Isaiah 14

Isaiah 14  •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 10
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God chooses Israel, not Judah only, and sets them in their own land. After the Assyrian, the enemy here, is destroyed, Zion is founded. Verses 13 and 14 may have an application to the Roman beast, as most expositors feel from the general teachings of the prophetic Word.
Babylon falls first and is swept with the besom (broom) of destruction. Thereupon the Assyrian falls under the power of Jehovah, being the last enemy to fall before the millennial day of blessing and peace for Israel and eventually the whole world.
Although the western Roman nations held the last of the four empires spoken of in Daniel, still the great image of Daniel will fall as a whole when the "Stone" smites it upon the feet. The "Stone" becomes a great Mountain and fills the whole earth. The whole image represents Babylon, the head being of gold, to whom the power was originally given. The powers of all peoples of the first three empires have had their "lives prolonged for a season and a time," although their dominion was taken away. They will again be seen to form their part of the image, only to be destroyed.
In Isa. 14:26, "This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations." Thus this chapter that takes up the subject of Babylon does not conclude until the Assyrian is destroyed. The entire image once and for all is judged, no part remaining to threaten God's people again. "Then shall his yoke depart from off their shoulders."
The great Assyrian of the last days, the leader in the last great battle of Armageddon, gathers the whole earth after the beast is destroyed. As the head of this great confederacy, spoken of in Psa. 83, he attacks Jerusalem and finds his grave there. Now Zion is founded. "This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all nations." It is finally culminated in the "Controversy of Zion" at Jerusalem, ending in Edom, where the nations are all put down in judgment by Jehovah.
When the Assyrian falls, with the nations who once formed a part of that image, Chaldea, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome, Babylon in its fullest sense as a controlling power in the earth falls, never to rise again, but the feet are smitten first, initiating the final blow that crushes Babylon so as to never rise again.