1358 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Their children also shall be dashed to pieces before their eyes,.... Upon the ground, or against the wall, as was foretold should be, Psalms 137:8 and in way of retaliation for what they did to the Jews, 2 Chronicles 36:17 and this was to be done "before their eyes", in the sight of the inhabitants, which must make it the more distressing and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Behold, I will stir up the Medes against them,.... The Babylonians; this explains who are meant by the sanctified and mighty ones, Isaiah 13:3 the Medes were a people that descended from Medai, one of the sons of Japheth, Genesis 10:2 as Josephus observes (i); under these the Persians are included, though they are only mentioned, because Cyrus was...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[Their] bows also shall dash their young men to pieces,.... That is, the bows of the Medes should dash in pieces the young men of the Babylonians. The meaning is, either that they should put them into their bows, instead of arrows, and shoot them upon the ground, or against a wall, and so dash them to pieces; or that they should first shoot them...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms,.... The first and most ancient kingdom, Genesis 10:10 and now, at the time of its fall, the largest and most extensive; wherefore of the image Nebuchadnezzar saw in his dream, which was a representation of several kingdoms, this was the head, the head of gold, Daniel 2:31 so Babylon is called the "lady of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
It shall never be inhabited,.... As it has not been since its utter destruction. Pausanias (p), who lived in the times of Adrian, says, Babylon, the greatest city that ever the sun saw, that then there was nothing left of it but a wall: what is now called Babylon is a new city, and built in another place: neither shall it be dwelt in from...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there,.... What sort of creatures are meant is not certain. The Targum renders it by a word which signifies monstrous, astonishing creatures; the Latin interpreter of it calls them apes. Jarchi and Kimchi say such are intended as are called martens or sables, a creature of the weasel kind. The Hebrew word...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses,.... The Targum and Syriac version, "in their palaces", and so the Vulgate Latin; or "with their widows", such as have lost their mates: what creatures are here meant is very uncertain; we in general call them the wild beasts of the islands, because the word is sometimes used...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Isaiah 14 This chapter contains prophecies of the restoration of the Jews, of the fall of the king of Babylon, and the destruction of the Assyrian empire, and of the ruin of Palestine. The moving cause of the restoration of the Jews, and their settlement in their own land, is the distinguishing mercy of God towards them; the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For the Lord will have mercy on Jacob, will yet choose Israel,.... While the Jews were in captivity, the Lord seemed to have no pity for them, or compassion on them, and it looked as if he had rejected them, and wholly cast them off; but by delivering them from thence, he showed that he had a merciful regard unto them, and made it to appear that...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And the people shall take them, and bring them to their place,.... That is, the people among whom the Jews dwelt in Babylon, who had a kindness for them, and especially such of them as were proselyted to their religion should attend them in their journey home, and supply them with all necessaries for provision and carriage, as they were allowed to...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And it shall come to pass in the day that the Lord shall give thee rest from thy sorrow,.... In captivity, and on account of that, being out of their own land, deprived of the free exercise of their religion, and at a distance from the house of God, and continually hearing the reproaches and blaspheming of the enemy, and seeing their idolatrous...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
That thou shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon,.... Or "concerning" him, his fall, and the fall of the Babylonish monarchy with him; if we understand this of any particular king of Babylon, it seems best not to interpret it of Nebuchadnezzar, whom Jerom mentions, in whom the empire was in its greatest glory: but of Belshazzar, in...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked,.... This is an answer to the above question, how the exactor and his tribute came to cease; this was not by man, but by the Lord himself; for though he made use of Cyrus, the work was his own, he broke the power of the wicked kings of Babylon: [and] the sceptre of the rulers; that were under the king...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke,.... The king of Babylon, who made war with the people and nations of the earth, and conquered them, smote them with the edge of the sword to gratify his passions, and satiate his bloodthirsty mind; and those that were spared, he ruled with rigour, and oppressed them with tribute and hard...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
The whole earth is at rest, [and] is quiet,.... The troubler of them being gone; and which will be the ease of the people of God, who in the latter day will fill the face of the earth, when the beast and false prophet will be taken and cast alive into the lake of fire; and especially when Satan shall be bound, and put in prison for a thousand...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, [and] the cedars of Lebanon,.... Which by, a prosopopoeia are represented as singing and rejoicing, as inanimate creatures often are in Scripture, these being now in no danger of being cut down, to make way for his armies; see Isaiah 37:34 or to furnish him with timber for shipping, or building of houses: or...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Hell from beneath is moved for thee,.... Or the "grave", or the place and state of the dead, and particularly of the damned, meaning those that are in such a place and state; and the sense is, that not only the inhabitants of the earth, and the trees upon it, express their joy at the fall of the king of Babylon, but those that are under the earth,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
All they shall speak, and say unto thee,.... So they would say, could they speak, and are here represented as if they did: art thou become also weak as we? who had been more powerful than they, had been too many for them, and had subdued them, and ruled over them, and was not only looked upon as invincible but as immortal, yea, as a deity; and yet...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Thy pomp is brought down to the grave,.... Or "hell"; all the state and majesty in which he appeared, when sitting on the throne of his kingdom, with a glittering crown on his head, a sceptre in his hand, clad in the richest apparel, and attended by his princes and nobles with the utmost reverence and submission; all this, with much more, followed...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
How art thou fallen from heaven,.... This is not to be understood of the fall of Satan, and the apostate angels, from their first estate, when they were cast down from heaven to hell, though there may be an allusion to it; see Lu 10:18 but the words are a continuation of the speech of the dead to the king of Babylon, wondering at it, as a thing...