Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 21:1

"The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it cometh from the wilderness, from a terrible land." — Isaiah 21:1 (ASV)

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.