Isaiah 21:1

21:1-10 Babylon was a flat country, abundantly watered. The destruction of Babylon, so often prophesied of by Isaiah, was typical of the destruction of the great foe of the New Testament church, foretold in the Revelation. To the poor oppressed captives it would be welcome news; to the proud oppressors it would be grievous. Let this check vain mirth and sensual pleasures, that we know not in what heaviness the mirth may end. Here is the alarm given to Babylon, when forced by Cyrus. An ass and a camel seem to be the symbols of the Medes and Persians. Babylon's idols shall be so far from protecting her, that they shall be broken down. True believers are the corn of God's floor; hypocrites are but as chaff and straw, with which the wheat is now mixed, but from which it shall be separated. The corn of God's floor must expect to be threshed by afflictions and persecutions. God's Israel of old was afflicted. Even then God owns it is his still. In all events concerning the church, past, present, and to come, we must look to God, who has power to do any thing for his church, and grace to do every thing that is for her good.

Isaiah 21:1 . The burden of the desert of the sea — That is, of Babylon, as is evident from Isaiah 21:9 . Some think it is so called prophetically, because, although it was at present a populous city, it was shortly to be made desolate, and turned into a marsh, and pools of water. But מדבר ים may be properly rendered, the plain of the sea: for Babylon stood on a plain, and the country about it, and especially below it, toward the sea, was a great flat morass, often overflowed by the Euphrates and Tigris. “Semiramis,” says Herodotus, “confined the Euphrates within its channel, by raising great dams against it; for before it overflowed the whole country like a sea.” And Abydenus, speaking of the building of Babylon, observes, “It is reported that all this part was covered with water, and was called the sea; and that Belus drew off the waters, conveying them into proper receptacles.” It was only by these means, it appears, and by the many canals that were made in the country, that it became habitable. It, however, still more fully and perfectly answered the title of the plain, or desert of the sea, here given it, in consequence of the Euphrates being turned out of its channel by Cyrus, and afterward suffered still to drown the neighbouring country, by which it became, in time, a great barren, morassy desert, which it continues to be to this day. See note on Isaiah 13:20 .

This second prediction, concerning Babylon, (which, with the two short prophecies following, makes the sixth discourse of this second part of Isaiah’s Visions,) “is a passage,” says Bishop Lowth, “of a singular kind for its brevity and force; for the variety and rapidity of the movements; and for the strength and energy of colouring, with which the action and event are painted. It opens with the prophet’s seeing, at a distance, the dreadful storm that is gathering, and ready to burst upon Babylon: the event is intimated in general terms; and God’s orders are issued to the Persians and Medes to set forth upon the expedition which he has given them in charge. Upon this the prophet enters into the midst of the action; and in the person of Babylon expresses, in the strongest terms, the astonishment and horror that seizes her on the sudden surprise of the city, at the very season dedicated to pleasure and festivity. Then, in his own person, he describes the situation of things there; the security of the Babylonians, and, in the midst of their feasting, the sudden alarm of war. The event is then declared in a very singular manner.

The burden of the {a} desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, {b} from a terrible land. (a) On the seaside between Judea and Caldea was a wilderness, by which he means Caldea. (b) That is, the ruin of Babylon by the Medes and Persians.

CHAPTER 21 Isa 21:1-10. Repetition of the Assurance Given in the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Chapters to the Jews About to Be Captives in Babylon, that Their Enemy Should Be Destroyed and They Be Delivered. He does not narrate the event, but graphically supposes himself a watchman in Babylon, beholding the events as they pass. 1. desert—the champaign between Babylon and Persia; it was once a desert, and it was to become so again. of the sea—The plain was covered with the water of the Euphrates like a "sea" (Jer 51:13, 36; so Isa 11:15, the Nile), until Semiramis raised great dams against it. Cyrus removed these dykes, and so converted the whole country again into a vast desert marsh. whirlwinds in the south—(Job 37:9; Zec 9:14). The south wind comes upon Babylon from the deserts of Arabia, and its violence is the greater from its course being unbroken along the plain (Job 1:19). desert—the plain between Babylon and Persia. terrible land—Media; to guard against which was the object of Nitocris' great works [Herodotus, 1.185]. Compare as to "terrible" applied to a wilderness, as being full of unknown dangers, De 1:29.The prophet’s fear and trouble at his vision of Babylon’s ruin by the Medes and Persians, Isaiah 21:1-4. He mocketh Babel, Isaiah 21:5-9. Edom, scorning the prophet, is called to repentance, Isaiah 21:11,12. The time of Arabia’s calamity set.

The desert of the sea; Babylon, as is evident both from her destroyers, the Medians, Isaiah 21:2, and especially from Isaiah 21:9, where she is named. She seems to be called desert prophetically, to intimate, that although she was now a most populous city and kingdom, yet shortly she should be turned into a desolate wilderness, as was threatened, Isaiah 13:19, &c. But the word here rendered desert sometimes signifies a plain, as a very learned interpreter hath observed, and thus it most properly agrees to Babylon, and the land about it, which geographers note to be a very plain country, without any considerable mountains in it. It is called the desert of the sea, because it is situate by the sea, as the isles of the sea, Esther 10:1, are those countries which were beside the sea. And the title of the sea might well be given to the waters of Babylon, because of the great plenty and multitude of them, the great channel of Euphrates, and the several several lesser channels cut out, and the vast lakes of water; in which respects it is said to sit upon many waters, Jeremiah 51:13, the name of sea being given by the Hebrews to every great collection of waters. In the south; in those parts which lay southward from Judea where there were many and grreat deserts, in which the winds have greater force. See Job 1:19 Jeremiah 4:11. Pass through; as meeting with no stop or opposition. It; the burden or judgment. Or, he, the Median, as it is in the next verse.

1 . The burden of the desert of the sea ] Perhaps, The oracle, “Desert of the Sea .” The first of a series of enigmatic headings, all but peculiar to this section of the book: Isaiah 21:11 ; Isaiah 21:13 , Isaiah 22:1 (cf. Isaiah 30:6 ). In the majority of cases they are to be explained as catchwords, taken from the body of the oracle (in this instance the fourth word of the original, “desert”). Similarly David’s lament over Saul and Jonathan is entitled the song of “the bow,” 2 Samuel 1:18 , cf. 2 Samuel 21:22 . The words “of the sea” are wanting in the LXX. Some render “deserts” (reading midbarîm for midbar-yâm ). Others, again, regard the fuller form as an emblematic designation of Babylon or Babylonia: the country that was once a sea ( θάλασσα Herod. i. 184) and shall be so again. in the south ] Lit. “in the Negeb,” the dry pastoral region in the south of Judah and beyond. The inference that the prophecy was written in Palestine is plausible, but not inevitable, since the word is used of the southern direction. For pass through , render sweeping along . it (the undefined danger) cometh from the desert ] probably the flat region S.E. of Babylon, between it and Elam. a terrible land ] cf. Isaiah 30:6 ; Deuteronomy 1:19 ; Deuteronomy 8:15 , &c. 1, 2 . The “hard vision” of Babylon’s fate.

Verses 1-10. - THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT OF THE SEA. This is a short and somewhat vague, but highly poetic, "burden of Babylon" It is probably an earlier prophecy than Isaiah 13 . and 14, and perhaps the first revelation made to Isaiah with respect to the fall of the great Chaldean capital. It exhibits no consciousness of the fact that Babylon is Judah's predestined destroyer, and is expressive rather of sympathy (vers. 3, 4) than of triumph. Among recent critics, some suppose it to refer to Sargon's capture of the city in B.C. 710 ; but the objection to this view, from the entire absence of all reference to Assyria as the conquering power, and the mention of "Elam" and "Media" in her place, is absolutely fatal to it. There can be no reasonable doubt that the same siege is intended as in Isaiah 13 , where also Media is mentioned (ver. 17); and there are no real grounds for questioning that the event of which the prophet is made cognizant is that siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great which destroyed the Babylonian empire. Verse 1. - The desert of the sea . The Isaianic authorship of this title is doubtful, since "the desert of the sea" is an expression elsewhere wholly unknown to biblical writers. Some regard "the sea" as the Euphrates, in which case "the desert of the sea" may be the waste tract west of the Euphrates, extending thence to the eastern borders of Palestine.

As whirlwinds in the south pass through ; rather, as whirlwinds in the south country , sweeping along . The "south country" is that immediately to the south of Judaea. Its liability to whirlwinds is noticed in Zechariah 9:14 and in Job 37:9 (compare Major Palmer's 'Sinai,' p. 33). It cometh . What cometh? Dr. Kay says, "God's visitation;" Rosenmüller, "a numerous army." But is it not rather the "grievous vision" of the next verse? From the desert. The great desert bounding Palestine on the east - a truly "terrible land." Across this, as coming from Baby-Ionia to Palestine, seemed to rush the vision which it was given to the prophet to see. Isaiah 21:1

XXI. (1) The burden of the desert of the sea . . .—The title of the prophecy is obviously taken from the catch-word of “the desert” that follows. The “sea” has been explained (1) as the Euphrates, just as in Isaiah 18:2; Isaiah 19:5, it appears as used of 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 affords, perhaps, 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.