The oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea announces treachery, invasion, and the ending of groaning.
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.
Isaiah experiences anguish, bewilderment, staggering heart, trembling, and horror.
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 so am 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.
Feasting and drinking give way to the command to rise and prepare shields.
5 They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!
After vigilant watching, the lookout reports that Babylon has fallen and its idols are shattered.
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.
The prophet tells his crushed people what he has heard from the LORD Almighty.
10 You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.
Seir asks the watchman how much of the night remains, and the answer holds together morning and further night.
Isaiah 21:11-12
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.”
Dedanite caravans lodge in thickets, and Tema is told to meet fleeing refugees with food and water.
13 The burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, 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.
Within a precisely counted year, Kedar’s glory and military remnant will be reduced.
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 Yahweh, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”