Isaiah Chapter 43 verse 14 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 14-21. - A DECLARATION AGAINST BABYLON, AND A PROMISE OF ISRAEL'S RESTORATION. Having wound up the preceding "controversy" with a reference to his own power to work great results (ver. 13), Jehovah now brings forward two examples - the discomfiture of Babylon (vers. 14, 15), and the recovery and restoration of Israel (vers. 16-21), both of which he is about to accomplish. Verse 14. - For your sake I have sent to Babylon. For Israel's sake God has already, in his counsels, sent to Babylon the instruments of his vengeance - Cyrus and his soldiers - and by their instrumentality has brought down all their nobles; or rather, has brought them all down (to be fugitives (comp. Isaiah 15:5); and the Chaldeans; or, even the Chaldeans. The Chaldeans are not in Isaiah, as in Daniel (Daniel 2:2; Daniel 4:7; Daniel 5:7), a special class of Babylonians, but, as elsewhere commonly in Scripture, the Babylonians generally (see Isaiah 12:19; 47:1). In the native inscriptions the term is especially applied to the inhabitants of the tract upon the sea-coast. Whose cry is in the ships; rather, into their ships of wailing. The Chaldeans, flying from the Persian attack, betake themselves to their ships with cries of grief, the ships thereby becoming "ships of wailing." The nautical character of the Babylonians is strongly marked in the inscriptions, where "the ships of Ur are celebrated at a very remote period, and the native kings, when hard pressed by the Assyrians, are constantly represented as going on ship-board, and crossing the Persian Gulf to Susiana, or to some of the islands (see 'Records of the Past,' vol. 1. pp. 40, 43, 73; vol. 7. p. 63; vol. 9. p. 60). The abundant traffic and the numerous merchants of Babylon are mentioned by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 17:4). AEsehylus, moreover, notes that the Babylonians of his day were "navigators of ships" ('Persae,' 11. 52-55).

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(14) I have sent to Babylon.--For the first time in 2 Isaiah, the place of exile is named. For "have brought down all their nobles" read, I will bring them all down as fugitives. The marginal "bars" represents a various reading, defences, in the sense of defenders.The Chaldeans, whose cry is in the ships.--Better, into the ships of their shouting--i.e., the ships which used to echo with the exulting joy of sailors. The word for "shouting" is purposely chosen to suggest the thought that there will be a shout of another kind, even the wailing cry of despair. The commerce of Babylon, and its position on the Euphrates, made it, as it were, the Venice of the earlier East (Herod., 1:194). The prophet sees the inhabitants of Babylon fleeing in their ships from the presence of their conqueror.