The Fall of Babylon Proclaimed
As awhirlwinds in the South pass through,
So it comes from the desert, from a terrible land.
aThe treacherous dealer deals treacherously,
And the plunderer plunders.
bGo up, O Elam!
Besiege, O Media!
All its sighing I have made to cease.
bPangs have taken hold of me, like the pangs of a woman in labor.
I was1 distressed when I heard it;
I was dismayed when I saw it.
aThe night for which I longed He turned into fear for me.
Set a watchman in the tower,
Eat and drink.
Arise, you princes,
Anoint the shield!
A chariot of donkeys, and a chariot of camels,
And he listened earnestly with great care.
I stand continually on the awatchtower in the daytime;
I have sat at my post every night.
Then he answered and said,
a“Babylon is fallen, is fallen!
And ball the carved images of her gods
He has broken to the ground.”
That which I have heard from the Lord of hosts,
The God of Israel,
I have declared to you.
Proclamation Against Edom
He calls to me out of bSeir,
“Watchman, what of the night?
Watchman, what of the night?”
| << Isaiah 20:6 | Isaiah 21:2 >> |
Isaiah 21:1
The desert of the sea - This plainly means Babylon, which is the subject of the prophecy. The country about Babylon, and especially below it towards the sea, was a great flat morass, overflowed by the Euphrates and Tigris. It became habitable by being drained by the many canals that were made in it.
Herodotus, lib. 1:184, 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." And Abydenus, (quoting Megasthenes, apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. 9:41), speaking of the building of Babylon by Nebuchadonosor, says, "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, and surrounded Babylon with a wall." When the Euphrates was turned out of its channel by Cyrus, it was suffered still to drown the neighboring country; and, the Persian government, which did not favor the place, taking no care to remedy this inconvenience, it became in time a great barren morassy desert, which event the title of the prophecy may perhaps intimate. Such it was originally; such it became after the taking of the city by Cyrus; and such it continues to this day.
As whirlwinds in the south "Like the southern tempests" - The most vehement storms to which Judea was subject came from the desert country to the south of it. "Out of the south cometh the whirlwind," Job 37:9. "And there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house," Job 1:19. For the situation of Idumea, the country (as I suppose) of Job, see Lamentations 4:21 compared with Job 1:1, was the same in this respect with that of Judea: -
"And Jehovah shall appear over them,
And his arrow shall go forth as the lightning;
And the Lord Jehovah shall sound the trumpet;
And shall march in the whirlwinds of the south."
Other Adam Clarke entries containing Isaiah 21:1:
| << Isaiah 20:6 | Isaiah 21:2 >> |
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