Isaiah 14:21 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 14:21
Prepare slaughter for his children for the iniquity of their fathers; that they do not rise, nor possess the land, nor fill the face of the world with cities.
properly · verb, hiphil imperative, 2nd person masculine plural
slaughter
מַטְבֵּ֖חַmat.Be.ach
H4293
slaughter · noun, common masculine singular absolute
children
לְבָנָ֛יוle.va.Nav
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
iniquity
בַּעֲוֹ֣ןba.'a.Von
H5771
perversity · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
fathers
אֲבוֹתָ֑ם'a.vo.Tam
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
not
בַּלbal-
H1077
properly · negative particle
rise
יָקֻ֙מוּ֙ya.Ku.mu
H6965
to rise (in various applications · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
possess
וְיָ֣רְשׁוּve.Ya.re.shu
H3423
to occupy (by driving out previous tenants · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
land
אָ֔רֶץ'A.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular absolute
fill
וּמָלְא֥וּu.mal.'U
H4390
to fill or (intransitively) be full of · conjunction + verb, qal sequential perfect, 3rd person common plural
face
פְנֵֽיfe.nei-
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct
world
תֵבֵ֖לte.Vel
H8398
the earth (as moist and therefore inhabited) · noun, common feminine singular absolute
cities
עָרʻâr
H6145
a foe (as watchful for mischief)
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Exodus 20:5 Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon…
Leviticus 26:39 And they that are left of you shall pine away in their iniquity in your enemies’ lands; and also in the iniquities of their fathers shall th…
Habakkuk 2:8-12 Because thou hast spoiled many nations, all the remnant of the people shall spoil thee; because of men’s blood, and for the violence of the…
Matthew 23:35 That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Bara…
Isaiah 27:6 He shall cause them that come of Jacob to take root: Israel shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 14:4-23
The kings of Babylon, successively, were the great enemies and oppressors of God's people, and therefore the destruction of Babylon, the fall of the king, and the ruin of his family, are here particularly taken notice of and triumphed in. In the day that God has given Israel rest they shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon. We must not rejoice when our enemy falls, as ours; but when Babylon, the common enemy of God and his Israel, sinks, then rejoice over her, thou heaven, and you holy apostles and prophets, Rev 18:20. The Babylonian monarchy bade fair to be an absolute, universal, and perpetual one, and, in these pretensions, vied with the Almighty; it is therefore very just…
GOD'S DETERMINATION TO DESTROY BABYLON. (Isa 14:21-23)
Prepare, &c.--charge to the Medes and Persians, as if they were God's conscious instruments.
his children--Belshazzar's (Exo 20:5).
rise--to occupy the places of their fathers.
fill . . . with cities--MAURER translates, "enemies," as the Hebrew means in Sa1 28:16; Psa 139:20; namely, lest they inundate the world with their armies. VITRINGA translates, "disturbers." In English Version the meaning is, "lest they fill the land with such cities" of pride as Babylon was.
John Gill on Isaiah 14:21
Prepare slaughter for his children,.... These words are directed to the Medes and Persians, to prepare instruments of slaughter, and make use of them; and prepare themselves for the slaughter of the whole royal family, Belshazzar and all his children. So it is threatened to Jezebel, or the Romish antichrist, that all her children should be killed with death, Revelation 2:23,
for the iniquity of their fathers; they imitating and following them in their sins, partaking of them, and filling up the measure of their iniquities:
that they do not rise, nor possess the land; stand up and succeed him in the government of the land, as their inheritance:
nor fill the face of the world with cities; a…
God's warning is twofold, one directed toward the submissive and the other toward obstinate minds. As was said about the submissive: "I will punish their crimes with a rod and their sins with a whip, but I will not remove my mercy from them or deceive them in my truth." But the wrath of God's rebuke upon obstinate sinners is unbearable, as Isaiah testifies: "The descendants of the evil will never be named. Prepare their sons to be killed for the iniquity of their fathers. They will not rise, or inherit the earth or fill the face of the world with children. 'And I will rise against them,' says the Lord of hosts, 'and I will destroy the name of Babylon and its seed and offspring,' said the Lord."
(Verse 21.) The seed of evildoers will not be called forever. Prepare his children for slaughter because of the iniquity of their fathers: they will not rise, nor will they inherit the land, nor will they fill the faces of the cities. All histories agree that after the killing of Balthasar, the grandson of Nebuchadnezzar, and the succession of Darius to the kingdom of the Chaldeans, no one from the offspring of Nebuchadnezzar ruled thereafter. Therefore, Scripture predicts that such devastation will come upon Babylon that no royal seed will remain, but because of the wickedness of the father, all offspring will be destroyed. But because we have moved to the final part of the sentence, the faces of the cities will not be filled up, it is written in Hebrew for cities, Arim (), which we can translate as adversaries; so the meaning is: no one from your seed will desire to restore the kingdom, an adversary will be raised up. According to the Seventy Interpreters, who said: Wicked seed, prepare your sons for destruction because of the sins of your father, I cannot understand the meaning.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Isaiah, Book Of — I. Chapters 1-5 contain Isaiah’s prophecies in the reigns of Uzziah and Jotham, foretelling that the present prosperity of Judah should be destroyed, and that Israel should be brought to desolation.…
Babylon · Predictions respecting: Destruction of — Predictions respecting: Destruction of
Heredity · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
John Calvin on Isaiah 14:21
Prepare slaughter for his children. Here Isaiah prophesies more plainly than before against the king of Babylon. He speaks of the whole of his descendants, to whom he intimates that this destruction extends. We must keep in mind what we formerly said, that hitherto the Prophet has spoken not of a single man, but of a whole dynasty; and now he removes all doubt as to the metaphorical language. The rendering given by the old translation, Prepare his children for the slaughter, does not agree well; for the preposition l, (lamed,) which is prefixed, evidently shows that it ought to be translated to or for the children.
We must see to whom this discourse relates. It must be understood that refer…
"Prepare a slaughter-house for his sons, because of the iniquity of their fathers! They shall not rise and conquer lands, and fill the face of the earth with cities." They exhortation is addressed to the Medes, if the prophet had any particular persons in his mind at all. After the nocturnal storming of Babylon by the Medes, the new Babylonian kingdom and royal house which had been established by Nabopolassar vanished entirely from history. The last shoot of the royal family of Nabopolassar was slain as a child of conspirators. The second Nebuchadnezzar deceived the people (as Darius says in the great inscription of Behistan), declaring, "I am Nabukudrac ara the son of Nabunita." בּל (used p…
As another sign of disgrace, the king of Babylon would have no children to provide a future legacy. • because of their father’s sins: God looks at individuals in relationship to their families and their people. Here, the Babylonian king’s children had joint responsibility for their father’s actions (see also Deut 5:9-10).
Rashi on Isaiah 14:21
Prepare a slaughter for his sons lest they rise and inherit the land, and the land will be filled with enemies and oppressors. So did Jonathan render עַָרִים, enemies. Comp. (I Sam. 28:16) “And has become your adversary (עָרֶךְ).” It can also be interpreted: And fill the surface of the earth with cities. In contrast with what he said before (verse 17): “Who made the land like a desert and demolished his cities,” he says further: His seed shall perish, and the inhabitants of the cities shall return to their place, and the surface of the earth shall be filled with cities.
