Isaiah 14:9

Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet [thee] at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, [even] all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.

Ver. 9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee.] Infernus ab inferendo; shaal, from its unsatiableness, and continual craving. Here is an ironic and poetic representation of the King of Babylon's coming into hell, and his entertainment there; the dead kings rising from their places for reverence to receive him.

Even all the chief ones of the earth.] Heb., The he-goats, such as lead and go before the flock; such rhetoric as this we meet with in Lucian's Dialogues. Of Laurentius Valla, that great critic, who found fault with almost all Latin authors, one made this tetrastich;

“ Nunc postquam manes defunctus Valla petivit,

Non audet Pluto verba Latina loqui.

Iupiter hunc caeli dignatus honore fuisset,

Censarem linguae sed timer ipse sum. ”

- Trithem.

From their thrones,] i.e., From their "sepulchres," saith Piscator.