CHAPTER 14

(712 B.C.)

IN THE MILLENNIUM: ISRAEL RESTORED AND EXALTED

¹For the LORD will have mercy on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land: and the strangers shall be joined with them, and they shall cleave to the house of Jacob. (The entirety of this Chapter concerns itself with the Restoration of Israel, which actually began in 1948, and will be completed shortly after the Second Coming.)

²And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place: and the house of Israel shall possess them in the land of the LORD for servants and handmaids: and they shall take them captives, whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors. (The nations of the world that have caused Israel great sorrow and trouble will see the roles reversed, and we speak of the coming Kingdom Age. Whereas the oppressors once ruled over them, now Israel will rule over the oppressors.)

³And it shall come to pass in the day that the LORD shall give you rest from your sorrow, and from your fear, and from the hard bondage wherein you were made to serve (Israel could have had this rest all along, but for their rebellion against the Lord),

ISRAELS SONG OF TRIUMPH

⁴That you shall take up this Proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How has the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! (This will come to pass at the Second Coming, with this song then, no doubt, being sung, because Israel will have then accepted Christ.)

⁵The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. (The Antichrist is called here the wicked. Paul addressed him as such, as well [II Thess. 2:8]. At the Battle of Armageddon, he will be broken, along with his cohorts [Ezek., Chpts. 38-39].)

⁶He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he who ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted, and none hinders. (The phrase, none hinders, refers to the nations of the world, which will have no power against the Lord of Glory when He comes back. The people in this Passage basically refer to Israel, and the efforts of the Antichrist to completely destroy them.)

⁷The whole Earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

⁸Yes, the fir trees rejoice at You, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since You are laid down, no feller is come up against us. (The tranquility of this Verse results from the doom of the Antichrist.)

⁹Hell from beneath is moved for you to meet you at your coming: it stirs up the dead for you, even all the chief ones of the Earth; it has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. (That this place called Hell is literal cannot be denied by any honest investigation of Scripture. The most powerful one to enter that place will be the Antichrist; however, his just doom will be the same as all others.)

¹⁰All they shall speak and say unto you, Are you also become weak as we? are you become like unto us? (This one Passage should be a warning to all who think their power, pomp, and prestige will reserve some special place for them in Gods eternity. It will not!)

¹¹Your pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of your viols: the worm is spread under you, and the worms cover you. (The dead spoken of in Verse 9 refer to the Rephaim, the giants who once inhabited certain parts of the Earth, and who were the results of the ungodly union of fallen angels and women [Gen. 6:4].

The viols speak of the pomp and ceremony that once accompanied the Antichrist.

The worm is spoken of in a figurative sense here of the never-dying consciousness of men in Hell [Mk. 9:44-46].)

¹²How are you fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how are you cut down to the ground, which did weaken the nations! (Isaiahs Prophecy now switches from the Antichrist to his unholy sponsor, Satan himself.

Lucifer is the name of Satan. Actually, he is an angel, originally created by God, who served the Lord in righteousness for an undetermined period of time.

When he fell, he led a revolution against God, with about one-third of the Angels, it seems, throwing in their lot with him [Rev. 12:4]. Therefore, all the pain, suffering, misery, heartache, death, and deception which have ruled the nations from the very beginning can be laid at the doorstep of this revolution headed up by Satan.)

¹³For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:

¹⁴I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High. (In these two Verses, we see the foment of Satans rebellion and revolution against God. It seems that Lucifer, while true to the Lord, was given dominion of the Earth, which was before Adam. After his fall, he worked deceitfully to get other angelic rulers to follow him in his war against God.)

¹⁵Yet you shall be brought down to Hell, to the sides of the pit. (This would be the lot of Satan and all who seek to be like God, but in a wrong way, in effect, by making themselves god.)

¹⁶They who see you shall narrowly look upon you, and consider you, saying, Is this the man who made the Earth to tremble, who did shake kingdoms (now the Prophecy reverts back to the Antichrist; we know this because it addresses him by saying, Is this the man...?);

¹⁷Who made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; who opened not the house of his prisoners? (The debut of the Antichrist, which will take place shortly after the Rapture of the Church, will not bring the promised peace and prosperity, but instead will make the world a prison.)

¹⁸All the kings of the nations, even all of them, lie in glory, everyone in his own house.

¹⁹But you are cast out of your grave like an abominable branch, and as the raiment of those who are killed, thrust through with a sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; as a carcase trodden under feet. (Despite the fact that the Antichrist will come closer than any man to conquering the entirety of the world, still, his final end will be ignominious, degrading, and despicable. He will be killed by the Lord at the Battle of Armageddon.)

²⁰You shall not be joined with them in burial, because you have destroyed your land, and killed your people: the seed of evildoers shall never be renowned. (In this Verse, we have some proof that the Antichrist will be an apostate Jew, because it uses the words, your land and your people. Some even think, because of the Prophecies of Jacob, that the Antichrist will come from the Tribe of Dan [Gen. 49:17].)

DESOLATION OF BABYLON

²¹Prepare 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. (Verses 21 through 23 pertain to the destruction and the desolation of rebuilt Babylon [Rev., Chpt. 18].)

²²For I will rise up against them, says the LORD of Hosts, and cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew, says the LORD. (Babylon is mans city and, hence, of Satan. It was built by Nimrod as a sign of rebellion against God [Gen. 10:8-10]. It, in its rebellion, will be no more.)

²³I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, says the LORD of Hosts. (The destruction by the Lord of this city will be like something that is swept clean.)

²⁴The LORD of Hosts has sworn, saying, Surely as I have thought, so shall it come to pass; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand (the word thought would have been better translated intended; Verses 24 through 27 contain a sixfold oath by the Lord to destroy the Antichrist):

²⁵That 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. (The inference is that the yoke of the Antichrist is so strong that neither Israel nor the nations can throw it off in their own power. But the Lord will definitely throw it off.)

²⁶This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole Earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations. (Satan has contested God for dominion of this Earth and its inhabitants from the beginning. At the Second Coming, the contest will end. Instead of iniquity, Righteousness will then cover the entirety of the whole Earth.)

²⁷For the LORD of Hosts has purposed, and who shall disannul it? and His Hand is stretched out, and who shall turn it back? (In this Passage, we have the emphatic Promise that all of this will be done by the LORD of Hosts. The prediction will not fail!)

²⁸In the year that king Ahaz died was this burden. (As was to be expected, Babylon, an immense religious system and the political and world opponent of the Throne of David, was first judged. The other nations hostile to Israel now enter the Prophetic scene, even as we shall see.)

THE WARNING TO PALESTINE

²⁹Rejoice not you, whole Palestina, because the rod of him who smote you is broken: for out of the serpents root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. (The immediate fulfillment concerned the defeat of Philistia by Uzziah [II Ki. 15:1-7; II Chron. 28:16-21]; however, the total fulfillment has to do with the present time, even as it regards modern Israel and the Palestinians. In other words, the Palestinians will not win.)

³⁰And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill your root with famine, and he shall kill your remnant. (II Ki., Chpt. 18, records the fulfillment of this Prophecy in the immediate future. Its total fulfillment concerns the distant future. The poor and needy refer to Judah, i.e., Israel, who will be protected by the Lord and will lie down in safety.)

³¹Howl, O gate; cry, O city; you, whole Palestina, are dissolved: for there shall come from the north a smoke, and none shall be alone in his appointed times. (The word Palestina refers to the Philistines. The land addressed here extends along the Mediterranean from Gaza on the south to Lydda on the north. As stated, the problem rages even unto this modern time. But, in this Passage, we are told that the Palestinian problem will be solved at the Second Coming.)

³²What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the LORD has founded Zion, and the poor of His people shall trust in it. (The sense of the entirety of this Prophecy [Vss. 28-32] pertains to the land that God promised Israel. It has been contested from that moment until now. The prediction is that those who contested it will not have it. It belongs to Israel, referred to as the poor of His people.)