SUMMARY
This text offers a glimmer of hope by envisioning a profound reversal, where Israel’s fortunes will be transformed, and the nations that once subjugated them will themselves become servants.
ANALYSIS
IsaiahIsaiah, son of Amoz, who prophesied in Jerusalem, is included among the prophets of the eighth century BCE (along with Amos, Hosea, and Micah)--preachers who boldly proclaimed God's word of judgment against the economic, social, and religious disorders of their time. More 14:1-3 is a brief poem, nestled between two oracles about Babylon—the 6th century subjugator of the “house of JacobThe son of Isaac and Rebekah, renamed Israel, became the father of the twelve tribal families. More.” The decisive turning point in this poem is the arrival of divine “compassion” (v. 1). Compassion brings about a new world. In that world, the subjugated becomes the master, and the former masters become the subjugated.
This will be largely unsatisfying to today’s egalitarian readers. But for an ancient text, where royal hierarchies were the norm, such a vision would have been both radical and wondrous—a state of affairs that was certainly worthy of a poem.
