12 “How you are fallen from heaven,
O Day Star, son of Dawn!
How you are cut down to the ground,
you who laid the nations low! – Comment: Day Star (Lucifer meaning light bringer) was apparently early used as a name for Venus the morning star! It was apparently often used as a title for a rising monarch (a Lucifer) and in this sense probably refers to the Babylonian king whom the prophecy taunts. Many suggest that it also refers to Satan who aspired to reach to the same heights as God, and is truly fallen, defeated but not as yet powerless! Paul has a lot to say about Satan – for example he refers to Satan ‘as the god of this world who blinds the minds of unbelievers’ (2 Corinthians 4:4).
13 You said in your heart,
I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’ – Comment: If the king thought like this he must have been dreaming! (as people do!) But in reality that was what Satan literally aspired to do!
15 But you are brought down to Sheol,
to the far reaches of the pit.
16 Those who see you will stare at you
and ponder over you:
‘Is this the man who made the earth tremble,
who shook kingdoms,
17 who made the world like a desert
and overthrew its cities,
who did not let his prisoners go home?’ – How the Mighty are fallen!
18 All the kings of the nations lie in glory,
each in his own tomb;
19 but you are cast out, away from your grave,
like a loathed branch,
clothed with the slain, those pierced by the sword,
who go down to the stones of the pit,
like a dead body trampled underfoot.
20 You will not be joined with them in burial,
because you have destroyed your land,
you have slain your people.
“May the offspring of evildoers
nevermore be named!
21 Prepare slaughter for his sons
because of the guilt of their fathers,
lest they rise and possess the earth,
and fill the face of the world with cities.”
The taunt ends with a summary spoken by God Himself! 22 “I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of hosts, “and will cut off from Babylon name and remnant, descendants and posterity,” declares the LORD. 23 “And I will make it a possession of the hedgehog, and pools of water, and I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of hosts.
Comment: What is Sheol? The Bible uses different words for where people go to after death and while it uses the grave etc to describe places where the physical body ends up to decay, be eaten by maggots etc, it never leaves the real man as being destroyed completely by physical death! Of course in English translations we have heaven and hell but also Sheol, Hades, Gehenna, the lake of fire, Paradise, and Abraham’s bosom – the first four for the state after dead for the wicked and last two as comparable, but not necessary identical with, heaven. While it is true that sometimes evil people have good and righteous offspring it is frequently true that children growing up in an evil tyrant’s home are of the same ilk. Here Babylon is predicted to be wiped out as a kingdom and the royal line to be terminated. It is to be noted that while there is a an important city called Babylon in Iraq these days it is not at the same site as the ruins of the Babylon of Isaiah’s time! This prophecy has been fulfilled!
2 Samuel 1: 25a&27 – “How the mighty have fallen in the midst of the battle! …..How the mighty have fallen, and the weapons of war perished!”
Prayer: May my dreams be as to how to serve you; not for personal glory, O my Lord.
As I read it! 