Isaiah 14:29-32

Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina

Philistia

Philistia was the southwest coast of the land of Canaan, to the whole of which it afterwards gave its name in the Greek form of Palestine, and was nominally included in the tribe of Judah.

It was originally inhabited by the Avites, who were expelled by the Caphtorim, a race of Egyptian origin, but supposed to have come immediately from Crete or Cyprus, and who, under the name of Philistines, continued as a distinct, and for the most part independent nation, in spite of the efforts of Israel to subdue them. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

The Philistines

The Philistines were very formidable enemies to Israel in the days of Samuel and of Saul. The strong kings, David, Solomon, and Jehoshaphat, kept them in subjection, but in the days of Jehoram they invaded Judah 2 Samuel 5:17; 2Sa 21:15; 2 Chronicles 17:11; 2 Chronicles 21:16). Uzziah again repressed them, and crippled their power, dismantling their walled cities, and building fortresses of his own to command them (2 Chronicles 26:6); and no doubt they continued tributary during the still vigorous government of his successor Jotham. But during the weak reign of Ahaz, they “invaded the cities of the low country, and of the south of Judah”; and not only invaded, but settled themselves in them and their neighbouring villages (2 Chronicles 28:18): and to this state of things Isaiah addresses himself in this prophecy. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

The rod of the taskmaster

The rod of the taskmaster is Isaiah’s frequent image for the control of a dependent and tributary nation: all Philistia had rejoiced when the rod of David and of Uzziah fell broken from the hands of Ahaz, and expressed their joy by wasting or taking possession of their former master’s lands; but Isaiah warns them that the old root of Israel, which from the days of Samson had sent forth many a rod with a serpent’s life like the rod of Moses, would soon again produce a basilisk with its royal crest, its inevitable spring, and its mortal bite, to take vengeance on his enemies. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

Hezekiah and the Messiah

The basilisk is Hezekiah, and the flying dragon is the Messiah (such is the explanation of the Targum); or, what is the same thing, the former is the Davidic kingdom of the immediate future, and the latter the Davidic kingdom of the ultimate future. The figure may appear inappropriate, because the serpent is a symbol of evil; but it is not a symbol merely of creaturely evil, but also of the Divine curse; the curse, however, is the energy of penal justice, and as the executor of this justice as a judgment of God on Philistia, the Davidic king is here called a serpent in a climax rising through three stages. Perhaps the choice of the figure was suggested by Genesis 49:17; for the saying concerning Dan was fulfilled in Samson the Danite, the sworn enemy of the Philistines. (F. Delitzsch.)

The law of conquests and exterminations

If the spread of civilisation, knowledge, justice, virtue, religion, and whatever else distinguishes men from beasts, is a good and not an evil, then it is good for men to use all the means which are really necessary to effect that end, even though some of them be never so rough and unpleasing; and it is not less base in public than in private morals to shrink from the responsibility of ourselves doing that which we know it is good to have done. If a weak, effeminate, degenerate nation can be improved by subjection to a stronger, manlier, more virtuous nation, then it is not only the right but the duty of the latter to bring it into subjection, whenever the indications of God’s providence, be they of peace or war, show that the time has come. And if the nation is not merely degenerate but hopelessly corrupt, then it is not only the right but the duty of some worthier nation to destroy it, and rid the world of its abominations. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

The Gospel a means of national salvation

The Gospel has given to us, in modem Christendom, means of reclaiming nations who would have been irreclaimable by any measures which Greeks or Romans or even Jews could apply; and we are bound to act with corresponding gentleness and forbearance. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)

“The first born of the poor”

(Isaiah 14:30) seems to be a Hebrew idiom for the “really, eminently poor,” like that of “Son of Man” to express the man. Or the prophet may mean that the first of the next generation, the children of the present depressed Israelites, shall he delivered from the miseries which the Philistines are now inflicting on their fathers. (Sir E. Strachey, Bart.)