Read & Study the Bible Online - Bible Portal
Donald C. Fleming

Bridgeway Bible Commentary - Isaiah 14:1-23

13:1-23:18 MESSAGES FOR VARIOUS NATIONSAll the nations are under the rule of God, who controls their rise to power and their final destruction according to his purposes. This is the truth that the prophet teaches in the collection of prophecies against various nations in Chapters 13 to 23. The first message is for Babylon, which in Isaiah’s day had not yet risen to a position of international power. The fall of Babylon that is pictured in these chapters would not take place for more than one... read more

E.W. Bullinger

E.W. Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes - Isaiah 14:14

of = that is to say. Genitive of Apposition. App-17 . the MOST HIGH. Hebrew. Elyon. App-4 . read more

Robert Jamieson; A. R. Fausset; David Brown

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Isaiah 14:14

14. clouds—rather, "the cloud," singular. Perhaps there is a reference to the cloud, the symbol of the divine presence (Isaiah 4:5; Exodus 13:21). So this tallies with 2 Thessalonians 2:4, "above all that is called God"; as here "above . . . the cloud"; and as the Shekinah-cloud was connected with the temple, there follows, "he as God sitteth in the temple of God," answering to "I will be like the Most High" here. Moreover, Revelation 17:4; Revelation 17:5, represents Antichrist as seated in... read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Isaiah 14:1-27

The first oracle against Babylon 13:1-14:27The reader would expect that Isaiah would inveigh against Assyria, since it was the most threatening enemy in his day, and since he referred to it many times in earlier chapters. However, he did not mention Assyria in this section but Babylon, an empire that came into its own about a century after Isaiah’s time. Babylon was a symbol of self-exalting pride, and its glory, dating back to the tower of Babel (cf. Isaiah 13:5; Isaiah 13:10-11). Thus what he... read more

Thomas Constable

Expository Notes of Dr. Thomas Constable - Isaiah 14:12-15

In the third strophe the scene shifts from the underworld to heaven and back to Sheol. This personification of Babylon’s pride led Babylon’s king to exalt himself to the position of God Himself. The five "I wills" in Isaiah 14:13-14 express the spirit of the Babylonian rulers, not that any one of them ever said these precise words. He claimed to be as Venus, the morning star, the brightest light in the night sky. However, like Venus when the sun arose, he was no longer visible when God arose in... read more

John Dummelow

John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 14:1-23

The Judgment of Babylon and its KingThis is the first of a series of prophecies dealing mainly with foreign nations. Its subject is Babylon, where the Jews are represented as undergoing exile, from which they are about to be delivered (Isa 14:1-3) owing to the capture of Babylon by the Medes (Isa 13:17). The historical setting of the prophecy is thus much later than the age of Isaiah, in whose time the Assyrians were the great-enemies of God's people. On this ground most modern scholars regard... read more

John Dummelow

John Dummelow's Commentary on the Bible - Isaiah 14:1-32

1. Strangers] The thought of the voluntary adhesion of strangers is prominent in the later chapters of the book (Isaiah 44:5; Isaiah 55:5; Isaiah 60:5).2. People] RV ’peoples.’ Similar anticipations are found in Isaiah 49:22; Isaiah 60:10; Isaiah 61:5: these were in some measure fulfilled in the time of Ezra: Ezra 1:1-4; Ezra 6:7, Ezra 6:8.4. Proverb] RV ’parable’ (Habakkuk 2:6), or ’taunting-song.’ The King] Nabonidus was king of Babylon from 555 till its fall 549 b.c. Golden city] rather, RM,... read more

Charles John Ellicott

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers - Isaiah 14:14

(14) I will be like the most High.—The Chaldaean king is rightly represented as using a Divine name (Elîôn), which was not essentially Israelite, but common to the Phœnicians and other kindred nations. (See Genesis 14:18; Daniel 4:24; Luke 8:28; Acts 16:17.) The Persians carried their adulation still further, and applied the title “god” to their kings (Æsch. Pers. 623), as the Syrians afterwards did in the case of Antiochus Theos. The Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions, for the most part,... read more

William Nicoll

Expositor's Dictionary of Texts - Isaiah 14:1-32

Isaiah 14:8 Ruskin says on this text: 'Consider such expressions as that tender and glorious verse in Isaiah, speaking of the cedars on the mountains as rejoicing over the fall of the king of Assyria: "Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art gone down to the grave, no feller is come up against us." See what sympathy there is here, as if with the very hearts of the trees themselves.' References. XIV. 9. D. Biggs, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lx.... read more

William Nicoll

Expositor's Bible Commentary - Isaiah 14:1-23

BOOK 5PROPHECIES NOT RELATING TO ISAIAH’S TIMEIn the first thirty-nine chapters of the Book of Isaiah-the half which refers to the prophet’s own career and the politics contemporary with that - we find four or five prophecies containing no reference to Isaiah himself nor to any Jewish king under whom he laboured, and painting both Israel and the foreign world in quite a different state from that in which they lay during his lifetime. These prophecies are chapter 13, an Oracle announcing the... read more

Group of Brands