter 15, evidently referring to the land of the Philistines which seems to have been the original usage, and then twice here in this chapter. With the traditional English spelling of Palestine it only occurs once, in Joel chapter 3. Joel was a prophet who had followed Isaiah by at least several decades. His prophecy indicates that he conducted his ministry some time after the Assyrian deportations, but before the fall of Jerusalem. However in that chapter, where Joel mentions both Judah and Jerusalem, there may be an indication that he might have written even before the Assyrian taking of the cities of Judah, which would date him to a period in the 7th through the 13th years of Hezekiah. That is not, however, the absolutely necessary conclusion from a reading of Joel chapter 3 and perhaps he used the term Judah more loosely, or even in a different sense in contrast to Jerusalem, since many of its residents were evidently not of Judah in that time.

On four other occasions the Hebrew word translated as Palestine appears, in three of them in the King James Version it is written instead as Philistia, once each in Psalms 60, 87 and 108. Then in the fourth the same Hebrew form of the word פלשׁת or peleseth (# 6429) is translated as Philistines, in the 83rd Psalm. Usually Philistines is translated from a plural form of that word.

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. 

These words are a reference to Assyria, so Babylon is evidently the cockatrice which had come out of the root of the serpent, which is here an allegory for Assyria. The “fiery flying serpent” seems to be more terrifying serpent than a common serpent, so that indicates that Babylon will be more deadly to Palestine than Assyria had been. So this is an assurance that Babylon would follow Assyria in dominating the ancient world, even though that must have been unimaginable to the people of Isaiah’s own time.

This also informs us that the sceptre of rulers which is prophesied to be broken with the fall of the king of Babylon has an earlier manifestation in the empire of Assyria, that it is essentially the same sceptre which passed from Assyria to Babylon, as Babylon would come from the serpent’s root, and that is a reference to Assyria. It is Assyria whose rod is broken here, but a worse serpent would emerge in Babylon.

As we learn in Daniel, Babylon was only the head of a series of world empires, and in several other visions Daniel refers to those empires as heads of the same beast. Then, in a parallel vision in Revelation chapter 13, for which we may compare Daniel chapter 7, and therefore it is also speaking of that same beast, we read “ 2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.” The dragon gives its power to the beast, much as the sceptre of the rulers which passes from Assyria to Babylon here is described as a serpent. All the world empires of history have gotten there power from the serpent, and the serpent was even a symbol of authority for kings of ancient times, as it had been in both Egypt and Assyria.

Now there seems to be a reference to Israel, in contrast to the fate of Palestine:

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. 

It is the root of Palestine which shall be slain here, and he who will do the slaying is Babylon, the flying serpent sprung from the root of Assyria in verse 29. The reference to the poor seems to be a reference to the children of Israel being taken into captivity, who would be literally poor at that time, and also in a state of humility. This is further elucidated in verse 32, where the term once again appears in relation to Zion.

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. 

The translation of the last clause of this verse is curious, at the least. The New American Standard Bible has it to read “ And there is no straggler in his ranks.” Brenton’s Septuagint translation has “and there is no possibility of living.” The Greek of the Septuagint is quite simple and reads καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν τοῦ εἶναι, which in English is “and there is not that which is”, or which exists. The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible has the clause to read even more curiously: “… and there is none who metes out payment among its kinsmen.” There the editors stated in notes that the translation “metes out payment” is from the 4QIsaiah scroll, where they hold that the word for “straggler” which appears in the 1QIsaiah scroll, which the New American Standard Bible seems to have followed, is an error. Where they have “among its kinsmen” they admit the possibility that the phrase may mean “in its ranks”. Both of these scrolls diverge from the Masoretic Text, but neither support the Septuagint reading, which for this passage is certainly our own preference.

The reference to Palestine here seems to be in the same context as the reference to Palestine as it was used in Exodus chapter 15, and then in the Psalms, to be a reference only to the cities and surrounding land of the Philistines situated on the coast of the Mediterranean. That is how it was also apparently used in Joel, where in Joel chapter 3 we read: “4 Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine?” There Tyre and Sidon were cities which had belonged to Israel, in the inheritance of Asher, and they are distinct from Palestine, which was originally a reference only to the land of the Philistines. Only in later times, and from a Greek perspective, was Palestine a reference to Judaea, or to all of the ancient lands which had formerly belonged to Israel and Judah before the captivities, which were within the bounds of the inheritances outlined in Joshua.

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 messengers of the nation are the prophets of Israel, which at this time were Hosea, Isaiah and Micah, all three of which recorded that they prophesied at this time, and possibly also Amos, if his ministry had not ended by this time.

The last sentence indicates that while all of these other nations would indeed be destroyed in the rise and destruction of the Assyrian and Babylonian empires, that Israel in captivity would survive, and to them belongs the reference to Zion, as it prophetically refers to the children of Israel, and not to the mountain in Jerusalem.

This concludes our commentary for Isaiah chapter 14.

Footnotes

1 See the essays Classical Records of the Dorian & Danaan Israelite-Greeks and Classical Records of Trojan-Roman-Judah here at Christogenea.

2 The Agricola and The Germania, Cornelius Tacitus, translation by H. Mattingly revised by S. A. Hanford, Penguin Books, 1948, The Agricola, chapter 30, p. 81.