Isaiah 14

Isaiah 14:1-3

Not only predict that the Jews, attended by many Gentile proselytes and Chaldean slaves, should return to their own land from Babylon; but that they, and multitudes of Gentiles, in the apostolic and millennial periods, shall coalesce into one gospel church

Isaiah 14:4-11

Not only the neighbouring nations, but the very dead and damned, shall, in their respective forms, insult the disgraced and ruined king and princes of Babylon

Isaiah 14:12

Proud as a devil, shining as an angel, and possessed of distinguished glory and majesty among the nations, how art thou debased and ruined! Notwithstanding thy ami bition and boasts to raise an empire wide as the heavens, and to sit like JEMOVAH in his temple and heavenly mansions, thou shalt be debased into contempt, death, and damnation. 18, 19. Other kings lie interred in their stately tombs; but thou shalt lie unburied as a rotten stick or polluted cloth which none cares to touch

Isaiah 14:24-27

I have determined, in my unchangeable purpose, to destroy the Assyrian army before Jerusalem; my almighty power shall, without fail, accomplish it

Isaiah 14:29-31

O Philistines, though David and Uzziah, who smote you, be dead, and Ahaz his grandson weakened or dead, Hezekiah his son shall ravage your country. And, while God shall take care of the poorest Jews, they, and afterwards the Assyrians or Chaldeans, shall, with great unanimity and fury, destroy your nation

Isaiah 14:32

And, by their ambassadors, the neighbouring nations shall be informed, that to the power and care of God alone the stability and safety of Jerusalem and the church, however poor, is entirely owing

REFLECTIONS UPON CHAP. XIV.—How strangely nations rise and fall in the scales of God’s providence! But a pleasant aspect towards the saints have all the clouds of wrath that hang over their adversaries. And the overthrow of nations directs men to Jesus and his church. Great is the instability of earthly honours, power, or wealth. Such as were masters one day are often slaves to their slaves the next. All our salvation must be ascribed to the rich and sove-vereign mercy of God. It is his election of grace, not our free-will, that can bring us to the inheritance incorruptible and undefiled. And ever certain, however slow, is the deliverance of his chosen, his church, from all their griefs, fears, and toils. But to what fearful misery and disgrace are proud and powerful oppressors reduced at the last! Neither power nor wealth profit in the day of his wrath. Both God and men take pleasure to humble and debase the proud. But if haughty tyrants sink to ruin—to damnation, with such cruel derision, in what fearful forms shall devils and damned heathens welcome to hell the proud despisers of Jesus Christ! Great is the misery which the wickedness of parents entails upon their impenitent posterity, and the marks of wrath which sinners fix upon the spots where they lived. Stable, and infallibly executed, are the purposes of God. And it is vain for his enemies to hope for exemption from ruin; for, if one foe be cut off, he can raise up a worse. But, amidst all the commotions on earth, fixed is his church and safe the poorest of her members. JERONAH is her founder, foundation, protector, and refuge