The prophet Isaiah was divinely inspired to declare: “Do not rejoice, O Philistia, any one of you, just because the staff of the one striking you has been broken. For out of the root of the serpent there will come forth a poisonous snake, and its fruit will be a flying fiery snake.”​—Isa. 14:28, 29.

But the Philistines were to face a more deadly foe in one springing from the “root” of Uzziah. This one would be like a “poisonous snake,” a “flying fiery snake.” A “flying fiery snake” would be rapid in darting and lightninglike in striking and would produce a burning effect through the venom injected into a victim. In fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, the “flying fiery snake” proved to be Hezekiah, the great-grandson of Uzziah. The Bible tells us: “It was he that struck down the Philistines clear to Gaza and also its territories.”​—2 Ki. 18:8.

The annals of Assyrian King Sennacherib reveal that the Philistines submitted to Hezekiah. Regarding what happened to Padi, king of the Philistine city of Ekron, these annals state that ‘the officials, the patricians and the common people of Ekron had thrown Padi, their king, into fetters’ and “had handed him over to Hezekiah, the Jew,” who “held him in prison.”

In view of such developments during the reign of Hezekiah, the prophetic command for the Philistines not to rejoice was most appropriate. What they experienced at the hands of Hezekiah was truly like the injury that a “flying fiery snake” can produce upon its victims. The prophecy at Isaiah 14:29 was unmistakably fulfilled.