That thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased!
-A CHORUS OF JEWS EXPRESS THEIR JOYFUL SURPRISE AT BABYLON'S DOWNFALL: the whole earth rejoices: the cedars of Lebanon taunt him.
Verse 4. Thou shalt take up this proverb. The Orientals, having few books, embodied their thoughts in weighty, figurative, briefly-expressed gnomes; Hebrew, mashal: cf. Introduction to Proverbs. Here a taunting song of triumph (Micah 2:4; Habakkuk 2:6).
Against the king of Babylon - the ideal representative of Babylon: perhaps Belshazzar, (Daniel 5:1-31.) The mystical Babylon is ultimately meant.
How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city! Or else, the exactress of gold (Maurer). х Madheebaah (H4062), from the Aramaic dªhab (H1722), the same as zaahaab (H2091), gold.] The English version accords with Daniel 2:32; Daniel 2:38, "Thou (King of Babylon) art this head of gold." Also Jeremiah 51:7, "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand." So called because of its wealth. But the old translators read differently in the Hebrew, oppression х marheebaah (H4062)], which the parallelism favours (cf. Isaiah 3:5). Verse 5. The Lord hath broken the staff - not the sceptre (Psalms 2:9), but the staff with which one strikes, as he is speaking of more tyrants than one (Isaiah 9:4; Isaiah 10:24; Isaiah 14:29) (Maurer).
The sceptre of the rulers - tyrants, as the parallelism, "the wicked," proves (cf. Isaiah 13:2, note on "nobles").
Verse 6. He who smote the people - the peoples subjected to Babylon,
Is persecuted. The Hebrew is rather active, "which persecuted them, without any to hinder him" (The Vulgate, Jerome, and Horsley).
Verse 7. They - the once subject nations of the whole earth.
Break forth into singing. Houbigant places the stop after, "fir trees" (Isaiah 14:8), 'The very fir trees break forth,' etc. But the parallelism is better in the English version.
Verse 8. The fir trees - now left undisturbed. Probably a kind of evergreen.
Rejoice at thee - (Psalms 96:12.) At thy fall (Psalms 35:19; Psalms 35:24).
Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us - as formerly, when thou wast in power (Isaiah 10:34; Isaiah 37:24).