Read Isaiah chapter 21 online with LogosAI Bible study tools, highlights, and cross references.
Isaiah 21 is part of “Oracles Against Nations” (13–23) in the outline of Isaiah.
Isaiah 21 summary
In this chapter we have a prophecy of sad times coming, and heavy burdens, I. Upon Babylon, here called "the desert of the sea," that it should be destroyed by the Medes and Persians with a terrible destruction, which yet God's people should have advantage by (Isa 21:1-10). II. Upon Dumah, or Idumea (Isa 21:11, Isa 21:12). III. Upon Arabia, or Kedar, the desolation of which country was very near (Isa 21:13-17). These and other nations which the princes and people of Israel had so much to do with the prophets of Israel could not but have something to say to. Foreign affairs must be taken notice of as well as domestic ones, and news from abroad enquired after as well as news at home.
Source: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706–21; Romans–Revelation completed by Nonconformist ministers). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
1 The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.
2 A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.
3 Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see.
4 My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.
5 They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!
6 For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.
7 When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.”
8 He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.
9 Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.
10 You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
11 The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”
12 The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”
13 The burden on Arabia. You will lodge in the thickets in Arabia, you caravans of Dedanites.
14 They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.
15 For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.
16 For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,
17 and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”