The Pulpit Commentary — Isaiah — Volume 1 — Section 262

f;o humRn culture, 11 Light oomes from the East" I Babylonia was an early centre of ~uch culture; and dimly through the records of the past wo may there discern all those passions 1md energies at work in that great kingdom which lead first to ext-crnnl greatness, then to moml corruption, finally to external ruin. The remains of Oliental architecture, as significant to those who understand the ethical moaning of art as a whole litem.ture could have been, speak of a towering ambition, such as the prophet here describes. In no way can we be more astonished at the vastness of the pRssions of man's little heart., th1m in contemplating thoso colossal tombs nnd temples and palaces of ancient lands. They seem a visible challouge to time, a defiance of death, an arrogMion of divinity and of immortality. To the prophet they, with other accompaniments of despotic power, appeared as the attempt of vain man to measure himself with h81\ven. The secret thought he detects in the heart of the tyrant is, " To heaven I will ascend, beyond Gcd's stars I will raise my throne, and sit down on the mount of all the gods, in the extreme north ; will ascend to the heights of the clouds, e.nd make myself like the Most High." The north was in ancient thought generally the sacred quarter. Zeus dwelt in Olympus, on the north borders of Greece. Apollo came from the Hyperboreans, the people beyond the north wind. Zion is "on the sides of the north, the city of the great king." And in his epiphany in the tempest, Jehovah comes in majesty from the north. The magnificent heathen would then have rivalled him. He said in his heart as he looked on his palaces and hanging gardens, as he reviewed his troops, as he listened to the echoes of Western alarms, "By the strength of my hand I have done it;" "As one gathereth deserted eggs, I have gathered all the earth" (eh. x. 11, 14). He felt himself to be like a magnificent tree, deftly striking his roots through the whole succulence of the earth, overtopping all other growths, sheltering all fowls in his branches, all beasts, yea, all nations, in his shade. All other trees, the cedar in the garden of God, the firtree and the chestnut, seemed to envy him (Ezek. m.). And now I Oh, tragic change! his boughs are broken, his branches scattered on the earth, his shade deserted ; the birds and beasts remain, but on:ly as haunters of a ruin. "Now thou art cast into hell,into the lowest depth." . IV. AsTONISHMENT AT PRESENT IGNOMINY. 1. The world looks on. "Is this the man who made the earth tremble through and through, who shook the kingdoms to their base? who made the world as a desert, and destroyed its cities, and let not his captives return home 't" The scene is changed from Hades; no longer is the monarch viewed e,en as in the underworld, to which only the buried could pass. It is an outcast corpse the spectators look upon, and no sight could to ancient feeling be more abhorrent, or signif.v more deeply the curse of a hero's end. The other kings of the peoples rest ea.eh in his magnificent mausoleum ; he lies amongst the meanest sorpses of those slain upon the battle-field ; not even hastily interred in e. hole filled. with stones, but liable to be trampled underfoot by the victor. He who would have grasped the earth in his ambitious embrace, cannot now find six feet of it f;o shelter'hi.s remains. The lurid light of such an end is cast back upon the beginning. To a prophetic eye false p-ea.tn.ess is already smitten by the Divine judgrnent, the effects of which will be one day the amazement and the horror of men. 2. The prophet reads the moral. Such an· end of the waster of lands and fierce murderer of peoples must ser\·e as example -and prototype to all times. It is no mere personal, but a dynastic doom. The seed of evil-doers, the tyrant's progeny, will pass into oblivion; his sons will expiate his offences in a bath of blood, so that the very species of human savages called ''tyrants" shall no more be propagated. Every general truth has its particular application to a given time and condition; so every parlicular catastrophe that fills tho uatic,ns with amaze is to be traced up to some great central ever-working cause. And fur good or for evil, there is organic sympathy in the lives and fates of individuals. lJ we wrench ourselves not free from the family vice, what can we expect but the family doom? If we are partakers, by the force of custom or example, of the sins of our party, profession, class, we may not be ex:empt from the moral disgrace which mUBt sooner or later overtake it. V. CLOSING ORACLE. It uses images of the utmost energy and tragic vehemenc11. Jehovah will root out of Babylon name and remnant, sprout and shoot. It shall become the heritage of " hedgt>hogs aQd swamps," shall be swept with the bcsolll .lllf, XlV,,1 .....32,] TH& ' BOOK OF 'l'HE PROPHE'l' ISAIAH. 25&