This is the counsel that is counseled against all the earth, and this is the hand that is stretched out against all the nations.

Isaiah 14:24-27.

25. In that prophecy, what does “counsel” mean, and why?

²⁵ The Almighty, All-Wise God did not take counsel with anybody in heaven in order to guide Himself in his course of action. “Who as his man of counsel can make him know anything?” is the fitting question that is raised in the prophecy of Isaiah 40:13. (Also, Job 21:22; 36:22; Romans 11:34) His “counsel” is His own, not dependent upon a body of advisory counselors for assistance in right judgment and determination. Hence, his “counsel” here takes on more than the sense of advice; it stands for his express determination, his decree. Regarding the Scriptural use of the word “counsel,” M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyclopædia, Volume II, page 539, says: “Beside the common signification of this word, as denoting the consultations of men, it is used in Scripture for the decrees of God, the orders of his providence.”

26. In letting Babylon succeed Assyria to world domination, what was Jehovah purposely doing?

²⁶ The “counsel” that the Almighty, All-Wise God, of his own self, counsels cannot be broken up either by men or by devils.