Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 21:3

"Therefore are my loins filled with anguish; pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman in travail: I am pained so that I cannot hear; I am dismayed so that I cannot see." — Isaiah 21:3 (ASV)

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.