Isaiah 14:21

21 Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the iniquities of their forefathers. They will never rise up to possess a land or cover the earth with their cities.

Isaiah 14:21 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 14:21

Prepare slaughter for his children
These words are directed to the Medes and Persians, to prepare instruments of slaughter, and make use of them; and prepare themselves for the slaughter of the whole royal family, Belshazzar and all his children. So it is threatened to Jezebel, or the Romish antichrist, that all her children should be killed with death, ( Revelation 2:23 ) : for the iniquity of their fathers;
they imitating and following them in their sins, partaking of them, and filling up the measure of their iniquities: that they do not rise, nor possess the land;
stand up and succeed him in the government of the land, as their inheritance: nor fill the face of the world with cities;
as their ancestors had done, which were built by them to perpetuate their name and glory, and to keep the nations in awe subdued by them. The Targum renders it, "with enemies"; which is followed by Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi; and so the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, "with wars"; to the great disturbance of the peace of the world, and to the disquietude of the inhabitants of it; which is a great plague to the world, and a judgment in it.

Isaiah 14:21 In-Context

19 But you are cast out of your grave like a rejected branch, covered by those slain with the sword, and dumped into a rocky pit like a carcass trampled underfoot.

20 You will not join them in burial, since you have destroyed your land and slaughtered your own people. The offspring of the wicked will never again be mentioned.

21 Prepare a place to slaughter his sons for the iniquities of their forefathers. They will never rise up to possess a land or cover the earth with their cities.

22 “I will rise up against them,” declares the LORD of Hosts. “I will cut off from Babylon her name and her remnant, her offspring and her posterity,” declares the LORD.

23 “I will make her a place for owls and for swamplands; I will sweep her away with the broom of destruction,” declares the LORD of Hosts.