Isaiah Chapter 14 verse 13 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerse 13. - For thou hast said; rather, and thou - thou saidst; i.e. weak as thou art now shown to have been, it was thou that didst dare to say. I will ascend into heaven, etc. (comp. Isaiah 10:13, 14; Isaiah 37:24, 25). Isaiah represents rather the thoughts of the Babylonian monarch than his actual words. The Babylonian inscriptions are full of boasting egotism; but they do not contain anything approaching to impiety. The king may regard himself as, in a certain sense, Divine; but still he entertains a deep respect and reverence for those gods whom he regards as the most exalted, as Merodach, Bel, Nebo, Sin, Shamas. He is their worshipper, their devotee, their suppliant (see 'Records of the Past,' vol. 5. pp. 111-148). The Babylonian monarchs may have believed that after death they would mount up to heaven and join the "assembly of the great gods" (ibid., vol. 3. p. 83); but we scarcely know enough as yet of the religions opinions of the Babylonians to state positively what their belief was on the subject of a future life. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation. The early commentators explained this of Mount Zion, especially on account of the phrase, "in the sides of the north," which is used of the temple-bill in Psalm 48:2. But it is well objected that Mount Zion was a place of no grandeur or dignity or holiness to the Babylonians, who had made it a desolation; and that no Babylonian monarch would have desired to "sit" there. Moreover, the "mountain" of this passage must be one which is "above the heights of the clouds" and "above the stars of God," which the most imaginative poet could not have said of Mount Zion. A mythic mountain, belonging to the Babylonian theosophy, was therefore seen to be intended, even before the times of cuneiform decipherment (Rosenmüller, Michaelis, Knobel). Now that the Babylonian inscriptions can be read, it is found that there was such a mountain, called "Im-Kharsak," or "Kharsak-Kurra," which is described as "the mighty mountain of Bel, whose head rivals heaven, whose root is the holy deep," and which "was regarded as the spot where the ark had rested, and where the gods had their seat" ('Records of the Past,' vol. 11. p. 131, with the comment of Mr. Sayce, p. 130). In Babylonian geography this mountain was identified, either with the peak of Rowandiz, or with Mount Elwend, near Ecbatana. In the sides of the north. Both El-wend and Rowandiz are situated to the northeast of Babylou - a position which, according to ancient ideas, might be described indifferently as "north" or "east."

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) I will ascend into heaven.--The boast of the Chaldaean king is represented as nothing less than an apotheosis, which they themselves claimed. So Shalmaneser describes himself as "a sun-god" (Records of the Past, iii. 83), Assurbanipal as "lord of all kings" (ib., iii. 78). In contrast with the Sheol into which the Chaldaean king had sunk, the prophet paints the heaven to which he sought to rise. He, the brightest star, would raise his throne above all the stars of God.I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation . . .--The words have often been interpreted of Jerusalem or the Temple, as the "mountain of assembly" (as the tabernacle was "the tent of the congregation," or "of meeting"), and "the sides (better, recesses) of the north" have been connected, like the same phrase in Psalm 48:2, with the portion of the Temple which the king of Babylon is supposed to threaten. Most modern scholars are, however, agreed that this interpretation is untenable. What is brought before us is the heaven, the "mountain of assembly," where the great gods in whom the king of Babylon believed sat in council. So Assyrian hymns speak of "the feasts of the silver mountains, the heavenly courts" (as the Greeks spoke of Olympus), where the gods dwell eternally (Records of the Past, iii. 133). And this ideal mountain was for them, like the Meru of Indian legend, in the farthest north. So in the legendary geography of Greece, the Hyperborei, or "people beyond the north wind," were a holy and blessed race, the chosen servants of Apollo (Herod., ii. 32-36). In Ezekiel 28:14 the prophet recognises an ideal "mountain of God" of like nature, and the vision of the future glory of a transfigured Zion, in chap 2:1-3, implies, as we have seen, an idea of the same kind. Possibly the same thought appears in Ezekiel's vision, "out of the north" (Isaiah 1:4).