The Golden City Isaiah 14

Isaiah 14:11-12 "Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"

Well, you can't sleep through reading this chapter. I, in fact, have had difficulty deciding how to approach it. On the one hand, we have more encouragement for Israel that the captivity would end and the promise fulfilled.

v1 "For 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."

On the other hand we see Babylon compared to Babel from Genesis 11 and compared to the fall of Satan in our text verses. It would be impossible for me to separate the powers of the world, that would usurp God's authority, from the power of Satan to deceive.

Here we are reminded of the pain caused when a great power strips the nations they conquer to make their golden cities and fill the treasuries of their government.

v17 "That made the world as a wilderness, and destroyed the cities thereof; that opened not the house of his prisoners?"

Although the king of Babylon was used to discipline Israel, they became puffed up and arrogant in their own conceit and for that they were brought low.

v32 "What shall one then answer the messengers of the nation? That the LORD hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it."

II Thessalonians 2:3-4 "Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."

It is best, when studying prophecy, to try to establish whether the passage covers the immediate future or some distant future or whether it does both. That is sometimes hard to determine.

But here Isaiah is telling of the fall of the nation that took Israel away and their return. I think it safe to say that a nation that is against Israel is against God for He will determine Israel's path.

I would like to make a note of the passage concerning Lucifer that the space he occupies in hell is not the center of attention but he is found clinging to the sides of the pit. He is not king there and is helpless as anyone else.

v15 "Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. v16 They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee, and consider thee, saying is this the man that made the earth to tremble, that did shake kingdoms;"