Isa 14:13-14 | JFB | STEP | 13. above ... God-- In , "stars" express earthly potentates. "The stars" are often also used to express heavenly principalities ( ). mount of the congregation-- the place of solemn meeting between God and His people in the temple at Jerusalem. In , and , this is attributed to Antichrist. sides of the north-- namely, the sides of Mount Moriah on which the temple was built; north of Mount Zion ( ). However, the parallelism supports the notion that the Babylonian king expresses himself according to his own, and not Jewish opinions (so in ) thus "mount of the congregation" will mean the northern mountain (perhaps in Armenia) fabled by the Babylonians to be the common meeting-place of their gods. "Both sides" imply the angle in which the sides meet; and so the expression comes to mean "the extreme parts of the north." So the Hindus place the Meru, the dwelling-place of their gods, in the north, in the Himalayan mountains. So the Greeks, in the northern Olympus. The Persian followers of Zoroaster put the Ai-bordsch in the Caucasus north of them. The allusion to the stars harmonizes with this; namely, that those near the North Pole, the region of the aurora borealis (compare see on ; ) [Maurer, Septuagint, Syriac].

‏ Isaiah 14:13-14

13. above ... God--In Da 8:10, "stars" express earthly potentates. "The stars" are often also used to express heavenly principalities (Job 38:7).

mount of the congregation--the place of solemn meeting between God and His people in the temple at Jerusalem. In Da 11:37, and 2Th 2:4, this is attributed to Antichrist.

sides of the north--namely, the sides of Mount Moriah on which the temple was built; north of Mount Zion (Psa 48:2). However, the parallelism supports the notion that the Babylonian king expresses himself according to his own, and not Jewish opinions (so in Is 10:10) thus "mount of the congregation" will mean the northern mountain (perhaps in Armenia) fabled by the Babylonians to be the common meeting-place of their gods. "Both sides" imply the angle in which the sides meet; and so the expression comes to mean "the extreme parts of the north." So the Hindus place the Meru, the dwelling-place of their gods, in the north, in the Himalayan mountains. So the Greeks, in the northern Olympus. The Persian followers of Zoroaster put the Ai-bordsch in the Caucasus north of them. The allusion to the stars harmonizes with this; namely, that those near the North Pole, the region of the aurora borealis (compare see on Job 23:9; Job 37:22) [Maurer, Septuagint, Syriac].

14. clouds--rather, "the cloud," singular. Perhaps there is a reference to the cloud, the symbol of the divine presence (Is 4:5; Ex 13:21). So this tallies with 2Th 2:4, "above all that is called God"; as here "above ... the cloud"; and as the Shekinah-cloud was connected with the temple, there follows, "he as God sitteth in the temple of God," answering to "I will be like the Most High" here. Moreover, Re 17:4, 5, represents Antichrist as seated in Babylon, to which city, literal and spiritual, Isaiah refers here.