The Fate of the Final King of Babylon

The fourteenth chapter of Isaiah presents a prophecy of a supremely evil man. He is destined to be the king of Babylon in the closing years of this age. The oracle speaks of a ruthless oppressor who, in a show of appalling arrogance, will seek to exalt his throne above the stars of God. God will respond to his attempt to usurp His supreme authority. He will be ignominiously cast down to the earth.

Isaiah 14 opens with a record of events yet to occur on the world scene. We are projected in vision to a time when God will have compassion on the house of Israel and free them from their severe suffering during the great tribulation. In that period they will have been held captive by foreign powers. Presiding over this awful time of distress will be the well-known “Beast” power of Revelation 13 and 17. The “Beast” of Revelation will emerge as the eighth head of a sequence of rulers (Rev. 17:8-11). In Isaiah 14 this personage is called the king of Babylon.

The ultimate release of the people of Israel is the subject of many Old Testament prophecies, notably those of the prophet Jeremiah (23:1-8 and ch. 31). Jeremiah understood that the exodus of Israel in those future days will completely eclipse its typical forerunner — Israel’s former exodus from Egypt. “Therefore the days are coming, declares the Lord, when they will no longer say, ‘As the Lord lives who brought up the sons of Israel from the land of Egypt,’ but ‘As the Lord lives, who brought up and led back the descendants of the household of Israel from the north land and from all the countries where I had driven them.’ Then they will live on their own soil.”

As was the case in ancient history, many of those former captors of Israel will join with the Israelites in complete submission and allegiance when God frees His people from their bondage and publicly claims them as His own unique nation: “Gentiles will take them along and bring them to their place and the House of Israel will possess them as an inheritance in the land of the Lord, as male servants and female servants; and they will take their captors captive and will rule over their oppressors” (Isa. 14:2).

Israel will experience extraordinary joy when the world dictator will have been removed from office, and his terrorizing kingdom and its ruling city brought to their long-prophesied ruin. We can look forward to a marvelous time of relief: “The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet. They break forth into shouts of joy” (v. 7). Once Israel has been settled as a free nation within their own borders, they will sing a taunting song against the now deceased king of Babylon: “How the oppressor has ceased!..The Lord has broken the staff of the wicked, the scepter of rulers” (vv. 4-5). Relief follows: “The Lord will give you rest from your pain and turmoil and the harsh service in which you have been enslaved” (v. 3).

The terrible oppression they will have endured during the reign of the Beast power, at the hands of the apparently invincible power of Babylon, will have deprived conquered Israel of all hope. Death alone will have seemed to be the only possible release from their misery. But the mighty world empire of Babylon will fall with the sudden intervention of God. Israel will greet this liberation with unspeakable joy. Psalm 126:1 captures the mood: “When the Lord put an end to the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dream.”

“The staff of the wicked,” the tyrant’s scepter (Isa. 14:5) will be finally broken and the oppressed set free. A large scale tyranny concentrated in the king of Babel is doomed to failure. Apparently Babylon is destined to become a powerful administrative centre controlled by a confederation of ten national leaders (Rev. 17:12, 13; Ps. 83) whose leader is Assyria.[1] Anyone refusing to align himself with the policies to be codified and enforced by the dictatorial system of the Assyro-Babylonian Beast power will suffer dire consequences.

It will be Satan whose power is expressed in the coming antichristian authority. He gives to Babylon “his power, and his seat, and great authority” (Rev. 13:2). This world-dominating government will exercise a tight control over its citizens until Babylon is destroyed: “He who used to strike the peoples in fury with unceasing strokes, who subdued the nations in anger with unrestrained persecution” (Isa. 14:6) will be superseded by the arriving Messiah whose divine right it will be to ascend the throne of Israel in Jerusalem (Luke 1:32; Acts 1:6; 3:21; Luke 22:28-30). In this way the long prayed-for Kingdom of God will come.

An important element of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mark 1:14, 15) is to know that the whole of the creation will one day rejoice, when the ravages imposed upon it by that evil worldly system come to an end. Isaiah 14:8: “Even the cypress trees rejoice over you [the king of Babylon] and the cedars of Lebanon, saying ‘Since you were laid low, no tree cutter comes up against us.’” A brilliant newly created world order will emerge from the darkness of former times. “The wilderness and the desert will be glad for them [Israel]; and the Arabah will rejoice, and blossom as the rose” (Isa. 35:1).

The next three verses of Israel’s song of derision contain vivid picture language. Sheol, the world of the dead, prepares to receive its humiliated new inhabitant. It arouses former great leaders of the earth, who through death have been likewise deprived of their fame and material greatness. Isa. 14:9-11: “Hell [Sheol] from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come. It arouses for you the spirits of the dead, all the leaders of the earth. It raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones. They will all respond and say to you, ‘Even you have been made weak as we have. You have become like us. Your pomp and the music of your harps have been brought down to Sheol. Maggots have been spread out as your bed beneath you, and worms are your covering.’” The despot will be justly reduced to nothing.

Next comes the description of this unfortunate individual. He had been hailed by an unsuspecting world as “shining one, son of the dawn.” His grandiose aspirations had led him to exalt his throne above the stars of God, and to imagine he could become “like the Most High Himself.” We are reminded of Satan’s alluring offer to Adam.

The king of Babylon even boasts of sitting enthroned on the mount of assembly in the heavenly realm. Yet Isaiah 14:15 assures us that he will brought down to Sheol, to the depths of the pit. This supernaturally endowed figure is a true Antichrist. He is the human tool of the Devil himself: “Is this the man that made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world like a wilderness, who overthrew its cities and did not allow his prisoners to go home?” (vv. 16, 17).

The Hebrew of verse 12 says: “How you have fallen from heaven, O shining one, son of dawn!” Modern translators have corrected the KJV error which equated this human person with the Devil, calling him “Lucifer,” and we now read the text like this: “How are you fallen from heaven, O Day Star, son of the Dawn!” Apparently he will have been welcomed as an international political savior and instigator of a bright new era for mankind. World history will return to its roots in Babylon, home of Nimrod (Gen. 10:10; see also Zech. 5:5ff, where the land of Nimrod will be the scene of a powerful commercial system) and his infamous wife Semiramis, who provided the prototype of all subsequent female deities and the Queen of Heaven, a title later appropriated to Mary herself by Roman Catholics (for details of the “baptism of paganism” calling itself “Christianity,” see Alexander Hislop’s The Two Babylons).

Note also the statements of modern scholars. The ancient Babylonian goddess worship is very much alive in our day. “Stephen Benko and Geoffrey Ashe have contended with some acuity that Mariology has its roots more in ancient mythology than in the Gospel. According to Benko, ‘Mary is the direct continuation of the pagan goddesses and unites in herself the basic principles that in Mediterranean piety underlay and determined the worship of mother goddesses.’ ‘Mariology does not simply resemble pagan customs and ideas, but it is paganism baptized, pure and simple’” (cited in Bloesch, Jesus Christ, Savior and Lord, p. 108, 1997).

Do not these facts suggest that intelligent human beings can be deceived on a grand scale? There are one billion Roman Catholics on earth. But Protestants should give careful consideration to the extent to which their own system retains doctrines in common with the Catholic Church.

The Beast or the man of sin (2 Thess. 2) represents the culmination of a false “Christian” system which was already at work in the days of the Apostles (1 John 2:18). When this Antichrist is revealed to the world, Satan will give him “his power, and his seat, and great authority” (Rev. 13:2). As a result, “he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme His name, and His tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven” (v. 6).

We may compare his words in that passage with the prophecy of Daniel (11:36): “And the king will do as he pleases, and he will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will speak monstrous things against the God of gods.” This is an echo of Isaiah 14:13: “For you said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.”

Satan’s own aspirations will be reproduced in this mortal human who throughout a three and a half year domination of the world, will marshal the powers of the nations in preparation for the Devil’s own forthcoming battle with the returning Messiah.

A spiritually blind world will consider the king of Babylon worthy of veneration as the Christ returned from heaven. Revelation 13:8 says that “all the inhabitants of the earth will be found to be worshipping him, everyone whose name is not recorded in the Book of Life.” The apostle Paul paints a picture of a dazzling pseudo Messianic appearance on the part of the Man of Sin, whose Parousia (i.e. fake “Second Coming”) will fool the world (2 Thess. 2:9). He will “oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship, and will take his seat in the temple of God, making the claim that he himself is God” (2 Thess. 2:4, quoting Dan. 11:36).

Jesus proclaims himself as the genuine solution to all the world’s problems: Rev. 22:16: “I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you these things in the churches. I am the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star.” The king of Babylon responds by adopting that title for himself. He professes himself to be the bright and morning star, or “the shining one, son of the dawn.” Thankfully the Lord Messiah will triumph over every false claimant to rulership in the genuine New Age of the coming Kingdom of God, the heart of Jesus’ saving Gospel message (Mark 1:14, 15; Acts 28:23, 31; Luke 4:43).²

By Bill Lavers and Anthony Buzzard