Verses 24-27
II. PROPHECIES RELATING TO ASSYRIA AND TO THE NATIONS THREATENED BY ASSYRIA, PHILISTIA, MOAB, SYRIA, AND ARAM-EPHRAIM, ETHIOPIA AND EGYPT
a) Prophecy against Assyria
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 Sennacherib—therefore 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.
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24 The 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:
25 36That 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?
37And his hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back?
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isaiah 14:24. דִּמָּה in the sense of animo componere, “to dispose in thought,” only again Isaiah 10:7; moreover the Prophet seems to have had in mind in this place, Numbers 33:56.——The Perfect היתה 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. תקום has then the meaning that what is, as to principle, realized, must arise, set up as actual, outward circumstance. Before תקום the כּן is not repeated, but היא is used, evidently for the sake of variety. The thought is essentially the same. It is a sort of Anacoluthon——היה and קום are used as in Isaiah 7:7; Isaiah 8:10.
Isaiah 14:25. The infin. לשׁבר depends on the oath-clause Isaiah 14:24 b; what is determined shall be fulfilled frangendo Assyrios, etc. לשׁבר is therefore inf. modalis or gerundivus.——With אבוסנו (comp. Isaiah 14:19; Isaiah 63:6; Isaiah 63:18) the language returns from the infinitive construction to the verbum fin., according to a frequent Hebrew usage.——The suffixes in מעליהם and שׁכמו have nothing to which they can relate in the words of Isaiah 14:24-25.—Moreover from Isaiah 14:4 onwards, Israel is not referred to. True, in Isaiah 14:1-2, Israel is likewise spoken of in the third person, and with quite similar suffixes (עליחם Isaiah 14:1, &שׁביהם נגשׂיהם Isaiah 14:2); but then Isaiah 14:3 intervenes, in which Israel is spoken of in the second person. It must, therefore, be assumed that the suffixes Isaiah 14:25 refer back, not only over the entire Maschal (4–23), but also away over Isaiah 14:3 to Isaiah 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 7–12 because in these Assyria is regarded in a totally different light from that which appears in the present verses.
Isaiah 14:27. יָפֵר comp. Isaiah 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 נטויה. (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 7–12 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 Isaiah 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, Isaiah 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 7–12 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 hosts——turn it back.
Isaiah 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,” Isaiah 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 Isaiah 14:22-23 has its correlative in the double use of the same in Isaiah 14:24; Isaiah 14:27, and that the same words which in Isaiah 14:23 “conclude the proper body of the discourse, in Isaiah 14:24 begin the appendix.” He, therefore, regards Isaiah 14:24-27 as an integral part of the discourse that extends through Isaiah 13:1 to Isaiah 14:27, and therefore as having originated at the same time. But that is impossible. The words Isaiah 14:24-27 must be older than, the catastrophe of Sennacherib before Jerusalem, for they foretell it. But the prophecy against Babylon Isaiah 13:1 to Isaiah 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 (Deuteronomy 1:8; Deuteronomy 2:14; Deuteronomy 4:31, etc.). In Isaiah it occurs again, Isaiah 45:23; Isaiah 54:9; Isaiah 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 היתה 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 God’s 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 follows—‘Thou 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. Ezekiel 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 היתה and תקום 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 Sennacherib’s army. Such would indeed be the natural inference from this verse alone: but for reasons which will be explained below, [viz., in comment on Isaiah 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 (2 Kings 19:35; Isaiah 37:36). Though even after this overthrow Assyria’s 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 25:0), 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 Isaiah 10:27. Other resemblances are of Isaiah 14:24 to Isaiah 7:5; Isaiah 7:7; Isaiah 8:10; Isaiah 10:7; Isaiah 14:25 to Isaiah 9:3; Isaiah 10:27; Isaiah 14:26 to Isaiah 9:11; Isaiah 9:16; Isaiah 9:20; Isaiah 10:4; Isaiah 11:11; Isaiah 14:27 to Isaiah 8:10. But much as Isaiah 14:24-27 remind one of chapts. 7–12, 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, Assyria’s 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 (Isaiah 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 Prophet’s contemplation of history! How the mighty Assyria shrivels up, which in chapters 7–12, played so great a part! Only a line or so is devoted to it here, “Das macht, es ist gericht, eir Wörtlein bann es fällen.” The Prophet knows that Sennacherib’s 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 (2 Chronicles 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 (Isaiah 14:24-27) God designed to comfort His people, when they should be in Babylon in a long and dreary captivity. Comp. Psalms 137:0. 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.
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