Zion Will Replace Babylon - Second Book of Nephi, Chapter Twenty-Four (2 Nephi 24 and Isaiah 14)

You can read the entire chapter at the following links: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/24?lang=eng and https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/ot/isa/14?lang=eng.

Isaiah continues the basic theme from the previous chapter: Babylon the oppressor will have the tables turned on it, and the people of Israel and the strangers (or Gentiles) who join them and help their cause will return to Israel’s lands of promise (verses 1-2). Isaiah describes the ultimate hollowness of earthly power by referring to the king of Babylon (probably Nebuchadnezzar) as yet another petty tyrant whose “pomp is brought down to the grave” (verse 11). What is even more shameful for Nebuchadnezzar, because of the eventual desolation of Babylon discussed from the previous chapter, he can’t even fall back on the glory of a royal tomb, as most other kings can (verses 18-19).

Isaiah then makes the parallel between Babylon and more general worldly wickedness explicit by providing the only specific reference found in the Book of Mormon (or Bible, for that matter) to Lucifer—though Lucifer is referred to as the devil or by other names in other places. The reference seems to explore the common features shared by Lucifer and Babylon’s king. Both had promise that was grievously wasted. Lucifer fell from heaven and Babylon lost its worldly dominions because they both are guilty of the sin of pride (verses 12-15). They—very wrongly—think they can somehow outdo God, and in their vain attempts to do this their selfishness tramples on other people’s lives and salvation.

As the chapter continues, Isaiah shows that Babylon is a symbol for all the kingdoms who have scourged the people of Israel. He mentions Assyria (verse 25) and the Philistines (verses 29-31) in particular because of the struggles the kingdom of Judah (Isaiah’s people) had with these two adversaries.

In the later years of Isaiah’s service as a prophet, around 701 B.C., King Hezekiah and Jerusalem seem to face certain destruction at the hand of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. Sennacherib amasses great numbers of men to besiege the people of Judah. But the famous quote from Hezekiah, “there be more with us than with him,” (2 Chronicles 32:7) is proven true when, in fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy here (and his more detailed prophecies closer in to the event), an angel of the Lord kills in one night 185,000 Assyrians camped out around Jerusalem (the account is told in 2 Kings 19 and 2 Chronicles 32). Sennacherib retreats to Nineveh, and is then killed by two of his sons. (An excavated portion of the city wall that existed at this time can be seen today in the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem's Old City.)

(The Defeat of Sennacherib, Peter Paul Rubens, 1612)

The Philistines (famous from the story of David and Goliath) are local people who have been living in the coastal plain near the tribes of Israel for centuries. Through peculiarities of translation, they are referred to in this chapter as “Palestina.” Isaiah and the kings who rule during his time as a prophet experience a number of struggles with the Philistines, and an Assyrian king before Sennacherib brings the Philistines under captivity around 730-720 B.C.

In the final verse (32), Isaiah makes a statement that tidily connects the different events he has presented: “What shall then answer the messengers of the nations? That the Lord hath founded Zion, and the poor of his people shall trust in it.” So because the Lord is the guiding hand behind Zion, those who are poor (in this case humbly acknowledging the Lord’s preeminence in their lives) can trust that they have a solid foundation. How? Well, eventually the people of Israel will gain back their lands, which are associated with the term Zion. But history has shown that this is a very complicated process and perhaps not the main point of the prophecy. 

The deeper significance could be that there is a type of Zion identity that transcends physical place and time and lifts men and women above their ordinary views of themselves to a state of being that is much closer in approaching the Lord’s. So just as Babylon (meaning the wicked world) will fall, Zion (those who lift themselves out of the world as God’s) will rise.