Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 21

The burden - (see the note at Isaiah 13:1).

Of the desert - There have been almost as many interpretations of this expression as there have been interpreters. That it means Babylon, or the country about Babylon, there can be no doubt; but the question of why this phrase was applied has given rise to a great diversity of opinions.

The term ‘desert’ (מדבר midbâr) is usually applied to a wilderness or to a comparatively barren and uncultivated country—a place for flocks and herds (Psalms 65:13; Jeremiah 9:9 and following); to an actual waste, sandy desert (Isaiah 32:15; Isaiah 35:1); and particularly to the deserts of Arabia (Genesis 14:6; Genesis 16:7; Deuteronomy 11:24).

It may here be applied to Babylon either historically, as having been once an unreclaimed desert, or by anticipation, as descriptive of what it would be after it should be destroyed by Cyrus; or possibly, both these ideas may have been combined.

That it was once a desert before it was reclaimed by Semiramis is the testimony of all history; that it is now a vast waste is the united testimony of all travelers. There is every reason to think that a large part of the country about Babylon was formerly overflowed with water before it was reclaimed by dikes; and as it was naturally a waste, when the artificial dikes and dams should be removed, it would again be a desert.

Of the sea - (ים yâm). There has also been much difference of opinion regarding this word. But there can be no doubt that it refers to the Euphrates, and to the extensive region of marsh that was covered by its waters. The name ‘sea’ (ים yâm) is often given to a large river, to the Nile, and to the Euphrates (see the note at Isaiah 11:15).

Herodotus (i. 184) says that ‘Semiramis confined the Euphrates within its channel by raising great dams against it; for before, it overflowed the whole country like a sea.’ Abydenus, in Eusebius (“Prepara. Evang.,” ix. 457), also says, respecting the building of Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar, that ‘it is reported that all this was covered with water, and was called a sea—λέγεται δὲ πάντα μεν ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὕδωρ εἶναι, θαλασσων καλουμένην legetai de panta men ex archēs hydōr einai, thalassōn kaloumenēn’ (Compare Strabo, “Geog.” xvi. 9, 10; and Arrianus, “De Expedit. Alexandri,” vii. 21).

Cyrus removed these dikes, reopened the canals, and the waters were allowed to remain, and again converted the whole country into a vast marsh (see the notes at Isaiah 13:0; Isaiah 14:0).

As whirlwinds - That is, the army comes with the rapidity of a whirlwind. In Isaiah 8:8 , an army is compared to an overflowing and rapid river.

In the south - Whirlwinds or tempests are often in the Scriptures represented as coming from the south (Zechariah 9:14; Job 37:9):

Out of the south cometh the whirlwind,
And cold out of the north.

So Virgil:

— creberque procellis
Africus —
AEneid, i. 85.

The deserts of Arabia were situated to the south of Babylon, and the south winds are described as the winds of the desert. Those winds are represented as being so violent as to tear away the tents occupied by a caravan (Pietro della Valle, “Travels,” vol. iv. pp. 183, 191). In Job 1:19, the whirlwind is represented as coming from the wilderness; that is, from the desert of Arabia (Hosea 13:15).

So it cometh from the desert - (see Isaiah 13:4, and the note on that place). God is there represented as collecting the army for the destruction of Babylon on the mountains, and by mountains are probably denoted the same as is here denoted by the desert. The country of the Medes is doubtless intended, which, in the view of civilized and refined Babylon, was an uncultivated region, or a vast waste or wilderness.

From a terrible land - A country rough and uncultivated, abounding in forests or wastes.

A grievous vision - Margin, as in Hebrew ‘Hard.’ On the word ‘vision,’ see the note at Isaiah 1:1. The sense here is that the vision which the prophet saw was one that indicated great calamity (Isaiah 21:3–4).

Is declared unto me - That is, it is caused to pass before me, and its meaning is made known to me.

The treacherous dealer - (חבוגד chabôgēd). The perfidious, unfaithful people. This is the usual meaning of the word; but the connection here does not seem to require the meaning of treachery or perfidy, but of “violence.” The word has this meaning in Habakkuk 2:5, and in Proverbs 11:3, Proverbs 11:6. It refers here to the Medes and to the fact that oppression and violence were now to be exercised toward Babylon. Lowth renders this:

‘The plunderer is plundered, and the destroyer is destroyed;’

But the authority for rendering it this way is doubtful. He seems to suppose that it refers to Babylon. The Hebrew evidently means that there is to be plundering and devastation, and that this is to be accomplished by a nation accustomed to it, which is immediately specified—that is, the united kingdom of Media and Persia.

The Chaldee renders it, ‘They who bring violence, suffer violence; and the plunderers are plundered.’ Jarchi says that the sense of the Hebrew text according to the Chaldee is, ‘Ah! you who are violent! There comes another who will use you with violence; and you plunderer, another comes who will plunder you, even the Medes and Persians, who will destroy and lay waste Babylon.’

But the Hebrew text will not bear this interpretation. The sense is that desolation was about to be produced by a nation “accustomed” to it, and who would act toward Babylon in their true character.

Go up - This is an address of God to Media and Persia (see the note at Isaiah 13:17).

O Elam - This was the name of the country originally possessed by the Persians, and was so called from Elam a son of Shem (Genesis 10:22). It was east of the Euphrates, and properly comprehended the mountainous countries of Khusistan and Louristan, called by the Greek writers “Elymais.” In this country was Susa or Shushan, mentioned in Daniel 8:2. It is here put for Persia in general, and the call on Elam and Media to go up was a call on the united kingdom of the Medes and Persians.

Besiege - That is, besiege Babylon.

O Media - (see the note at Isaiah 13:17).

All the sighing thereof have I made to cease - This has been very differently interpreted by expositors. Some understand it (as Rosenmuller, Jerome, and Lowth) as designed to be taken in an “active” sense; that is, all the groaning “caused” by Babylon in her oppressions of others, and particularly of God’s people, would cease. Others refer it to the army of the Medes and Persians, as if “their” sighing should be over—that is, their fatigues and labors in the conquest of Babylon.

Calvin supposes that it means that the Lord would be deaf to the sighs of Babylon; that is, He would disregard them and would bring upon them the threatened certain destruction. The probable meaning is that suggested by Jerome: that God would bring to an end all the sighs and groans which Babylon had caused in a world suffering under her oppressions .

Therefore - In this verse and the following, the prophet represents himself as in Babylon, and as a witness of the calamities that would come upon the city. He describes the sympathy that he feels for her sorrows and represents himself as deeply affected by her calamities. A similar description occurred in the pain that the prophet represents himself as enduring on account of the calamities of Moab (see Isaiah 15:5, note; Isaiah 16:11, note).

My loins - (See the note on Isaiah 16:11).

With pain - The word used here (חלחלה chalchâlâh) properly denotes the pains of parturition, and the whole figure is taken from that. The sense is that the prophet was filled with the most acute sorrow and anguish in view of the calamities that were coming on Babylon. That is, the sufferings of Babylon would be indescribably great and dreadful (Ezekiel 30:4, 9).

I was bowed down - Under the grief and sorrow produced by these calamities.

At the hearing it - The Hebrew may have this sense, meaning that these things were made to pass before the prophet's eye, and that the sight oppressed him and bowed him down.

However, it is more probable that the Hebrew letter מ (m) in the word משׁמע mish^emoa' is to be taken privatively, meaning, ‘I was so bowed down or oppressed that I could not see; I was so dismayed that I could not hear.’ In other words, all his senses were taken away by the greatness of the calamity and by his sympathetic sufferings.

A similar construction occurs in Psalm 69:23: Let their eyes be darkened that they see not (מראות mēr^e'ôth), that is, from seeing.

My heart panted - Margin, ‘My mind wandered.’ The Hebrew word rendered ‘panted’ (תעה tâ‛âh) means to wander about; to stagger; to be giddy; and is often applied to one who staggers from being intoxicated. Applied to the heart, it means that it is disquieted or troubled. The Hebrew word “heart” here is to be taken in the sense of “mind.”

The night of my pleasure - There can be no doubt that the prophet here refers to the night of revelry and riot in which Babylon was taken. The prophet calls it the night of “his” pleasure, because he represents himself as being “in” Babylon when it would be taken, and, therefore, uses such language as an inhabitant of Babylon would use. “They” would call it the night of their pleasure because it was set apart for feasting and revelry.

Hath he turned into fear - God has made it a night of consternation and alarm. The prophet here refers to the fact that Babylon would be taken by Cyrus during that night, and that consternation and alarm would suddenly pervade the frightened and guilty city (see Daniel 5).

Prepare the table - This verse is one of the most striking and remarkable that occurs in this prophecy, or indeed in any part of Isaiah. It is language supposed to be spoken in Babylon. The first direction - perhaps supposed to be that of the king - is to prepare the table for the feast. Then follows a direction to set a watch - to make the city safe, so that they might revel without fear. Then a command to eat and drink: and then immediately a sudden order, as if alarmed at an unexpected attack, to arise and anoint the shield, and to prepare for a defense.

The “table” here refers to a feast - that impious feast mentioned in (Daniel 5) in the night in which Babylon was taken, and Belshazzar slain. Herodotus (i. 195), Xenophon (“Cyr.” 7, 5), and Daniel (Daniel 5) all agree in the account that Babylon was taken in the night in which the king and his nobles were engaged in feasting and revelry. The words of Xenophon are, ‘But Cyrus, when he heard that there was to be such a feast in Babylon, in which all the Babylonians would drink and revel through the whole night, on that night, as soon as it began to grow dark, taking many people, opened the dams into the river;’ that is, he opened the dikes which had been made by Semiramis and her successors to confine the waters of the Euphrates to one channel, and suffered the waters of the Euphrates again to flow over the country so that he could enter Babylon beneath its wall in the channel of the river.

Xenophon has also given the address of Cyrus to the soldiers. ‘Now,’ says he, ‘let us go against them. Many of them are asleep; many of them are intoxicated; and all of them are unfit for battle (ἀσὺντακτοι asuntaktoi).’ Herodotus says (i. 191), ‘It was a day of festivity among them, and while the citizens were engaged in dance and merriment, Babylon was, for the first time, thus taken.’ Compare the account in (Daniel 5).

Watch in the watch-tower - Place a guard so that the city would be secure. Babylon had on its walls many “towers,” placed at convenient distances (see the notes at Isaiah 13), in which guards were stationed to defend the city, and to give the alarm on any approach of an enemy. Xenophon has given a similar account of the taking of the city: ‘They having arranged their guards, drank until light.’ The oriental watch-towers are introduced in the book for the purpose of illustrating a general subject often referred to in the Scriptures.

Eat, drink - Give yourselves to revelry during the night (see Daniel 5).

Arise, you princes - This language indicates sudden alarm. It is the language either of the prophet, or more probably of the king of Babylon, alarmed at the sudden approach of the enemy, and calling upon his nobles to arm themselves and make a defense. The army of Cyrus entered Babylon by two divisions - one on the north where the waters of the Euphrates entered the city, and the other by the channel of the Euphrates on the south. Knowing that the city was given up to revelry on that night, they had agreed to imitate the sound of the revelers until they should assemble around the royal palace in the center of the city. They did so. When the king heard the noise, supposing that it was the sound of a drunken mob, he ordered the gates of the palace to be opened to ascertain the cause of the disturbance.

When they were thus opened, the army of Cyrus rushed in, and made an immediate attack on all who were within. It is to this moment that we may suppose the prophet here refers, when the king, aroused and alarmed, would call on his nobles to arm themselves for battle (see Jahn’s “Hebrew Commonwealth,” p. 153, Ed. Andover, 1828).

Anoint the shield - That is, prepare for battle. Gesenius supposes that this means to rub over the shield with oil to make the leather more supple and impenetrable (compare 2 Samuel 1:21). The Chaldee renders it, ‘Fit, and polish your arms.’ The Septuagint, ‘Prepare shields.’ Shields were instruments of defense prepared to ward off the spears and arrows of an enemy in battle. They were usually made of a rim of brass or wood, and over this was drawn a covering of the skin of an ox or other animal in the manner of a drum-head with us. Occasionally the hide of a rhinoceros or an elephant was used. Burckhardt (“Travels in Nubia”) says that the Nubians use the hide of the hippopotamus for the making of shields. But whatever skin might be used, it was necessary occasionally to rub it over with oil lest it should become hard, and crack, or lest it should become so rigid that an arrow or a sword would easily break through it.

Jarchi says, that ‘shields were made of skin, and that they anointed them with the oil of olive.’ The sense is, ‘Prepare your arms! Make ready for battle!’