Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations.
9. Hell from beneath is moved for thee. {Bogus footnote} As he had formerly attributed gladness to the trees, so now, by a similar figure, he attributes speech to the dead {Bogus footnote} He arouses them, as it were, from their graves, to mock at the pride of this tyrant. The whole passage is ironical, and full of keen sarcasm.
The kings of Babylon, successively, were the great enemies and oppressors of God's people, and therefore the destruction of Babylon, the fall of the king, and the ruin of his family, are here particularly taken notice of and triumphed in. In the day that God has given Israel rest they shall take up this proverb against the king of Babylon.
Commenting on Isaiah 14:4-23
Hell from beneath is moved for thee,.... Or the "grave", or the place and state of the dead, and particularly of the damned, meaning those that are in such a place and state; and the sense is, that not only the inhabitants of the earth, and the trees upon it, express their joy at the fall of the king of Babylon, but those that are...