Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 21

The burden of the desert of the sea ... — The title of the prophecy is obviously taken from the catch-word “the desert” that follows.

The “sea” has been explained as follows:

1. as the Euphrates, just as in Isaiah 18:2; Isaiah 19:5, it appears to be used for the Nile (Cheyne).
2. As pointing to the surging flood of the mingled myriads of its population.
3. Xenophon’s description of the whole plain of the Euphrates, intersected by marshes and lakes, as looking like a sea, perhaps affords a better explanation.

As whirlwinds in the south ... — The “South” (or Negeb) is here, as elsewhere, the special name of the country lying south of Judah. The tempests of the region seem to have been proverbial (Zechariah 9:14; Jeremiah 4:11; Jeremiah 13:24; Hosea 13:15).

So it cometh. — The absence of a subject to the verb gives the opening words a terrible vagueness. Something is coming from the wilderness, a terrible land, beyond it. The “wilderness” in this case is clearly the Arabian desert, through part of which the Euphrates flows. The context determines the “terrible land” as that of Elam and Media.

A grievous vision ... — The verse contains, so to speak, the three tableaux that came in succession before the prophet’s gaze:

1. The treacherous dealer, the Assyro-Chaldæan power, spoiling and oppressing, breaking treaties, and, as its kings boasted (Habakkuk 2:5; Records of the Past, vii. 42, 44), “removing landmarks.”
2. The summons to Elam and Media to put an end to this tyranny.
3. The oppressed peoples ceasing to sigh, and rejoicing in their liberation.

Elam appears here as combined with Media, which is named in Isaiah 13:17 as the only destroyer of Babylon, and this has been urged as evidence of a later date. As a matter of fact, however, Sargon at this very time was carrying on a fierce war against Elam (Records of the Past, cvii. 41-49) as well as against Media (ibid, p. 37). In Ezekiel 32:24, Elam is numbered among the extinct nations, but the name, in any case, reappears as applied to the Persians, though they were of a distinct race.

It was, even as a mere forecast, perfectly natural that the two should be associated together as the future destroyers of the Nineveh and Babel empires, which to the prophet’s eye were identical in character and policy. The advance described as “from the wilderness” implies a march of at least part of the Medo-Persian army down the Choaspes and into the lowland of Chuzistan, bordering on the great Arabian desert.

Therefore are my loins filled with pain ... —Compare to Nahum 2:10; Ezekiel 21:6; and for the image of the “woman in travail,”Isaiah 13:8; Jeremiah 30:6. The vision of destruction is so terrible that it overpowers all feeling of exultation, and oppresses the prophet like a horrible nightmare.

The night of my pleasure ... —The words point to the prophet’s longing for the darkness of night, either as a time of rest from his labor, or, more probably, for contemplation and prayer (Psalms 119:148), and to the invasion of that rest by the vision of terror. The suggestion that the prophet speaks as identifying himself with the Babylonians, and refers to the capture of their city during a night of revelry (Daniel 5:1; Daniel 5:30; Herod., i. 121; Xenoph. Cyrop., vii. 23), is hardly tenable.

Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower.—These words (a historical infinitive) are better understood as indicative: They prepare ... they watch. The last clause has been rendered in various ways: they spread the coverlet; that is, for the couches of the revelers (Amos 6:4); and they take horoscopes (Ewald).

Here, with hardly a shadow of a doubt, there is a reference to the spirit of reckless revelry that immediately preceded the capture of Babylon. The prophet perhaps had something analogous to such blind security before his eyes at the very time he was writing (Isaiah 22:13), which led him to anticipate a similar state of affairs in Babylon.

Anoint the shield ...—This summons, in the prophet’s vision, breaks in on the songs and music of the revelry. The shields referred to were those covered with leather, which was oiled, partly to protect it from moisture and partly to make a sword's stroke glide off it. The call implies that even this precaution had been neglected by the revelers.