Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee - They join with the inhabitants of the nations in rejoicing at thy downfall - for they now, like those inhabitants, are suffered to remain undisturbed. (On the word rendered “fir trees,” see the notes at Isaiah 1:29.) It is evident that a species of evergreen is meant; and probably some species that grew in Syria or Palestine. The idea is plain. The very forest is represented as rejoicing. It would be safe from the king of Babylon. He could no longer cut it down to build his palaces, or to construct his implements of war. This figure of representing the hills and groves, the trees, the mountains, and the earth, as exulting, or as breaking forth into joy, is common in the Scriptures:
Let the heavens rejoice, and let the earth be glad;
Let the sea roar, and the fulness thereof.
Let the field be joyful, and all that is therein:
Then shall all the trees of the wood rejoice
Before the Lord.
Let the floods clap their hands.
Let the hills be joyful together
Before the Lord.
Praise the Lord from the earth,
Ye dragons and all deeps;
Fire and hail; snow and vapor;
Stormy wind fulfilling his word:
Mountains and all hills;
Fruitful trees and all cedars.
(Compare 1 Chronicles 16:31; Habakkuk 3:10-11.)
The cedars of Lebanon - (note, Isaiah 10:34). The cedars of Lebanon were much celebrated for building; and it is not impossible that the king of Babylon had obtained timber from that mountain with which to construct his palaces at Babylon. They are now represented as rejoicing that he is fallen, since they would be safe and undisturbed. A similar figure of speech occurs in Virgil, “Ecl.” v. 68:
Peace, peace, mild Daphnis loves; with joyous cry.
The untill’d mountains strike the echoing sky;
And rocks and towers the triumph spread abroad -
‘A god! Menalcas! Daphnis is a god!’
Wrangham
It is a beautiful figure; and is a fine specimen of the poetry of the Hebrews, where everything is animated, and full of life.
Since thou art laid down - Since thou art dead.
No feller - No one to cut us down. Jowett (“Chris. Res.”) makes the following remarks on this passage on his visit to Lebanon: ‘As we passed through the extensive forest of fir trees situated between Deir-el-Karat and Ainep, we had already heard, at some distance, the stroke of one solitary axe, resounding from hill to hill. On reaching the spot, we found a peasant, whose labor had been so far successful, that he had felled his tree and lopped his branches. He was now hewing it in the middle, so as to balance the two halves upon his camel, which stood patiently by him waiting for his load. In the days of Hiram, king of Tyre, and subsequently under the kings of Babylon, this romantic solitude was not so peaceful; that most poetic image in Isaiah, who makes these very trees vocal, exulting in the downfall of the destroyer of nations, seems now to be almost realized anew - “Yea, the fir trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.”’