Testimonia — Early Christian Bible Commentary
Isaiah 14 · World English Bible
1For the LORD will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land. The foreigner will join himself with them, and they will unite with the house of Jacob.
2The peoples will take them, and bring them to their place. The house of Israel will possess them in the LORD’s land for servants and for handmaids. They will take as captives those whose captives they were; and they shall rule over their oppressors.
3It will happen in the day that the LORD will give you rest from your sorrow, from your trouble, and from the hard service in which you were made to serve,
4that you will take up this parable against the king of Babylon, and say, “How the oppressor has ceased! The golden city has ceased!”
5The LORD has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of the rulers,
6who struck the peoples in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, with a persecution that no one restrained.
7The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break out in song.
8Yes, the cypress trees rejoice with you, with the cedars of Lebanon, saying, “Since you are humbled, no lumberjack has come up against us.”
9Sheol from beneath has moved for you to meet you at your coming. It stirs up the departed spirits for you, even all the rulers of the earth. It has raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
10They all will answer and ask you, “Have you also become as weak as we are? Have you become like us?”
11Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, with the sound of your stringed instruments. Maggots are spread out under you, and worms cover you.
12How you have fallen from heaven, shining one, son of the dawn! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low!
13You said in your heart, “I will ascend into heaven! I will exalt my throne above the stars of God! I will sit on the mountain of assembly, in the far north!
14I will ascend above the heights of the clouds! I will make myself like the Most High!”
15Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit.
16Those who see you will stare at you. They will ponder you, saying, “Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms,
17who made the world like a wilderness, and overthrew its cities, who didn’t release his prisoners to their home?”
18All the kings of the nations sleep in glory, everyone in his own house.
19But you are cast away from your tomb like an abominable branch, clothed with the slain who are thrust through with the sword, who go down to the stones of the pit; like a dead body trodden under foot.
20You will not join them in burial, because you have destroyed your land. You have killed your people. The offspring of evildoers will not be named forever.
21Prepare for slaughter of his children because of the iniquity of their fathers, that they not rise up and possess the earth, and fill the surface of the world with cities.
22“I will rise up against them,” says the LORD of Armies, “and cut off from Babylon name and remnant, and son and son’s son,” says the LORD.
23“I will also make it a possession for the porcupine, and pools of water. I will sweep it with the broom of destruction,” says the LORD of Armies.
24The LORD of Armies has sworn, saying, “Surely, as I have thought, so shall it happen; and as I have purposed, so shall it stand:
25that I will break the Assyrian in my land, and tread him under foot on my mountains. Then his yoke will leave them, and his burden leave their shoulders.
26This is the plan that is determined for the whole earth. This is the hand that is stretched out over all the nations.
27For the LORD of Armies has planned, and who can stop it? His hand is stretched out, and who can turn it back?”
28This burden was in the year that King Ahaz died.
29Don’t rejoice, O Philistia, all of you, because the rod that struck you is broken; for out of the serpent’s root an adder will emerge, and his fruit will be a fiery flying serpent.
30The firstborn of the poor will eat, and the needy will lie down in safety; and I will kill your root with famine, and your remnant will be killed.
31Howl, gate! Cry, city! You are melted away, Philistia, all of you; for smoke comes out of the north, and there is no straggler in his ranks.
32What will they answer the messengers of the nation? That the LORD has founded Zion, and in her the afflicted of his people will take refuge.
World English Bible · World English Bible; source eBible.org.
Notes on Isaiah 14
1869 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 12-22.
Editorial footnote · On First Principles, The Writings of Origen, Vol. 1 of 2 / ORIGEN DE PRINCIPIIS. / BOOK I. / CHAPTER V. ON RATIONAL NATURES., editorial note f116 · Original source
1871 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 12.
Editorial footnote · The City of God, THE WORKS OF AURELIUS AUGUSTINE, / BOOK ELEVENTH. / ARGUMENT., editorial note Footnote_476_476 · Original source
1872 (English edition) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 4 sqq.
Editorial footnote · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK VI. / Chapter XLIII., editorial note f1248 · Original source
1885 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 1.
Editorial footnote · Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter CXXIII.—Ridiculous interpretations of the Jews. Christians are the true Israel., editorial note cite_note-479 · Original source
1885 (historical English edition; physical printing year uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 14.
Editorial footnote · The Five Books Against Marcion, Book 5, Chapter 11, editorial note cite_note-39 · Original source
1886 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 13, 14.
Editorial footnote · The Epistles of Cyprian, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Part 54, editorial note cite_note-8 · Original source
1886 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 15, 16.
Editorial footnote · The Epistles of Cyprian, Chapter uncertain; original source section: Part 54, editorial note cite_note-9 · Original source
1888 (historical English edition; physical printing year uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 13, τν στρων το ορανοἐλαχιστοτρον, here ἐσχτον.
Editorial footnote · Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 25, editorial note cite_note-26 · Original source
1888 (historical English edition; physical printing year uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 27.
Editorial footnote · Tractates on the Gospel of John, Tractate 3, editorial note cite_note-13 · Original source
1894 (historical English edition; transcription printing date uncertain) | Historical editor/translator (individual note author unspecified)
Isa. xiv. 14, 15.
Editorial footnote · Against Nestorius, Chapter IX.; original source section: Chapter 9; original book/conference: Book IV., editorial note cite_note-5 · Original source
Date uncertain | Ambrose of Milan
238. But Arius was not caught up to heaven, although he followed him who with accursed boastfulness presumed on what was divine, saying: “I will set my throne upon the clouds; I will be like the Most High.” For as he said: “I will be like the Most High,” so too Arius wishes the Most High Son of God to seem like himself, Whom he does not worship in the eternal glory of His Godhead, but measures by the weakness of the flesh.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter XIX., source paragraph 15 · Original source
Date uncertain | Ambrose of Milan
119. Let those who oppose us on this ground tell us first what the Life of the Son is. Is it a life bestowed by the Father upon one lacking life? But how could the Son ever fail to possess life, He Himself being the Life, as He says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” Truly, His life is eternal, even as His power is eternal. Was there a time, then, when (so to speak) Life possessed not itself?
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Exposition of the Christian Faith, Chapter X., source paragraph 4 · Original source
Date uncertain | John Cassian
art our God and we knew thee not, O God of Israel the Saviour.” How wonderfully consistent the Holy Scriptures always are! For the first mentioned prophet said, “This is our God,” and this one says, “Thou art our God.” In the one there is the teaching of Divinity, in the other the confession of men. The one exhibits the character of the Master teaching, the other that of the people confessing. For consider now the prophet Jeremiah daily teaching, as he does, in the church, and saying of the Lord Jesus Christ, “This is our God,” what else could the whole Church reply, as it does, than what the other prophet said to the Lord Jesus, “Thou art our God.” So that full well could the mention of their past ignorance be joined to their present acknowledgment, in the words of the people: “Thou art our God, and we knew thee not.” For well can these who, in times past being taken up with the superstitions of devils did not know God, yet when now converted to the faith say, “Thou art our God, and we knew thee not.”
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Against Nestorius, Chapter IX.; original source section: Chapter 9; original book/conference: Book IV., source paragraph 4 · Original source
Date uncertain | John Chrysostom
Such an one was he that saith, “I will exalt my throne above the Heavens.”and did not account himself to be worthy so much as of the title of the apostles, after so many and so great deeds of goodness.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 25, source paragraph 39 · Original source
Date uncertain | Origen
Mark now, whether he who charges us with having committed errors of the most impious kind, and with having wandered away from the [true meaning] of the divine enigmas, is not himself clearly in error, from not observing that in the writings of Moses, which are much older not merely than Heraclitus and Pherecydes, but even than Homer, mention is made of this wicked one, and of his having fallen from heaven. For the serpent—from whom the Ophioneus spoken of by Pherecydes is derived—having become the cause of man’s expulsion from the divine Paradise, obscurely shadows forth something similar, having deceived the woman by a promise of divinity and of greater blessings; and her example is said to have been followed also by the man. And, further, who else could the destroying angel mentioned in the Exodus of Moses be, than he who was the author of destruction to them that obeyed him, and did not withstand his wicked deeds, nor struggle against them? Moreover, [the goat], which in the book of Leviticus is sent away [into the wilderness], and which in the Hebrew language is named Azazel, was none other than this; and it was necessary to send it away into the desert, and to treat it as an expiatory sacrifice, because on it the lot fell. For all who belong to the “worse” part, on account of their wickedness, being opposed to those who are God’s heritage, are deserted by God. Nay, with respect to the sons of Belial in the book of Judges, whose sons are they said to be, save his, on account of their wickedness? And besides all these instances, in the book of Job, which is older even than Moses himself, the devil is distinctly described as presenting himself before God, and asking for power against Job, that he might involve him in trials of the most painful kind; the first of which consisted in the loss of all his goods and of his children, and the second in afflicting the whole body of Job with the so-called disease of elephantiasis. I pass by what might be quoted from the Gospels regarding the devil who tempted the Saviour, that I may not appear to quote in reply to Celsus from more recent writings on this question. In the last [chapter] also of Job, in which the Lord utters to Job amid tempest and clouds what is recorded in the book which bears his name, there are not a few things referring to the serpent. I have not yet mentioned the passages in Ezekiel, where he speaks, as it were, of Pharaoh, or Nebuchadnezzar, or the prince of Tyre; or those in Isaiah, where lament is made for the king of Babylon, from which not a little might be learned concerning evil, as to the nature of its origin and generation, and as to how it derived its existence from some who had lost their wings, and who had followed him who was the first to lose his own.
Source passage · edition’s verse reference · Against Celsus, The writings of Origen, Vol. 2 of 2 / BOOK VI. / Chapter XLIII., source paragraph 438 · Original source