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Ver. 12. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer!] That is, not O Belzeebub, as some ancients, but, O Belshazzar rather, called Lucifer here, or the morning star, for his beauty and brightness; and as much wonder it was to see the Chaldean monarch at such an under, as to have seen Lucifer, the sun’s constant companion, fallen from heaven. He was the terror of the world, and, as he thought, superior to fortune; yet a sudden and dismal change befell him. In the chariot of the Roman triumpher, there hung up a little bell and a whip, to put him in mind he might one day be whipped as a slave, or as an offender lose his head. Nemo confidat mimium secundis. Let no one rely on the least favours.
Ver. 13. For thou hast said in thine heart.] The natural heart is a palace of satanical pride; it is like unto the table of Adonibezek, at which he sat in a chair of state, and made others, even kings, to eat meat like dogs under his feet, with their thumbs cut off. I will ascend into heaven.] Vide quomodo non satientur honore superbi. Ambition, as the crocodile, grows as long as it lives, and is never satisfied. Above the stars of God,] i.e., Above all the kings of the earth, or above the saints, (Revelation 12:1) those earthly angels. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation.] I will sit upon the skirts of God’s Church; yea, I will set my throne upon God’s throne, and take up his room. See the like madness in Pharaoh; (Ezekiel 29:3) that proud prince of Tyre; (Ezekiel 28:2) Antiochus, surnamed Θεος; Herod; (Acts 12:21-23) Caligula, Chosroes, Diocletian, Antichrist, of whom and his practices one cries out, O Lucifer out-deviled, &c. (2 Thessalonians 2:4) One of the Pope’s parasites, Valladerius, saith of Paul V, that he was a god, lived familiarly with the Godhead, heard predestination itself whispering to him, had a place to sit in council with the most blessed Trinity, &c. In the sides of the north.] In Mount Moriah, where the temple stood. Oecolamp.
Ver. 14. I will ascend above the height of the clouds.] Ut verbo dicam, ero summa et sacra maiestas. “ Attingit solium Iovis, et coelestia tentat. ” - Hor., lib. i. Ode 3.
Ver. 15. Yet thou shalt be brought down be hell.] To the counterpoint of thy haughtiest conceits, ad infimam erebi sedem. So a merry fellow said that Xerxes, that great warrior who took upon him to control the sea, was now mending old shoes under a shop board in hell. To the sides of the pit,] i.e., Of the infernal lake: A tartesso in tartarum detrusus; from the sides of the north, (Isaiah 14:13) whither thou hadst pierced thyself, ad latera luci, to the sides of the pit, and to an odd corner of the burying place. This was a foul fall, and worse than that of Hermannus Ferrariensis, who, having been canonised for a saint, was thirty years after unburied, and burnt for a heretic by Pope Boniface VIII, or that of Thomas a Becket, of whom, forty-eight years after he had been sainted, it was disputed among the doctors of Paris whether he were damned or saved? Adagium Homericum. Jac. Rev. Hist. Pontif., 195. Daniel’s History, fol. 99.
Ver. 16. They that see thee shall narrowly look upon thee.] Shall look wishingly upon thee, as scarce believing their own eyes, for the strangeness of the thing. Is this the man that made the earth to tremble?] The earth to quake, and men’s hearts to ache? yea, sure, this is very he. At one end of the library at Dublin was a globe, at the other a skeleton, to show, saith mine author, that though a man be lord of all the world, yet he must die, nullusque fiet, qui omnia esse affectabat.
Ver. 17. That made the world as a wilderness.] Nero the tyrant came into the world an Agrippa, or born with his feet forward, and turned the world upside down ere he went out of it; so that the senate at last proclaimed him a public enemy to mankind, and condemned him to be drawn through the city, and whipped to death. That opened not the house of his prisoners.] Or, That did not loose his prisoners homewards, but kept them in durance with prisoners’ pittance. (Lamentations 3:34)
Ver. 18. All the kings of the nations,] i.e., Very many of them have their stately pyramids, tombs, mausolean monuments erected, as among us at Westminster Henry VII’s chapel is a curious and costly piece.
Ver. 19. But thou art cast out of thy grave,] i.e., Cast out and kept from thy grave. This befell Belshazzar upon the surprisal of the city. (Daniel 5:30) And the like also befell Alexander the Great dying at the same city; and our William the Conqueror, who having utterly sacked the city of Mants in France, and in the destruction thereof got his own, died shortly after at Rouen, where his corpse lay three days unburied—his interment being hindered by one that claimed the ground to be his. Like an abominable branch.] The matter is here set forth by three notable similitudes, such as this prophet is full of. Insepulta sepultura turpissime abiectus es. -Scult. Daniel’s History, 42, 50.
Ver. 20. Thou shalt not be joined to them in burial,] i.e., To your equals, your fellow kings, in funeral state and pomp. Christians have an honest care, περι συνταφων, with whom they be buried, and where they are laid when dead, that as they lived together and loved together, so in their death they may not be divided. (2 Samuel 1:23) Because thou hast destroyed thy land.] Tyrannised over thine own subjects also. So did Saul, Manasseh, Herod—who butchered about Bethlehem fourteen thousand infants, as some affirm, and his own son among the rest—Tiberius, that tiger, Nero, that lion, Commodus, who was, saith Oresius, cunctis incommodus, Charles IX of France, &c. The seed of evildoers shall never be renowned.] The house of the wicked shall be overthrown, but the tabernacle of the upright shall flourish: (Proverbs 14:11) [See Trapp on “Pr 14:11”] Et notanto hoc parentes, et a sceleribus se abstinento: ni sibi velint parcere, ut posteritat; parcant. The Septuagint read it, my land, and my people.
Ver. 21. Prepare another slaughter for his children.] For Belshazzar’s posterity. This is God’s charge to the Medes and Persians. See on Isaiah 14:20.
Ver. 22. For I will rise up against him.] And therefore it is to no purpose for them to rise up to possess the land, and to fill the face of the world with cities, as Isaiah 14:21. “I will overturn, overturn, overturn,” &c., (Ezekiel 21:27) and who shall gainstand it?
Ver. 23. I will also make it a possession for the bittern.] Which is a kind of water fowl that maketh a hideous noise. And I will sweep it with the besom of destruction.] Scopa vastatrice verram eam, Vatab. I will not brush them for ornament, but sweep them, or rather scrub them to their ruin by my Persian Praedones, whom I will set upon them. And here the Jewish Rabbis acknowledge that they came to understand this text by hearing an Arabian woman mention a broom or a besom in her language, to her maid. Apollos, a learned teacher, may yet learn of a tent maker. Scopis non purgatoriis sed perditoriis. -R. David in Radic. א שׁ א שׁ.— Mercer. in Pagnin. Thesaur.
Ver. 24. The Lord of hosts hath sworn.] If he had but said it only it had been sure enough, for he cannot lie, he cannot deny himself; but when he sweareth anything we may build upon it, especially since he is Lord of hosts. He can do more than he will, but whatsoever he willeth shall undoubtedly be done; for what should hinder? Iuravit Iehovah, is the best assurance.
Ver. 25. That I will break the Assyrian in my Land.] Or, As in breaking the Assyrian in my land; for here, saith Junius, the overthrow of the Assyrian monarchy, which should shortly be, is given for a sign of the overthrow of the Babylonian.
Ver. 26. This is the purpose that is purposed.] Heb., The council that is consulted. Now there are many devices in the heart of man, but, when all is done, the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand. (Proverbs 19:21)
Ver. 27. For the Lord of hosts hath purposed, and who shall disannul it?] Emphasin habet interrogatio. An excellent and unanswerable way of arguing from the irresistible will and almighty power of God; the like whereof is used by a certain Persian in Herodotus, in most elegant expressions, as Junius here noteth. In Calliope.
Ver. 28. In the year that King Ahaz died.] A very good world’s riddance. When Tiberius the tyrant died, some of the people offered sacrifice for joy; others in detestation of him cried out, Tiberium in Tiberim, Let Tiberius be thrown into Tiber. Think the like of Ahaz, that stigmatical Belialist. Howbeit, as bad as he was, the Philistines hearing of his death, hoped to find some advantage thereby against the Jews, who are therefore here encouraged.
Ver. 29. Rejoice not thou, whole Palestine.] That is, the Philistines, quos Iudaei animis armisque sibi infestissimos habuere. These were as bad neighbours to the Jews as the Dunkirkers now are to us. Uzziah had subdued them, (2 Chronicles 26:6) but Ahaz had been much damnified and despoiled by them, (2 Chronicles 28:18) and in the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign they thought to have overrun all the country. Here therefore God’s decree concerning them is published, for the comfort of his poor people, and it is this: Philistaeis non iabilandum sed eiulandum. Philistines must not be overjoyed, but rather “weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon them.” Because the rod of him that smote thee is broken.] Because Uzziah is dead, and Ahaz hath had ill success against you through his own sinfulness and sluggishness; do not you thereupon take boldness to set up your crest, and think all is your own. For out of the serpent’s root.] Out of Uzziah’s issue, Shall come forth a cockatrice.] Or, Basilisk, which is said to kill with his looks only; and hereby is meant Hezekiah, as also by the “fiery flying serpent,” for thus he is called both for his fierceness and for his swiftness, two very commendable properties of a commander. Julius Caesar was in omnia praeceps, in all head first, very fierce, and with it notably nimble, witness his Veni, vidi, vici, I no sooner came, but overcame. The Hebrews from this text have a proverb, “Out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a cockatrice,” i.e., one woe is passed, but behold a worse at hand. De radice colubri egredietur regulus, i.e., Afflictissimi, inter pauperes praecipui ac primi, atque adeo tolerandis calamitatibus nati.
Ver. 30. And the firstborn of the poor shall feed,] i.e., God’s poor people shall; who though never so poor—as they were at a very low ebb under Ahaz—were God’s “firstborn,” and, in that respect, “higher than the kings of the earth.” (Psalms 89:27) And I will kill thy root.] See Zephaniah 2:4. [See Trapp on “Zep 2:4”]
Ver. 31. Howl, O gate.] Philistines are elsewhere taxed for flashy and foolish mirth (Judges 16:23-30 2 Samuel 1:20,21) Here they are told they have more cause to fear than flear, to sigh than sing, to howl than hollo. “ Quis globus, O cives, caligiue, volvitur atra? Hostis adest.’’—Virg. From the north a smoke,] i.e., Hezekiah’s army raising a dust, and setting all in a combustion.
Ver. 32. That the Lord hath founded Zion.] Not Hezekiah, but Jehovah hath done it.