This study is another in my series on eschatology. The passage in question has nothing to do with eschatology. Nonetheless, we must study it because it is often misinterpreted as dealing with the end-of-the-world. However, I do not wish to spend great amounts of time deconstructing Dispensationalism. Thus we will focus on what the passage does say, and hermeneutic principles for understanding it, implicitly ruling out Dispensational and other erroneous views. The key to understanding this passage is context. We will examine the passage in its context in the book of Isaiah as a whole, its context in history, and its context in literature and language.
The immediate context is usually the best place to start studying any literary passage, whether scripture or otherwise. Isaiah is a rather large book, so commentaries come in handy in getting a good bird's eye view of its overall structure. Outlining is a useful tool here. There is no one "right" outline, but most commentaries will more or less agree on the overall structure, though they they may split or combine some points here and there. The below outline is based on Wycliff Bible Commentary.
I. Rebuke and Promise (Isa 1-6)
II. Immanuel (Isa 7-12)
III. Judgment on the Nations (Isa 13-23)
A. Babylon
B. Assyria
C. Philistia
D. Moab
E. Damscus and Samaria
F. Ethiopia
G. Egypt
H. Babylon
I. Edom
J. Dedan and Kedar
K. Jerusalem
L. Tyre
IV. General Rebuke and Promise, I (Isa 24-27)
V. Woes on Unbelievers (Isa 28-33)
VI. General Rebuke and Promise, II (Isa 34-35)
VII. Hezekiah (Isa 36-39)
VIII. Comfort (Isa 40-66)
One thing we notice about the book of Isaiah is that it is not in simple chronological order. Rather it was probably collected together by Isaiah's disciples at the end of his career[1]. Its structure therefore is not premeditated nor chronological, but related materials are brought together. The passage we are going to examine opens up a block of material that deals with the various nations of the region that were in conflict with Assyria (except for the brief mention of Assyria itself of course). The passage itself establishes its subject matter as being about Babylon: Isa 13:1, 19, 14:4. It would be quite odd if Isaiah meant something by "Babylon" other than the literal nation that his contemporaries would have known. Our default position, absent strong evidence to the contrary, is that Babylon is not symbolic for the Roman Catholic church, or the kingdom of the antichrist, or any other such thing. It was the 8th century BC nation.
Scripture itself puts great emphasis on its own historical context. Biblical events do not take place in a mythical past, but in a past that is human history solidly connected with the present. The very first verse of Isaiah establishes the timeframe of Isaiah's ministry. Chapters 36-39 appear to be lifted directly from the account in Kings. Modern archeology has discovered Assyrian and Babylonian records that help to fill in the details of the historical context of Isaiah. We'll only briefly overview the historical background for the purposes of this study.[2]
In 745 BC, Tiglath-pileser III ascended the throne of Assyria and revitalized the Assyrian empire, meaning, he expanded the empire by conquest. By 740 BC he had annexed northern and southern Syria, and by 734 BC the coastal Philistines. In 732 BC he annexed Damascus. Assyrian records record the receipt of tribute from the biblical Rezin of Damascus (before he was conquered) and Menaham of Israel. 2 Kings 16:5-9 records that Ahaz paid tribute to Assyria to get support against Damascus and Samaria.
Revolts were common. Shalmaneser V was kept very busy defending against them, including besieging Samaria, which fell under Shalmaneser's successor, Sargon II, 722-705 BC. The death of one king and the accession of the next was always an opportunity for revolt. When Sargon ascended the throne, Merodach-baladan led Babylon in revolt and ruled as its king until 710 BC. He survived the fall of Babylon, and managed to lead another shorter lived revolt a few years later, after Sargon II's death and Sennacherib's accession to the throne (704-703 BC). It is almost certainly that it was during one of these periods of Babylonian revolt that constitutes the background of Isaiah's Babylonian prophecy.
The exact dating and sequence of the Biblical events surrounding the above events are difficult. The Biblical data is confusing. Thiele[3] demonstrated that there were several different calendars in use in Israel and Judea over its history, and different ones were adopted during different periods by each kingdom. The below reconstruction should be viewed as somewhat tentative.
2 Kings 18:13-16 records that Sennacherib attacked Jerusalem in the 14th year of Hezekiah (713/2 BC). Sennacherib was not yet king of Assyria at that time, so he must have lead the attempted conquest as crown prince. Hezekiah paid him off to leave. 2 Kings goes on to record another attack by Sennacherib that we know from Assyrian records took place in 701 BC.
The next account is that of Hezekiah's illness, which took place 15 years before he died (his life was spared and extended by 15 years, 2 Kings 20:1-11), and so must have taken place about the same time as Sennacherib's first attack, presumably shortly afterwards. After his illness, Hezekiah received representatives from Merodach-baladan, king of Babylon (2 Kings 20:12-21). Pay special attention to Isaiah's prophecy in 2 Kings 20:16-18.
2 Ki 20:16Isaiah said to Hezekiah, “Listen to the word of the Lord, 20:17‘Look, a time is coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord. 20:18‘Some of your very own descendants that you produce will be taken away and will be made eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.’”
It is near this event that most, if not all the prophecies against Babylon in Isaiah are to be dated.
In the 19th century, many scholars thought that the Greek of the New Testament was a special dialect, distinct from the classical Greek of Homer et al, especially for the revelation of scripture, sometimes referred to as "Holy Ghost Greek". Then, numerous Greek papyri were discovered that scholars realized were written in the same dialect as the New Testament.[4] This is an important point: scripture is communicated in ordinary language using the idioms and literary conventions familiar to those who first received it. The interpreter of scripture must steer a course between two extremes: an excessive literalness that makes the passage say things not intended by the writer, and an excessive looseness that allows the interpreter to allegorize the scripture into saying anything he wants without regard to the intent of the author.
The following quotations are from the NET, but will often follow the more literal notes instead of the main text. The NET, like nearly all translations, interprets many ancient figures of speech using more modern forms of expression. We will now survey many of the figures of speech that occur in this passage, highlighting them in blue:
Is 13:7For this reason all hands drop [go numb], every human heart drops [loses its courage].
Obviously the hands and heart do not detach from the body and fall to the ground. Symbolism is occurring on two levels here. First, hands represent the person doing something in several idioms (e.g., do whatever you hand finds to do) or the power a person has over something (e.g., delivered into his hands) and the heart is symbolic for the center of emotion and courage. Second, these symbols are then themselves presented as doing an action that is symbolic. They fall to the ground, representing a loss of efficacy.
Is 13:8They panic— cramps and pain seize hold of them like cramps of a woman who is straining to give birth. They look at one another in astonishment, their faces are flushed red.
This is a standard simile. The pain is like labor, but not identical to it.
Is 13:10Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations do not flash forth their light [no longer shine]; the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shed forth its light [shine].
This verse is not eschatological. The stars, sun, and moon are not being said to cease to exist. Rather, their light is not being shed forth [onto the observer]. In the context of military conquest (Isa 13:4), it is rather a poetical image of the light being blotted out by conflagration, specifically of Babylon.
Is 13:13So I will shake the heavens [Or "the sky"], and the earth will shake loose from its place [foundation], because of the fury of the Lord who leads armies, in the day he vents his raging anger.
These are poetic hyperboles, not dissimilar to how we describe momentous events as earth-shattering, or say they rock our world. Ancient peoples pictured the sky as a solid dome, about which it was meaningful, if still hyperbolic, to speak of it has being shaken. Today, such an image doesn't even have a sensible literal meaning since we know the sky is not a solid object.
Is 13:14Like a frightened gazelle or a sheep with no shepherd, each will turn toward home, each will run to his homeland.
Again we have a straight-forward simile.
Is 13:16Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives raped.
This is a stock phrase for military conquest. It is somewhat of an hyperbole, thought not too far from the truth. Children are not brittle like pottery to shatter into multiple pieces if smashed into the ground, although the actual mutilation of bodies is not going to be far from that.
Is 13:18Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons; their eye does not look with pity [they have no compassion] on a person’s offspring, they will not look with pity on children.
An arrow does cut a man quite severely, but it is hyperbole to describe the flesh as cut into neat ribbons, though the reality is hardly less gruesome.
The eye (not) looking with pity is an example of metonymy. The eye stands for the person (a part for the whole). And even the action, looking, stands for the empathetic emotional feelings of that person, so there is a metonymy inside the metonymy.
Is 13:19Babylon, the most admired of kingdoms, the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride, will be destroyed by God just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.
This is another example of simile. Just how is Babylon's destruction just like Sodom and Gomorrah's? Nothing in this passage suggests angels visiting Babylon and raining down fire and brimstone on the city. Rather the similarity is a matter of metaphysics rather than physics. That is, Babylon's destruction is a judgment from God and perhaps some hyperbole regarding the totality of its destruction.
Is 14:5The Lord has broken the club of the wicked, the scepter of rulers.
The club/scepter is symbolic of the weapons of oppression. The image of their destruction is a metonymy for the destruction of the powers behind those symbols.
Is 14:6It furiously struck down nations with unceasing blows. It angrily ruled over nations, oppressing them without restraint.
"It" here is the club/scepter of the preceding verse The striking is symbolic of the oppression carried about by those who wielded the symbols.
Is 14:7The whole earth rests and is quiet; they break into song.
This is an obvious hyperbole. The Maya and Aztecs in Mexico did not rest as a result of the destruction of Babylon, let alone break out into song. The point is only the totality of the relief that the king of Babylon's death will bring about.
Is 14:8The evergreens also rejoice over your demise, as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing, ‘Since you fell asleep, no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’
The personification of the evergreens and cedars is another type of figure of speech. If they were persons capable of rejoicing and singing, they certainly would do so at the prospect of no longer being chopped down.
Is 14:22“I will rise up against them,” says the Lord who leads armies. “I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people, including the offspring she produces,” says the Lord.
This is hyperbole. Since the existence of Babylon is written in scripture, and scripture will never pass away, it will always be remembered that Babylon existed. What this verse points more precisely to is that the day will come when no one has a personal recollection of Babylon. The city has ceased and has remained extinct long enough for everyone who knew her to have died.
Is 14:23“I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals and covered with pools of stagnant water. I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,” says the Lord who leads armies.
This is another poetic simile. God is not going to take a mountain sized broom to Babylon, but he is going to discard of her like one discards household dirt.
The New Testament alludes to three verses in our passage here: Isa 13:10 and Isa 14:13-14. These bring up important exegetical questions, and so will be examined in detail here.
Is 13:10Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer shine; the sun is darkened as soon as it rises, and the moon does not shine....Is 13:13So I will shake the heavens, and the earth will shake loose from its foundation, because of the fury of the Lord who leads armies, in the day he vents his raging anger.
Mt 24:29“Immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
Mk 13:24“But in those days, after the suffering, the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light; 13:25the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.
Lk 21:26People will be fainting from fear and from the expectation of what is coming on the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.
Jesus quoted phrases from Isaiah 13:10, 13 when talking about Jerusalem's destruction in the Olivet discourse. I've argued elsewhere for a non-eschatological understanding of that discourse. Note how the bulk of that discourse is bracketed:
Mk 13:2Jesus said to him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left on another. All will be torn down!” ... Mk 13:4“Tell us, when will these things happen? And what will be the sign that all these things are about to take place?”................. Mk 13:30I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.
In invoking the language that Isaiah used in the Babylon oracle, he did not simply just apply the same language to a similar situation (the destruction of a city), he implicitly accused Jerusalem of being a second Babylon.
Is 14:13You said to yourself, “I will climb up to the sky. Above the stars of El I will set up my throne. I will rule on the mountain of assembly on the remote slopes of Zaphon. 14:14I will climb up to the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High!”
2 Th 2:4He opposes and exalts himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and as a result he takes his seat in God’s temple, displaying himself as God.
Paul picks up some phrases from Isaiah 14:13-14. Paul is using it in describing a future, possibly eschatological, figure with delusions of godhood. The hyperbolic language Isaiah used in describing the king of Babylon is apropos, but the two are not to be identified.
The popular identification of the king in Isaiah 14 with Satan is simply incorrect, at least on the literal level. The king of Babylon was certainly an evil person who makes a good type of Satan, but was himself an actual human. See more on this below.
Now that we've established our contexts, let's go through paragraph by paragraph and exegete the passage in greater detail.
Is 13:1This is a message about Babylon that God revealed to Isaiah son of Amoz:
The title of the section says its about Babylon. It seems best to assume then that the passage is about the literal Babylon, and not symbolically Jerusalem, Rome, America, or some other place.
Is 13:2On a bare hill raise a signal flag,
shout to them,
wave your hand,
so they might enter the gates of the princes!
13:3I have given orders to my chosen soldiers;
I have summoned the warriors through whom I will vent my anger,
my boasting, arrogant ones.
13:4There is a loud noise on the mountains—
it sounds like a large army!
There is great commotion among the kingdoms—
nations are being assembled!
The Lord who leads armies is mustering forces for battle.
13:5They come from a distant land, from the horizon.
It is the Lord with his instruments of judgment,
coming to destroy the whole earth.
13:6Wail, for the Lord’s day of judgment is near;
it comes with all the destructive power of the sovereign judge.
13:7For this reason all hands go numb,
every human heart loses its courage.
13:8They panic—
cramps and pain seize hold of them
like those of a woman who is straining to give birth.
They look at one another in astonishment,
their faces are flushed red.
13:9Look, the Lord’s day of judgment is coming;
it is a day of cruelty and savage, raging anger,
destroying the earth
and annihilating its sinners.
13:10Indeed the stars in the sky and their constellations no longer shine;
the sun is darkened as soon as it rises,
and the moon does not shine.
13:11I will punish the world for its evil,
and wicked people for their sin.
I will put an end to the pride of the insolent,
I will bring down the arrogance of tyrants.
13:12I will make human beings more scarce than pure gold,
and people more scarce than gold from Ophir.
13:13So I will shake the heavens,
and the earth will shake loose from its foundation,
because of the fury of the Lord who leads armies,
in the day he vents his raging anger.
13:14Like a frightened gazelle or a sheep with no shepherd,
each will turn toward home,
each will run to his homeland.
13:15Everyone who is caught will be stabbed;
everyone who is seized will die by the sword.
13:16Their children will be smashed to pieces before their very eyes;
their houses will be looted and their wives raped.
These verses interrupt the flow from verse 1 ("This is a message about Babylon...") to verse 17 ("Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them [Babylon]") with a passage of universal scope ("coming to destroy the whole earth", v. 5). These verses actually function as an introduction to the entire Judgment on the Nations section (Isaiah 13-23). The armies are already summoned (verse 3) and are already being assembled (verse 4). The day of judgment it looks forward to is near ("the Lord’s day of judgment is near", verse 6) and not some distant eschatological age. Its universal judgment finds its fulfillment in the fulfillment of the individual prophecies of the following 11 chapters. An immanent, not a distant eschatological, judgment is prophesied here.
Is 13:17Look, I am stirring up the Medes to attack them;
they are not concerned about silver,
nor are they interested in gold.
13:18Their arrows will cut young men to ribbons;
they have no compassion on a person’s offspring,
they will not look with pity on children.
13:19Babylon, the most admired of kingdoms,
the Chaldeans’ source of honor and pride,
will be destroyed by God just as Sodom and Gomorrah were.
13:20No one will live there again;
no one will ever reside there again.
No bedouin will camp there,
no shepherds will rest their flocks there.
13:21Wild animals will rest there,
the ruined houses will be full of hyenas.
Ostriches will live there,
wild goats will skip among the ruins.
13:22Wild dogs will yip in her ruined fortresses,
jackals will yelp in the once-splendid palaces.
Her time is almost up,
her days will not be prolonged.
The Medes refereed to here were likely Median mercenaries in the Assyrian army[5]. The Median reputation referred to here is referred to by Xenophon in the 4th century BC: [Cyrus speaking.... ] "Ye Medes, and others who now hear me, I well know that you have not accompanied me in this expedition with a view of acquiring wealth."—Cyrop. lib. 5. [6]
The language used to describe Babylon's destruction here is conventional for the genre. We encounter it elsewhere in scripture. Jeremiah uses such language in referring to 6th century Jerusalem and Babylon:
Je 25:9So I, the Lord, affirm that I am going to send for all the peoples of the north and my servant, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. I will bring them against this land and its inhabitants and all the nations that surround it. I will utterly destroy this land, its inhabitants, and all the nations that surround it and make them everlasting ruins. I will make them objects of horror and hissing scorn. 25:10I will put an end to the sounds of joy and gladness, to the glad celebration of brides and grooms in these lands. I will put an end to the sound of people grinding meal. I will put an end to lamps shining in their houses. 25:11This whole area will become a desolate wasteland. These nations will be subject to the king of Babylon for seventy years.’
Notice how in nearly the same breath, Jeremiah can describe the land and its inhabitants as utterly destroyed and the ruins as everlasting, yet limit the subjugation to only 70 years. He unambiguously did not intend for his word picture of destruction to be pressed to absolute literalness. He goes on to describe what is to happen to Babylon at the end of the seventy years using the same terms.
Je 25:12“‘But when the seventy years are over, I will punish the king of Babylon and his nation for their sins. I will make the land of Babylon an everlasting ruin. I, the Lord, affirm it. 25:13I will bring on that land everything that I said I would. I will bring on it everything that is written in this book. I will bring on it everything that Jeremiah has prophesied against all the nations. 25:14For many nations and great kings will make slaves of the king of Babylon and his nation too. I will repay them for all they have done!’”
Later He also invokes the Sodom and Gomorrah image for Babylon's destruction, but without giving any indication that he meant that Fire and Brimstone would rain down on it from the heavens.
Je 50:39Therefore desert creatures and jackals will live there.
Ostriches will dwell in it too.
But no people will ever live there again.
No one will dwell there for all time to come.
50:40I will destroy Babylonia just like I did
Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring towns.
No one will live there.
No human being will settle in it,”
says the Lord.
Jeremiah also used the exact same words to describe Edom. This illustrates how the word picture is a literary convention more than a "scientific" description.
Je 49:18Edom will be destroyed like Sodom and Gomorrah
and the towns that were around them.
No one will live there.
No human being will settle in it,”
says the Lord.
De ja vue all over again! More concerning Babylon:
Je 51:11“Sharpen your arrows!
Fill your quivers!
(The Lord will arouse a spirit of hostility in the kings of Media.
For he intends to destroy Babylonia.
For that is how the Lord will get his revenge—
how he will get his revenge for the Babylonians’ destruction of his temple.)
Je 51:26No one will use any of your stones as a cornerstone.
No one will use any of them in the foundation of his house.
For you will lie desolate forever,”
says the Lord.Je 51:62Then say, ‘O Lord, you have announced that you will destroy this place so that no people or animals live in it any longer. Certainly it will lie desolate forever!’
Concerning Mount Seir (Edom), Ezekiel wrote:
Eze 35:9I will make you a perpetual desolation, and your cities will never be inhabited again. Then you will know that I am the Lord.
Zephaniah wrote concerning Moab and Ammon:
Zep 2:9Therefore, as surely as I live,” says the Lord who leads armies, the God of Israel, “be certain that Moab will become like Sodom and the Ammonites like Gomorrah. They will be overrun by weeds, filled with salt pits, and permanently desolate. Those of my people who are left will plunder their belongings; those who are left in Judah will take possession of their land.”
Returning back to Isaiah, in a later prophesy, Isa 23:13, Isaiah is propehsying to Tyre and refers to the Chaldean's [Babylonia's] destruction as having already happened. This was presumably written after Merodach-baladan was defeated and Babylon reconquered in 710 or 703 BC.
Is 23:13Look at the land of the Chaldeans, these people who have lost their identity! The Assyrians have made it a home for wild animals. They erected their siege towers, demolished its fortresses, and turned it into a heap of ruins.
We may summarize thusly: The language here is poetic, and not impassionate prose. The poetic word pictures are conventional of the genre of prophecy of destruction -- the same word pictures are used over and over by Isaiah and other prophets. While the potential for absolute destruction was there, the original readers would have understood the language as hyperbolic, as can be seen in Jeremiah's use of the language, immediately followed by a prophecy of restoration after 70 years! We may therefore conclude that the Babylon being prophesied about by Isaiah was the Babylon of his day, and that the prophesy was fulfilled in his day.
Is 14:1The Lord will certainly have compassion on Jacob; he will again choose Israel as his special people and restore them to their land. Resident foreigners will join them and unite with the family of Jacob. 14:2Nations will take them and bring them back to their own place. Then the family of Jacob will make foreigners their servants as they settle in the Lord’s land. They will make their captors captives and rule over the ones who oppressed them. 14:3When the Lord gives you relief from your suffering and anxiety, and from the hard labor which you were made to perform, 14:4ayou will taunt the king of Babylon with these words:
Recall that in Isaiah 39:6, he had prophesied:
Is 39:6‘Look, a time is coming when everything in your palace and the things your ancestors have accumulated to this day will be carried away to Babylon; nothing will be left,’ says the Lord.
Here, Isaiah is looking past that to Judah's restoration. Isaiah 13 is not the immediate context of this prophecy as that passage does not deal with Judah going into exile. It is positioned by Isaiah's anthologist after chapter 14 only because both deal with Babylon.
Is 14:4b “Look how the oppressor has met his end!
Hostility has ceased!
14:5The Lord has broken the club of the wicked,
the scepter of rulers.
14:6It furiously struck down nations
with unceasing blows.
It angrily ruled over nations,
oppressing them without restraint.
14:7The whole earth rests and is quiet;
they break into song.
14:8The evergreens also rejoice over your demise,
as do the cedars of Lebanon, singing,
‘Since you fell asleep,
no woodsman comes up to chop us down!’
14:9Sheol below is stirred up about you,
ready to meet you when you arrive.
It rouses the spirits of the dead for you,
all the former leaders of the earth;
it makes all the former kings of the nations
rise from their thrones.
14:10All of them respond to you, saying:
‘You’ve also become weak like us!
You’ve become just like us!
14:11Your splendor has been brought down to Sheol,
as well as the sound of your stringed instruments.
You lie on a bed of maggots,
with a blanket of worms over you.
14:12Look how you have fallen from the sky,
O shining one, son of the dawn!
You’ve been cut down to the ground,
O conqueror of the nations!
14:13You said to yourself,
“I will climb up to the sky.
Above the stars of El
I will set up my throne.
I will rule on the mountain of assembly
on the remote slopes of Zaphon.
14:14I will climb up to the tops of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High!”
14:15But you were brought down to Sheol,
to the remote slopes of the pit.
14:16Those who see you stare at you,
they look at you carefully, thinking:
“Is this the man who shook the earth,
the one who made kingdoms tremble?
14:17Is this the one who made the world like a desert,
who ruined its cities,
and refused to free his prisoners so they could return home?”’
14:18As for all the kings of the nations,
all of them lie down in splendor,
each in his own tomb.
14:19But you have been thrown out of your grave
like a shoot that is thrown away.
You lie among the slain,
among those who have been slashed by the sword,
among those headed for the stones of the pit,
as if you were a mangled corpse.
14:20You will not be buried with them,
because you destroyed your land
and killed your people.
The offspring of the wicked will never be mentioned again.
14:21Prepare to execute his sons for what their ancestors have done.
They must not rise up and take possession of the earth,
or fill the surface of the world with cities.”
This passage is an imaginative poem. Its content is a taunt. Just as the trees didn't literally "get down and party" when the king of Babylon died (14:8), we shouldn't read the description of Sheol as a theological treatise on the afterlife.
The passage is clearly about the literal Babylon (14:4a, 22) and her human king (14:16). As the epitome of evil, the language used to describe the arrogance of the king of Babylon here is used by Paul to describe an eschatological "man of lawlessness" in 2 Th 2:4 (cf. Isa 14:13-14). But Paul is not interpeting this passage in Isaiah as referring to him, but rather using the language as a sort of cliche; at most, he is treating the king of Babylon as a type of the man of lawlessness.
Historically, it has been a common practice to spiritualize this entire passage to be about Satan rather than the human king of Babylon. This misinterpretation is behind much popular mythology about Satan. The reference in 14:11 to his string instruments (which in context would not refer to the king's personal instruments, but the instruments of the musicians at his court -- compare with David playing the harp at Saul's court) is behind the myth of Satan originally being the chief musician of heaven until he attempted to rebel and take over. Whatever the actual details of Satan's fall from heaven, this passage is not about that.
Is 14:22“I will rise up against them,”
says the Lord who leads armies.
“I will blot out all remembrance of Babylon and destroy all her people,
including the offspring she produces,”
says the Lord.
14:23“I will turn her into a place that is overrun with wild animals
and covered with pools of stagnant water.
I will get rid of her, just as one sweeps away dirt with a broom,”
says the Lord who leads armies.
If all remembrance of Babylon is to be blotted out, but Babylon is mentioned in scripture, and scripture can never pass away, isn't remembrance of Babylon going to continue? Again, this is an example of poetic language that, while it has a serious point that should not be "spiritualized" away, should not be pressed too literally.
Consider also the experience of Jonah.
Jon 1:2“Go immediately to Nineveh, that large capital city, and announce judgment against its people because their wickedness has come to my attention.”
Jon 3:1The Lord said to Jonah a second time, 3:2“Go immediately to Nineveh, that large city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3:3So Jonah went immediately to Nineveh, as the Lord had said. (Now Nineveh was an enormous city—it required three days to walk throughout it!) 3:4When Jonah began to enter the city one day’s walk, he announced, “At the end of forty days, Nineveh will be overthrown!”
Jon 3:10When God saw their actions—they turned from their evil way of living!—God relented concerning the judgment he had threatened them with and he did not destroy them.
Jon 4:10The Lord said, “You were upset about this little plant, something for which you have not worked nor did you do anything to make it grow. It grew up overnight and died the next day. 4:11Should I not be even more concerned about Nineveh this enormous city? There are more than one hundred twenty thousand people in it who do not know right from wrong, as well as many animals!”
The possibility of God's mercy is ever present. So even if one presses the poetic figures of speech to be literally understood, there is always the possibility that God will be merciful and spare people the full brunt of their deserved punishment.
[1] Many scholars think Isaiah 40-66 are written by other later prophets, but this issue is beyond the scope of this study.
[2] See Siegfried, Ancient Israel, and Prichard, ANET.
[3] Mysterious Numbers of the Hebrew Kings.
[4] Wallace, Greek Grammar, p. 25.
[5] Heater, JETS 41:1, p. 47-48.
[6] Clarke, Clarke's Commentary: Isaiah.
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