Isaiah 14:9, commentary and pictures

Isaiah 14:9 belongs to the triumphant ode taken up against the king of Babylon, foretelling the utter downfall of that proud oppressor and golden city long before Babylon fell as head of gold. Behind the earthly king stands Lucifer, the apostate day-star turned Satan, the invisible first king and inspirer of Babylon in its self-exaltation, force-worship, and rebellion against God. Hell here is sheol, the grave beneath in the earth, the dark, silent abode of all the dead where there is no work, knowledge, remembrance, or torment. Its moving to meet him, stirring the dead, and raising kings from thrones to mock him as become weak like themselves is poetic personification, not literal speech or thrones in death, vividly showing death leveling the mighty with his victims and prisoners. Those who held the dead to be conscious took it to picture a ruler arriving among living spirits of the dead and not merely laid in a grave.

Prophetic Context and Setting

Isaiah 14:9 is part of the prophecy foretelling Babylon's destruction. It belongs to the great burden of prophecy against Babylon spoken by God many years before its fall, predicting the downfall of Babylon as the head of gold before the silver empire takes its place in succession, whose fulfillment is proved by the dispassionate testimony of heathen historians who did not know the prophecy and had no design to show its fulfillment.

It falls within the section of Isaiah containing prophetic judgments, including burdens against Babylon, Philistia, and Moab. It is part of the prophecies of Babylon in Isaiah 13 and 14, which rise from the earthly king of Babylon to Lucifer, the day-star, the son of the morning, who has inspired Babylon in all her wickedness. It belongs to the prophecy concerning Babylon and its highest king, Lucifer, and the doom from which God provides refuge. It is part of a poetic ode of triumph in Isaiah 14:3-23. It falls within the prophet's judgments upon nations, which stand in a sequence leading to God's judgments upon the earth.

It belongs to the first part of Isaiah, chapters 1 to 39, made up of single prophecies and historical accounts from active public work as God's messenger to rulers and people, published at different times and on different occasions and afterward brought together into one collection while remaining distinct and single, in contrast to chapters 40 to 66 which are occupied wholly with the future.

The chapter is a prophecy of God choosing Israel again the second time and giving them rest from sorrow and fear and hard bondage wherein they were made to serve. After that rest they take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, saying the oppressor has ceased and the golden city has ceased. The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked and the sceptre of the rulers, him who smote the people with a continual stroke and ruled the nations in anger. With him laid down the whole earth is at rest and quiet and breaks forth into singing, and the fir-trees and the cedars of Lebanon, which figuratively are God's people, rejoice that no feller has come up against them.

King of Babylon Identified

Lucifer the apostate angel is the king of Babylon, its first, invisible and highest king, the power behind its earthly king. The earthly rulers of Babylon served him, and as the day-star he inspired Babylon in all her wickedness. The prophecy to which the verse belongs foretells what will come upon Satan and all who follow him in the end, with the destruction of ancient Babylon serving as its type, and the greatness of that ancient monarchy was the outward expression of his effort to establish his dominion upon this earth and defeat God's plan to save the world. The chapter's fallen king is Lucifer identified with Satan, the angel who led the revolt in heaven, and the stirring of the dead and the rising of rulers from thrones is part of the account of that proud ruler being brought down.

The verse belongs to the account of Babylon's origin in rebellion against God. Lucifer sought to take God's throne and rule universally, setting self-worship, force and might above love and right, aspiring to ascend above the stars of God and be like the Most High. Turning from God to self he became Satan the adversary by rebellion and stands under the judgment described in the prophecy, removed from his place in heaven because of rebellious envy. His self-exaltation against God, seeking exaltation and freedom by departing from God, ended in abasement, bondage and death, and his fall made him the originator and king of Babylon, whose history shows that human efforts to exalt themselves apart from God end in confusion and destruction.

Satan is the king and head of the Babylonian religious system. Unable to take Christ's place as head of the church, he leads this apostate system and uses it through pagan empires to seek control of civil governments and suppress Christianity. Babylon under satanic control forms the first head of the beast system, the cruel wild-beast system of church-and-state government, which gave satanic character to the whole beast, corrupts truth and wars against God, Christ and the church until destroyed at the coming of the Son of man. Through Babylon Satan endeavored to destroy God's captive people and cut off the coming Man Child, as in the proposed burning of the three Hebrews in the fiery furnace, and would have destroyed all the faithful had not God interposed to stop him. That same spirit of self-salvation apart from God appears in every phase of the one Babylonian system from ancient Babylon to the present, showing itself in creed and decree and dogma and state law as religion by dictation and law and force in opposition to the humility and meekness of Christ.

The stirring of the dead and earthly kings at his coming belongs to the utter overthrow of that proud ruler, once Lucifer, brought down for pride and for choosing to reject God's way. He is addressed here as the papal king of Mystery Babylon, of whom it is said that the oppressor and the golden city have ceased and the Lord has broken the staff of the wicked and sceptre of rulers who smote with continual stroke and ruled in anger, so that with him laid down the whole earth is at rest singing.

Descent Greeted by Dead

Hell from beneath is set in motion to meet the coming one at his arrival, stirring up the dead, even all the chief ones of the earth, and raising up from their thrones all the kings of the nations to meet the newcomer as he descends into Sheol beneath in the earth. Sheol is beneath, below in the earth, the realm of the dead and the common grave where the dead lie until the resurrection, and the dead and the rulers of the nations are pictured as roused there at the arrival of the fallen king of Babylon. In the context of the chapter that king is Lucifer, and the realm of the dead with its dead rulers rising from their thrones meets him at his fall.

The kings he had conquered and destroyed rise from their thrones in that dark abode in the nether parts of the earth to meet him. They mock him with feigned obeisance that reverses the real homage they gave him in life, taunting him with having become weak and like them and asking whether he is the man who once made the earth to tremble and shook the kingdoms. Those who see him question whether this is the man who shook the earth and kingdoms, and their greeting mocks his fall and weakness. The scene sets forth the great truth that death reduces him to the same level with his subjects and prisoners.

The same stirring of the grave is applied to the beginning of the thousand years, when Satan is cast onto the desolate earth while the wicked remain dead in their graves. Then the dead and the former rulers of the nations are represented as rising in speech to meet him and taunting him because he has become as weak and helpless as they are.

Hell as Sheol Beneath

Hell in this verse translates the Hebrew word sheol, the Old Testament equivalent of the New Testament hades. Sheol occurs sixty-five times in the Old Testament, rendered thirty-one times grave, three times pit, and thirty-one times hell, while hades is rendered ten times hell and once grave. Sheol is the same as hades, and what Moses and the prophets teach about sheol or hades, including this verse, is in full harmony with the teachings of Christ and the apostles. Sheol is not a paradise of conscious happiness and bliss nor a halfway house to heaven.

Sheol means the abode of the dead, the grave or the place and state of all the dead, the common grave and the place of every grave. There is there no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, no remembrance of God and no thanksgiving, only darkness, silence, secrecy, forgetfulness, and deep sleep. It is not a place of torment, not a paradise of conscious bliss, not a halfway house to heaven, and not punishment by hell-fire. Rendering sheol as hell here is arbitrary, since hell, pit, and grave would answer equally well, and grave conveys the sense as well as hell without conveying to the intelligent reader any idea of future punishment, so that it would have been better if sheol had not been translated hell at all.

Sheol or hades lies beneath the earth, in its interior, in its bosom, heart, depths, and sometimes nether parts, always below in the earth. This verse supports that location, describing the king of Babylon descending into sheol or hades beneath, where the dead and the kings of the nations are pictured as roused to meet him. Its only inhabitants are explicitly identified as dead people, including former rulers and rulers of the nations, who lie there until the resurrection.

Sheol or hades is the hell that shall be burned in the final fire, located in the interior or nether parts of the earth. The lowest sheol shall feel devouring fire when the final conflagration dissolves the earth and makes its interior center the center of intense heat. Hades is not shown to contain Paradise, for if Paradise and its tree of life were a part of hades in a cavern in the interior of the earth, then being caught up to Paradise would have meant going to the depths of the earth and not to the third heaven.

Figurative Not Literal

The stirring of the underworld to meet the newcomer, the rousing of the dead, even all the chief ones of the earth, and the raising of all the kings of the nations from their thrones to meet, look, speak and mock is figure of speech and personification, purely poetic like parable or metaphor. By it unconscious and inanimate things without life are given the sentiments, actions and language of rational living beings, represented as living, acting and speaking about the facts of their case as they would if alive and capable of thought and utterance. The dead do not literally rise, converse, occupy thrones, hold discourse, or mock in Sheol, nor do they literally live, speak or suffer there. The dead are portrayed as if they could see, look closely, awaken, meet and address the fallen king, but this does not make them literally conscious.

The figure is like the rejoicing fir trees and cedars of Lebanon, like Pharaoh comforted among the slain with swords under their heads, like Rachel long dead weeping for her children, and like other portrayals of the dead speaking. The slaughtered in Sheol with swords under their heads do not literally speak and Pharaoh is not literally comforted, and Rachel long dead in Sheol did not literally weep tears for her children, any more than there are literal thrones seated in the earth or literal conscious conversation and mockery by the dead. Its language is exactly like the rich man speaking in hades, the same kind of personified speech as the rich man and Lazarus represented as speaking and acting in parable. It belongs to the testimony of Moses and the prophets concerning hades to which that parable refers for information on that place.

The personification does not teach conscious shades, disembodied spirits, or literal comfort in death, for the idea of conscious shades in hades is of heathen origin. Sheol is a place of death and silence, with no work, device, knowledge, wisdom, remembrance of God, thanksgiving, or punishment by hell-fire, only darkness, forgetfulness, secrecy and deep sleep, and the dead are not alive and have no thought. Its thrones, living activity and mock obeisance are figurative, not a description of conscious dead people, and do not mean weapons are carried into the grave. Sheol is pictured as an underworld kingdom where the dead dwell together without clear separation between pious and wicked, though rank is distinguished and kings are pictured on thrones.

The imagery vividly brings true thoughts of future retribution before the mind and is used to set forth a great truth forcibly to the living. It shows death reducing the king to the same level with his subjects and prisoners, leveling him with others whom he had conquered and destroyed. Things which in the purpose of God are to be are spoken of as existing because they shall surely exist. This figure is in harmony with all that Moses and the prophets and Christ and the apostles say about the dead in hades and about recompense coming only after the day of judgment, helps explain the rich man and Lazarus by proving such speaking does not teach consciousness in death, and leaves punishment still future until the day of judgment. Beside this, it has been taught that the verse pictures the king entering Sheol, the unseen place of the departed, where the dead are conscious and dead kings rise from their thrones to meet him, describing the arrival of a dead ruler among spirits of the dead and not merely his burial in a grave.

Warning Application Extended

Hell from beneath is moved to meet the willful habitual sinning minister at his coming when he dies. By sinful example he murders his congregation and peoples the regions of death as the choicest instrument of darkness, and far more so if he defends, excuses, or extenuates his sin. His corrupt life, teaching, and influence lead others toward death and destruction, so that the dead are raised to welcome him and he does not descend alone. He cannot sink into the pit, even the bottomless pit, without dragging a multitude after him.

Hell below is set in motion as a stormy sea of fire to meet the impenitent sinner at his coming in death. It stands in his way so that he cannot get to heaven, whereas for a pardoned sinner hell is not in the way. Therefore the impenitent must not delay but flee to Christ, even Jesus Christ, for pardon.

The same stirring of hell from beneath is seen in present forces of death, ruin, and enslavement at work among men. The drink trade brings ruin and enslavement to the people, with its working visible in organized efforts to draw young people into drinking. Fierce violent opposition to preaching, as when a mob rises against the preacher and his companions, is as though the powers of hell had risen against them.