The Fall of Babylon, the Watchman’s Night, and the Oracle Against Arabia

Isa 21:6 The prophecy is continued with the conjunction “for” ( ci ). The tacit link in the train of thought is this: they act thus in Babylon, because the destruction of Babylon is determined. The form in which this thought is embodied is the following: the prophet receives instruction in the vision to set a metzappeh upon the watch-tower, who was to look out and see what more took place.

“For thus said the Lord to me, Go, set a spy; what he seeth, let him declare. ” In other cases it is the prophet himself who stands upon the watch-tower (Isa 21:11; Hab 2:1-2); but here in the vision a distinction is made between the prophet and the person whom he stations upon the watch-tower ( specula ). The prophet divides himself, as it were, into two persons (compare Isa 18:4 for the introduction; and for the expression “go,” Isa 20:2).

He now sees through the medium of a spy, just as Zechariah sees by means of the angel speaking in him; with this difference, however, that here the spy is the instrument employed by the prophet, whereas there the prophet is the instrument employed by the angel.

Isa 21:7 What the man upon the watch-tower sees first of all, is a long, long procession, viz. , the hostile army advancing quietly, like a caravan, in serried ranks, and with the most perfect self-reliance. “And he saw a procession of cavalry, pairs of horsemen, a procession of asses, a procession of camels; and listened sharply, as sharply as he could listen.

” Receb , both here and in Isa 21:9, signifies neither riding-animals nor war-chariots, but a troop seated upon animals - a procession of riders. In front there was a procession of riders arranged two and two, for Persians and Medes fought either on foot or on horseback (the latter, at any rate, from the time of Cyrus; vid. , Cyrop . iv 3); and pârâsh signifies a rider on horseback (in Arabic it is used in distinction from râkib , the rider on camels).

Then came lines of asses and camels, a large number of which were always taken with the Persian army for different purposes. They not only carried baggage and provisions, but were taken into battle to throw the enemy into confusion. Thus Cyrus gained the victory over the Lydians by means of the great number of his camels (Herod. i. 80), and Darius Hystaspis the victory over the Scythians by means of the number of asses that he employed (Herod.

iv 129). Some of the subject tribes rode upon asses and camels instead of horses: the Arabs rode upon camels in the army of Xerxes, and the Caramanians rode upon asses. What the spy saw was therefore, no doubt, the Persian army. But he only saw and listened. It was indeed “listening, greatness of listening,” i. e. , he stretched his ear to the utmost ( rab is a substantive, as in Isa 63:7; Psa 145:7; and hikshib , according to its radical notion, signifies to stiffen, viz.

, the ear); but he heard nothing, because the long procession was moving with the stillness of death.

Isa 21:8 At length the procession has vanished; he sees nothing and hears nothing, and is seized with impatience. “Then he cried with lion’s voice, Upon the watch-tower, O Lord, I stand continually by day, and upon my watch I keep my stand all the nights.” He loses all his patience, and growls as if he were a lion (compare Rev 10:3), with the same dull, angry sound, the same long, deep breath out of full lungs, complaining to God that he has to stand so long at his post without seeing anything, except that inexplicable procession that has now vanished away.

Isa 21:9 But when he is about to speak, his complaint is stifled in his mouth. “And, behold, there came a cavalcade of men, pairs of horsemen, and lifted up its voice, and said, Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the images of its gods He hath dashed to the ground! ” It is now clear enough where the long procession went to when it disappeared. It entered Babylon, made itself master of the city, and established itself there.

And now, after a long interval, there appears a smaller cavalcade, which has to carry the tidings of victory somewhere; and the spy hears them cry out in triumph, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon! ” In Rev 18:1-2, the same words form the shout of triumph raised by the angel, the antitype being more majestic than the type, whilst upon the higher ground of the New Testament everything moves on in spiritual relations, all that is merely national having lost its power.

Still even here the spiritual inwardness of the affair is so far expressed, that it is Jehovah who dashes to the ground; and even the heathen conquerors are obliged to confess that the fall of Babylon and its pesilim (compare Jer 51:47, Jer 51:52) is the work of Jehovah Himself. What is here only hinted at from afar - namely, that Cyrus would act as the anointed of Jehovah - is expanded in the second part (Isaiah 40-66) for the consolation of the captives.

Isa 21:10 The night vision related and recorded by the prophet, a prelude to the revelations contained in Chapters 40-60, was also intended for the consolation of Israel, which had already much to suffer, when Babylon was still Assyrian, but would have to suffer far more from it when it should become Chaldean. “O thou my threshing, and child of my threshing-floor!

What I have heard from Jehovah of hosts, the God of Israel, I have declared to you. ” Threshing ( dūsh ) is a figure used to represent crushing oppression in Isa 41:15 and Mic 4:12-13; and judicial visitation in Jer 51:33 (a parallel by which we must not allow ourselves to be misled, as Jeremiah has there given a different turn to Isaiah’s figure, as he very frequently does); and again, as in the present instance, chastising plagues , in which wrath and good intention are mingled together.

Israel, placed as it was under the tyrannical supremacy of the imperial power, is called the medŭsshâh (for medūshah , i. e. , the threshing) of Jehovah - in other words, the corn threshed by Him; also His “child of the threshing-floor,” inasmuch as it was laid in the floor, in the bosom as it were of the threshing-place, to come out threshed (and then to become a thresher itself, Mic 4:12-13).

This floor, in which Jehovah makes a judicial separation of grains and husks in Israel, was their captivity. Babylon is the instrument of the threshing wrath of God. But love also takes part in the threshing, and restrains the wrath. This is what the prophet has learned in the vision (“I have heard,” as in Isa 28:22) - a consolatory figure for the threshing-corn in the floor, i.

e. , for Israel, which was now subject to the power of the world, and had been mowed off its own field and carried captive into Babylonia.

Isa 21:11 This oracle consists of a question, addressed to the prophet from Seir, and of the prophet’s reply. Seir is the mountainous country to the south of Palestine, of which Edom took possession after the expulsion of the Horites. Consequently the Dumah of the heading cannot be either the Dūma of Eastern Hauran (by the side of which we find also a Tema and a Buzan ); or the Duma in the high land of Arabia, on the great Nabataean line of traffic between the northern harbours of the Red Sea and Irak, which bore the cognomen of the rocky ( el - gendel ) or Syrian Duma (Gen 25:14); or the Duma mentioned in the Onom .

, which was seventeen miles from Eleutheropolis (or according to Jerome on this passage, twenty) “ in Daroma hoc est ad australem plagam ,” and was probably the same place as the Duma in the mountains of Judah - that is to say, judging from the ruins of Daume , to the south-east of Eleutheropolis (see the Com. on Jos 15:52), a place out of which Jerome has made “a certain region of Idumaea, near which are the mountains of Seir.

” The name as it stands here is symbolical, and without any demonstrable topographical application. Dūmâh is deep, utter silence, and therefore the land of the dead (Psa 94:17; Psa 115:17). The name אדום is turned into an emblem of the future fate of Edom, by the removal of the a sound from the beginning of the word to the end. It becomes a land of deathlike stillness, deathlike sleep, deathlike darkness.

“A cry comes to me out of Seir: Watchman, how far is it in the night? Watchman, how far in the night? ” Luther translates the participle correctly, “they cry” ( man ruft ; compare the similar use of the participle in Isa 30:24; Isa 33:4). For the rest, however, we have deviated from Luther’s excellent translation, for the purpose of giving to some extent the significant change from מלּילה and מלּיל.

The more winged form of the second question is expressive of heightened, anxious urgency and haste. The wish is to hear that it is very late in the night, and that it will soon be past; min is partitive (Saad.) , “What part of the night are we at now? ” Just as a sick man longs for a sleepless night to come to an end, and is constantly asking what time it is, so do they inquire of the prophet out of Edom, whether the night of tribulation will not be soon over.

We are not to understand, however, that messengers were really sent out of Edom to Isaiah; the process was purely a pneumatical one. The prophet stands there in Jerusalem, in the midst of the benighted world of nations, like a sentry upon the watch tower; he understands the anxious inquiries of the nations afar off, and answers them according to the word of Jehovah, which is the plan and chronological measure of the history of the nations, and the key to its interpretation.

What, then, is the prophet’s reply? He lets the inquirer “see through a glass darkly. ”

Isa 21:12 “Watchman says, Morning cometh, and also night. Will ye inquire, inquire! Turn, come!! ” The answer is intentionally and pathetically expressed in an Aramaean form of Hebrew. אתא (written even with א at the end, cf. , Deu 33:2) is the Aramaean word for בּוא; and בּעה בּעא) the Aramaean word for שׁאל, from the primary form of which (בּעי) the future tib‛âyūn is taken here (as in Isa 33:7), and the imperative be'ây (Ges.

§75, Anm. 4). אתיוּ, which is here pointed in the Syriac style, אתיוּ, as in Isa 56:9, Isa 56:12, would be similarly traceable to אתי (cf. , Ges. §75, Anm. 4, with §23, Anm. 2). But what is the meaning? Luther seems to me to have hit upon it: “When the morning comes, it will still be night. ” But v'gam (and also) is not equivalent to “and yet,” as Schröring explains it, with a reference to Ewald, §354, a .

With the simple connection in the clauses, the meaning cannot possibly be, that a morning is coming, and that it will nevertheless continue night, but that a morning is coming, and at the same time a night, i. e. , that even if the morning dawns, it will be swallowed up again directly by night. And the history was quite in accordance with such an answer. The Assyrian period of judgment was followed by the Chaldean, and the Chaldean by the Persian, and the Persian by the Grecian, and the Grecian by the Roman.

Again and again there was a glimmer of morning dawn for Edom (and what a glimmer in the Herodian age!) , but it was swallowed up directly by another night, until Edom became an utter Dūmâh , and disappeared from the history of the nations. The prophet does not see to the utmost end of these Edomitish nights, but he has also no consolation for Edom. It is altogether different with Edom from what it is with Israel, the nocturnal portion of whose history has a morning dawn, according to promise, as its irrevocable close.

The prophet therefore sends the inquirers home. Would they ask any further questions, they might do so, might turn and come. In shūbū (turn back) there lies a significant though ambiguous hint. It is only in the case of their turning, coming, i. e. , coming back converted, that the prophet has any consolatory answer for them. So long as they are not so, there is suspended over their future an interminable night, to the prophet as much as to themselves.

The way to salvation for every other people is just the same as for Israel - namely, the way of repentance.

Isa 21:13-15 The heading בּערב משּׂא (the ע written according to the best codd. with a simple sheva ), when pointed as we have it, signifies, according to Zec 9:1 (cf. , Isa 9:7), “oracle against Arabia. ” But why not massâ ‛Arâb , since massâ is followed by a simple genitive in the other three headings? Or again, is this the only heading in the tetralogy that is not symbolical?

We must assume that the Beth by which this is distinguished is introduced for the express purpose of rendering it symbolical, and that the prophet pointed it first of all בּערב, but had at the same time בּערב in his mind. The earlier translators (lxx, Targum, Syr. , Vulg. , Ar.) read the second בּערב like the first, but without any reason. The oracle commences with an evening scene, even without our altering the second בּערב.

And the massa has a symbolical title founded upon this evening scene. Just as 'Edom becomes Dumah , inasmuch as a night without a morning dawn falls upon the mountain land of Seir, so will בּערב soon be בּערב, inasmuch as the sun of Arabia is setting. Evening darkness is settling upon Arabia, and the morning-land is becoming an evening-land. “In the wilderness in Arabia ye must pass the night, caravans of the Dedanians.

Bring water to meet thirsty ones! The inhabitants of the land of Tema are coming with its bread before the fugitive. For they are flying before swords, before drawn swords, and before a bent bow, and before oppressive war. ” There is all the less ground for making any alteration in בּערב בּיער, inasmuch as the second Beth (wilderness in Arabia for of Arabia) is favoured by Isaiah’s common usage (Isa 28:21; Isa 9:2; compare 2Sa 1:21; Amo 3:9).

‛Arab , written with pathach , is Arabia (Eze 27:21; ‛arâb in pause, Jer 25:24); and ya‛ar here is the solitary barren desert, as distinguished from the cultivated land with its cities and villages. Wetzstein rejects the meaning nemus , sylva , with ya‛ar has been assumed to have, because it would be rather a promise than a threat to be told that they would have to flee from the steppe into the wood, since a shady tree is the most delicious dream of the Beduins, who not only find shade in the forest, but a constant supply of green pasture, and fuel for their hospitable hearths.

He therefore renders it, “Ye will take refuge in the V‛ar of Arabia,” i. e. , the open steppe will no longer afford you any shelter, so that ye will be obliged to hide yourselves in the V‛ar . Arab. wa‛ur for example, is the name applied to the trachytic rayon of the Syro-Hauranitic volcanoes which is covered with a layer of stones. But as the V‛ar in this sense is also planted with trees, and furnishes firewood, this epithet must rest upon some peculiar distinction in the radical meaning of the word ya‛ar , which really does mean a forest in Hebrew, though not necessarily a forest of lofty trees, but also a wilderness overgrown with brushwood and thorn-bushes.

The meaning of the passage before us we therefore take to be this: the trading caravans ( 'ârchōth , like hailı̄coth in Job 6:19) of the Dedanians, that mixed tribe of Cushites and Abrahamides dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Edomites (Gen 10:7; Gen 25:3), when on their way from east to west, possibly to Tyre (Eze 27:20), would be obliged to encamp in the wilderness, being driven out of the caravan road in consequence of the war that was spreading from north to south. The prophet, whose sympathy mingles with the revelation in this instance also, asks for water for the panting fugitives (התיוּ, as in Jer 12:9, an imperative equivalent to האתיוּ = האתיוּ; compare 2Ki 2:3 : there is no necessity to read קדמוּ, as the Targum, Döderlein, and Ewald do).

They are driven back with fright towards the south-east as far as Tema, on the border of Negd and the Syrian desert. The Tema referred to is not the trans-Hauranian Têmâ, which is three-quarters of an hour from Dumah , although there is a good deal that seems to favour this, but the Tema on the pilgrim road from Damascus to Mecca, between Tebuk and Wadi el-Kora , which is about the same distance (four days’ journey) from both these places, and also from Chaibar (it is to be distinguished, however, from Tihama , the coast land of Yemen, the antithesis of which is ne'gd , the mountain district of Yemen).

But even here in the land of Tema they do not feel themselves safe. The inhabitants of Tema are obliged to bring them water and bread (“its bread,” lachmo , referring to nōdēd : the bread necessary in order to save them), into the hiding-places in which they have concealed themselves. “How humiliating,” as Drechsler well observes, “to be obliged to practise their hospitality, the pride of Arabian customs, in so restricted a manner, and with such unbecoming secrecy!

” But it could not possibly be done in any other way, since the weapons of the foe were driving them incessantly before them, and the war itself was rolling incessantly forward like an overwhelming colossus, as the repetition of the word “before” ( mippenē ) no less than four times clearly implies.

Isa 21:13-15 The heading בּערב משּׂא (the ע written according to the best codd. with a simple sheva ), when pointed as we have it, signifies, according to Zec 9:1 (cf. , Isa 9:7), “oracle against Arabia. ” But why not massâ ‛Arâb , since massâ is followed by a simple genitive in the other three headings? Or again, is this the only heading in the tetralogy that is not symbolical?

We must assume that the Beth by which this is distinguished is introduced for the express purpose of rendering it symbolical, and that the prophet pointed it first of all בּערב, but had at the same time בּערב in his mind. The earlier translators (lxx, Targum, Syr. , Vulg. , Ar.) read the second בּערב like the first, but without any reason. The oracle commences with an evening scene, even without our altering the second בּערב.

And the massa has a symbolical title founded upon this evening scene. Just as 'Edom becomes Dumah , inasmuch as a night without a morning dawn falls upon the mountain land of Seir, so will בּערב soon be בּערב, inasmuch as the sun of Arabia is setting. Evening darkness is settling upon Arabia, and the morning-land is becoming an evening-land. “In the wilderness in Arabia ye must pass the night, caravans of the Dedanians.

Bring water to meet thirsty ones! The inhabitants of the land of Tema are coming with its bread before the fugitive. For they are flying before swords, before drawn swords, and before a bent bow, and before oppressive war. ” There is all the less ground for making any alteration in בּערב בּיער, inasmuch as the second Beth (wilderness in Arabia for of Arabia) is favoured by Isaiah’s common usage (Isa 28:21; Isa 9:2; compare 2Sa 1:21; Amo 3:9).

‛Arab , written with pathach , is Arabia (Eze 27:21; ‛arâb in pause, Jer 25:24); and ya‛ar here is the solitary barren desert, as distinguished from the cultivated land with its cities and villages. Wetzstein rejects the meaning nemus , sylva , with ya‛ar has been assumed to have, because it would be rather a promise than a threat to be told that they would have to flee from the steppe into the wood, since a shady tree is the most delicious dream of the Beduins, who not only find shade in the forest, but a constant supply of green pasture, and fuel for their hospitable hearths.

He therefore renders it, “Ye will take refuge in the V‛ar of Arabia,” i. e. , the open steppe will no longer afford you any shelter, so that ye will be obliged to hide yourselves in the V‛ar . Arab. wa‛ur for example, is the name applied to the trachytic rayon of the Syro-Hauranitic volcanoes which is covered with a layer of stones. But as the V‛ar in this sense is also planted with trees, and furnishes firewood, this epithet must rest upon some peculiar distinction in the radical meaning of the word ya‛ar , which really does mean a forest in Hebrew, though not necessarily a forest of lofty trees, but also a wilderness overgrown with brushwood and thorn-bushes.

The meaning of the passage before us we therefore take to be this: the trading caravans ( 'ârchōth , like hailı̄coth in Job 6:19) of the Dedanians, that mixed tribe of Cushites and Abrahamides dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Edomites (Gen 10:7; Gen 25:3), when on their way from east to west, possibly to Tyre (Eze 27:20), would be obliged to encamp in the wilderness, being driven out of the caravan road in consequence of the war that was spreading from north to south. The prophet, whose sympathy mingles with the revelation in this instance also, asks for water for the panting fugitives (התיוּ, as in Jer 12:9, an imperative equivalent to האתיוּ = האתיוּ; compare 2Ki 2:3 : there is no necessity to read קדמוּ, as the Targum, Döderlein, and Ewald do).

They are driven back with fright towards the south-east as far as Tema, on the border of Negd and the Syrian desert. The Tema referred to is not the trans-Hauranian Têmâ, which is three-quarters of an hour from Dumah , although there is a good deal that seems to favour this, but the Tema on the pilgrim road from Damascus to Mecca, between Tebuk and Wadi el-Kora , which is about the same distance (four days’ journey) from both these places, and also from Chaibar (it is to be distinguished, however, from Tihama , the coast land of Yemen, the antithesis of which is ne'gd , the mountain district of Yemen).

But even here in the land of Tema they do not feel themselves safe. The inhabitants of Tema are obliged to bring them water and bread (“its bread,” lachmo , referring to nōdēd : the bread necessary in order to save them), into the hiding-places in which they have concealed themselves. “How humiliating,” as Drechsler well observes, “to be obliged to practise their hospitality, the pride of Arabian customs, in so restricted a manner, and with such unbecoming secrecy!

” But it could not possibly be done in any other way, since the weapons of the foe were driving them incessantly before them, and the war itself was rolling incessantly forward like an overwhelming colossus, as the repetition of the word “before” ( mippenē ) no less than four times clearly implies.

Isa 21:13-15 The heading בּערב משּׂא (the ע written according to the best codd. with a simple sheva ), when pointed as we have it, signifies, according to Zec 9:1 (cf. , Isa 9:7), “oracle against Arabia. ” But why not massâ ‛Arâb , since massâ is followed by a simple genitive in the other three headings? Or again, is this the only heading in the tetralogy that is not symbolical?

We must assume that the Beth by which this is distinguished is introduced for the express purpose of rendering it symbolical, and that the prophet pointed it first of all בּערב, but had at the same time בּערב in his mind. The earlier translators (lxx, Targum, Syr. , Vulg. , Ar.) read the second בּערב like the first, but without any reason. The oracle commences with an evening scene, even without our altering the second בּערב.

And the massa has a symbolical title founded upon this evening scene. Just as 'Edom becomes Dumah , inasmuch as a night without a morning dawn falls upon the mountain land of Seir, so will בּערב soon be בּערב, inasmuch as the sun of Arabia is setting. Evening darkness is settling upon Arabia, and the morning-land is becoming an evening-land. “In the wilderness in Arabia ye must pass the night, caravans of the Dedanians.

Bring water to meet thirsty ones! The inhabitants of the land of Tema are coming with its bread before the fugitive. For they are flying before swords, before drawn swords, and before a bent bow, and before oppressive war. ” There is all the less ground for making any alteration in בּערב בּיער, inasmuch as the second Beth (wilderness in Arabia for of Arabia) is favoured by Isaiah’s common usage (Isa 28:21; Isa 9:2; compare 2Sa 1:21; Amo 3:9).

‛Arab , written with pathach , is Arabia (Eze 27:21; ‛arâb in pause, Jer 25:24); and ya‛ar here is the solitary barren desert, as distinguished from the cultivated land with its cities and villages. Wetzstein rejects the meaning nemus , sylva , with ya‛ar has been assumed to have, because it would be rather a promise than a threat to be told that they would have to flee from the steppe into the wood, since a shady tree is the most delicious dream of the Beduins, who not only find shade in the forest, but a constant supply of green pasture, and fuel for their hospitable hearths.

He therefore renders it, “Ye will take refuge in the V‛ar of Arabia,” i. e. , the open steppe will no longer afford you any shelter, so that ye will be obliged to hide yourselves in the V‛ar . Arab. wa‛ur for example, is the name applied to the trachytic rayon of the Syro-Hauranitic volcanoes which is covered with a layer of stones. But as the V‛ar in this sense is also planted with trees, and furnishes firewood, this epithet must rest upon some peculiar distinction in the radical meaning of the word ya‛ar , which really does mean a forest in Hebrew, though not necessarily a forest of lofty trees, but also a wilderness overgrown with brushwood and thorn-bushes.

The meaning of the passage before us we therefore take to be this: the trading caravans ( 'ârchōth , like hailı̄coth in Job 6:19) of the Dedanians, that mixed tribe of Cushites and Abrahamides dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Edomites (Gen 10:7; Gen 25:3), when on their way from east to west, possibly to Tyre (Eze 27:20), would be obliged to encamp in the wilderness, being driven out of the caravan road in consequence of the war that was spreading from north to south. The prophet, whose sympathy mingles with the revelation in this instance also, asks for water for the panting fugitives (התיוּ, as in Jer 12:9, an imperative equivalent to האתיוּ = האתיוּ; compare 2Ki 2:3 : there is no necessity to read קדמוּ, as the Targum, Döderlein, and Ewald do).

They are driven back with fright towards the south-east as far as Tema, on the border of Negd and the Syrian desert. The Tema referred to is not the trans-Hauranian Têmâ, which is three-quarters of an hour from Dumah , although there is a good deal that seems to favour this, but the Tema on the pilgrim road from Damascus to Mecca, between Tebuk and Wadi el-Kora , which is about the same distance (four days’ journey) from both these places, and also from Chaibar (it is to be distinguished, however, from Tihama , the coast land of Yemen, the antithesis of which is ne'gd , the mountain district of Yemen).

But even here in the land of Tema they do not feel themselves safe. The inhabitants of Tema are obliged to bring them water and bread (“its bread,” lachmo , referring to nōdēd : the bread necessary in order to save them), into the hiding-places in which they have concealed themselves. “How humiliating,” as Drechsler well observes, “to be obliged to practise their hospitality, the pride of Arabian customs, in so restricted a manner, and with such unbecoming secrecy!

” But it could not possibly be done in any other way, since the weapons of the foe were driving them incessantly before them, and the war itself was rolling incessantly forward like an overwhelming colossus, as the repetition of the word “before” ( mippenē ) no less than four times clearly implies.

Isa 21:16-17 Thus does the approaching fate of Arabia present itself in picture before the prophet’s eye, whilst it is more distinctly revealed in Isa 21:16, Isa 21:17 : “For thus hath the Lord spoken to me, Within a year, as the years of a hired labourer, it is over with all the glory of Kedar. And the remnant of the number of bows of heroes of the Kedarenes will be small: for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken.

” The name Kedar is here the collective name of the Arabic tribes generally. In the stricter sense, Kedar, like Nebaioth, which is associated with it, as a nomadic tribe of Ishmaelites, which wandered as far as the Elanitic Gulf. Within the space of a year, measured as exactly as is generally the case where employers and labourers are concerned, Kedar’s freedom, military strength, numbers, and wealth (all these together constituting its glory), would all have disappeared.

Nothing but a small remnant would be left of the heroic sons of Kedar and their bows. They are numbered here by their bows (in distinction from the numbering by heads), showing that the righting men are referred to - a mode of numbering which is customary among the Indian tribes of America, for example. The noun she'âr (remnant) is followed by five genitives here (just as peri is by four in Isa 10:12); and the predicate ימעטוּ is in the plural because of the copiousness of the subject.

The period of the fulfilment of the prophecy keeps us still within the Assyrian era. In Herodotus (2, 141), Sennacherib is actually called “king of Arabians and Assyrians” (compare Josephus, Ant. x. 1, 4); and both Sargon and Sennacherib, in their annalistic inscriptions, take credit to themselves for the subjugation of Arabian tribes. But in the Chaldean era Jeremiah predicted the same things against Kedar (chapter 49) as against Edom; and Jer 49:30-31 was evidently written with a retrospective allusion to this oracle of Isaiah.

When the period fixed by Isaiah for the fulfilment arrived, a second period grew out of it, and one still more remote, inasmuch as a second empire, viz. , the Chaldean, grew out of the Assyrian, and inaugurated a second period of judgment for the nations. After a short glimmer of morning, the night set in a second time upon Edom, and a second time upon Arabia.

The Oracle Concerning the Valley of Vision (Jerusalem) - Isa 22:1-14 The châzūth concerning Babylon, and the no less visionary prophecies concerning Edom and Arabia, are now followed by a massâ , the object of which is “the valley of vision” ( gē' chizzâyōn ) itself. Of course these four prophecies were not composed in the tetralogical form in which they are grouped together here, but were joined together at a later period in a group of this kind on account of their close affinity.

The internal arrangement of the group was suggested, not by the date of their composition (they stand rather in the opposite relation to one another), but by the idea of a storm coming from a distance, and bursting at last over Jerusalem; for there can be no doubt that the “valley of vision” is a general name for Jerusalem as a whole, and not the name given to one particular valley of Jerusalem. It is true that the epithet applied to the position of Jerusalem does not seem to be in harmony with this; for, according to Josephus, “the city was built upon two hills, which are opposite to one another and have a valley to divide them asunder, at which valley the corresponding rows of houses on both hills end” ( Wars of the Jews , v.

4, 1; Whiston). But the epithet is so far allowable, that there are mountains round Jerusalem (Psa 125:2); and the same city which is on an eminence in relation to the land generally, appears to stand on low ground when contrasted with the mountains in the immediate neighbourhood (πρὸς δὲ τὰ ἐχόμενα ταύθς γηόλοφα χθαμαλίζεται, as Phocas says). According to this twofold aspect, Jerusalem is called the “inhabitant of the valley” in Jer 21:13, and directly afterwards the “rock of the plain;” just as in Jer 17:3 it is called the mountain in the fields, whereas Zephaniah (Zep 1:11) applies the epithet mactēsh (the mortar or cauldron) not to all Jerusalem, but to one portion of it (probably the ravine of the Tyropaeum).

And if we add to this the fact that Isaiah’s house was situated in the lower town - and therefore the standpoint of the epithet is really there - it is appropriate in other respects still; for the prophet had there the temple-hill and the Mount of Olives, which is three hundred feet higher, on the east, and Mount Zion before him towards the south; so that Jerusalem appeared like a city in a valley in relation to the mountains inside, quite as much as to those outside. But the epithet is intended to be something more than geographical.

A valley is a deep, still, solitary place, but off and shut in by mountains. And thus Jerusalem was an enclosed place, hidden and shut off from the world, which Jehovah had chosen as the place in which to show to His prophets the mysteries of His government of the world. And upon this sacred prophets’ city the judgment of Jehovah was about to fall; and the announcement of the judgment upon it is placed among the oracles concerning the nations of the world!

We may see from this, that at the time when this prophecy was uttered, the attitude of Jerusalem was so worldly and heathenish, that it called forth this dark, nocturnal threat, which is penetrated by not a single glimmer of promise. But neither the prophecies of the time of Ahaz relating to the Assyrian age of judgment, nor those which were uttered in the midst of the Assyrian calamities, are so destitute of promise and so peremptory as this.

The massa therefore falls in the intermediate time, probably the time when the people were seized with the mania for liberty, and the way was prepared for their breaking away from Assyria by their hope of an alliance with Egypt (vid. , Delitzsch-Caspari, Studien , ii. 173-4).

Isa 21:16-17 Thus does the approaching fate of Arabia present itself in picture before the prophet’s eye, whilst it is more distinctly revealed in Isa 21:16, Isa 21:17 : “For thus hath the Lord spoken to me, Within a year, as the years of a hired labourer, it is over with all the glory of Kedar. And the remnant of the number of bows of heroes of the Kedarenes will be small: for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken.

” The name Kedar is here the collective name of the Arabic tribes generally. In the stricter sense, Kedar, like Nebaioth, which is associated with it, as a nomadic tribe of Ishmaelites, which wandered as far as the Elanitic Gulf. Within the space of a year, measured as exactly as is generally the case where employers and labourers are concerned, Kedar’s freedom, military strength, numbers, and wealth (all these together constituting its glory), would all have disappeared.

Nothing but a small remnant would be left of the heroic sons of Kedar and their bows. They are numbered here by their bows (in distinction from the numbering by heads), showing that the righting men are referred to - a mode of numbering which is customary among the Indian tribes of America, for example. The noun she'âr (remnant) is followed by five genitives here (just as peri is by four in Isa 10:12); and the predicate ימעטוּ is in the plural because of the copiousness of the subject.

The period of the fulfilment of the prophecy keeps us still within the Assyrian era. In Herodotus (2, 141), Sennacherib is actually called “king of Arabians and Assyrians” (compare Josephus, Ant. x. 1, 4); and both Sargon and Sennacherib, in their annalistic inscriptions, take credit to themselves for the subjugation of Arabian tribes. But in the Chaldean era Jeremiah predicted the same things against Kedar (chapter 49) as against Edom; and Jer 49:30-31 was evidently written with a retrospective allusion to this oracle of Isaiah.

When the period fixed by Isaiah for the fulfilment arrived, a second period grew out of it, and one still more remote, inasmuch as a second empire, viz. , the Chaldean, grew out of the Assyrian, and inaugurated a second period of judgment for the nations. After a short glimmer of morning, the night set in a second time upon Edom, and a second time upon Arabia.

The Oracle Concerning the Valley of Vision (Jerusalem) - Isa 22:1-14 The châzūth concerning Babylon, and the no less visionary prophecies concerning Edom and Arabia, are now followed by a massâ , the object of which is “the valley of vision” ( gē' chizzâyōn ) itself. Of course these four prophecies were not composed in the tetralogical form in which they are grouped together here, but were joined together at a later period in a group of this kind on account of their close affinity.

The internal arrangement of the group was suggested, not by the date of their composition (they stand rather in the opposite relation to one another), but by the idea of a storm coming from a distance, and bursting at last over Jerusalem; for there can be no doubt that the “valley of vision” is a general name for Jerusalem as a whole, and not the name given to one particular valley of Jerusalem. It is true that the epithet applied to the position of Jerusalem does not seem to be in harmony with this; for, according to Josephus, “the city was built upon two hills, which are opposite to one another and have a valley to divide them asunder, at which valley the corresponding rows of houses on both hills end” ( Wars of the Jews , v.

4, 1; Whiston). But the epithet is so far allowable, that there are mountains round Jerusalem (Psa 125:2); and the same city which is on an eminence in relation to the land generally, appears to stand on low ground when contrasted with the mountains in the immediate neighbourhood (πρὸς δὲ τὰ ἐχόμενα ταύθς γηόλοφα χθαμαλίζεται, as Phocas says). According to this twofold aspect, Jerusalem is called the “inhabitant of the valley” in Jer 21:13, and directly afterwards the “rock of the plain;” just as in Jer 17:3 it is called the mountain in the fields, whereas Zephaniah (Zep 1:11) applies the epithet mactēsh (the mortar or cauldron) not to all Jerusalem, but to one portion of it (probably the ravine of the Tyropaeum).

And if we add to this the fact that Isaiah’s house was situated in the lower town - and therefore the standpoint of the epithet is really there - it is appropriate in other respects still; for the prophet had there the temple-hill and the Mount of Olives, which is three hundred feet higher, on the east, and Mount Zion before him towards the south; so that Jerusalem appeared like a city in a valley in relation to the mountains inside, quite as much as to those outside. But the epithet is intended to be something more than geographical.

A valley is a deep, still, solitary place, but off and shut in by mountains. And thus Jerusalem was an enclosed place, hidden and shut off from the world, which Jehovah had chosen as the place in which to show to His prophets the mysteries of His government of the world. And upon this sacred prophets’ city the judgment of Jehovah was about to fall; and the announcement of the judgment upon it is placed among the oracles concerning the nations of the world!

We may see from this, that at the time when this prophecy was uttered, the attitude of Jerusalem was so worldly and heathenish, that it called forth this dark, nocturnal threat, which is penetrated by not a single glimmer of promise. But neither the prophecies of the time of Ahaz relating to the Assyrian age of judgment, nor those which were uttered in the midst of the Assyrian calamities, are so destitute of promise and so peremptory as this.

The massa therefore falls in the intermediate time, probably the time when the people were seized with the mania for liberty, and the way was prepared for their breaking away from Assyria by their hope of an alliance with Egypt (vid. , Delitzsch-Caspari, Studien , ii. 173-4).

Isa 22:1-3 The prophet exposes the nature and worthlessness of their confidence in Isa 22:1-3 : “What aileth thee, then, that thou art wholly ascended upon the house-tops? O full of tumult, thou noisy city, shouting castle, thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor slaughtered in battle. All thy rulers departing together are fettered without bow; all thy captured ones are fettered together, fleeing far away.

” From the flat house-tops they all look out together at the approaching army of the foe, longing for battle, and sure of victory ( cullâk is for cullēk , Isa 14:29, Isa 14:31). They have no suspicion of what is threatening them; therefore are they so sure, so contented, and so defiant. מלאה תּשׂאות is inverted, and stands for תּשׁאות מלאת, like מנדּח אפלה in Isa 8:22.

עלּיזה is used to denote self-confident rejoicing, as in Zep 2:15. How terribly they deceive themselves! Not even the honour of falling upon the battle-field is allowed them. Their rulers ( kâtzin , a judge, and then any person of rank) depart one and all out of the city, and are fettered outside “without bow” ( mikkesheth ), i. e. , without there being any necessity for the bow to be drawn ( min , as in Job 21:9; 2Sa 1:22; cf.

, Ewald, §217, b ). All, without exception, of those who are attacked in Jerusalem by the advancing foe ( nimzâ'aik , thy captured ones, as in Isa 13:15), fall helplessly into captivity, as they are attempting to flee far away (see at Isa 17:13; the perf. de conatu answers to the classical praesens de conatu ). Hence (what is here affirmed indirectly) the city is besieged, and in consequence of the long siege hunger and pestilence destroy the inhabitants, and every one who attempts to get away falls into the hands of the enemy, without venturing to defend himself, on account of his emaciation and exhaustion from hunger.

Whilst the prophet thus pictures to himself the fate of Jerusalem and Judah, through their infatuation, he is seized with inconsolable anguish.

Isa 22:1-3 The prophet exposes the nature and worthlessness of their confidence in Isa 22:1-3 : “What aileth thee, then, that thou art wholly ascended upon the house-tops? O full of tumult, thou noisy city, shouting castle, thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor slaughtered in battle. All thy rulers departing together are fettered without bow; all thy captured ones are fettered together, fleeing far away.

” From the flat house-tops they all look out together at the approaching army of the foe, longing for battle, and sure of victory ( cullâk is for cullēk , Isa 14:29, Isa 14:31). They have no suspicion of what is threatening them; therefore are they so sure, so contented, and so defiant. מלאה תּשׂאות is inverted, and stands for תּשׁאות מלאת, like מנדּח אפלה in Isa 8:22.

עלּיזה is used to denote self-confident rejoicing, as in Zep 2:15. How terribly they deceive themselves! Not even the honour of falling upon the battle-field is allowed them. Their rulers ( kâtzin , a judge, and then any person of rank) depart one and all out of the city, and are fettered outside “without bow” ( mikkesheth ), i. e. , without there being any necessity for the bow to be drawn ( min , as in Job 21:9; 2Sa 1:22; cf.

, Ewald, §217, b ). All, without exception, of those who are attacked in Jerusalem by the advancing foe ( nimzâ'aik , thy captured ones, as in Isa 13:15), fall helplessly into captivity, as they are attempting to flee far away (see at Isa 17:13; the perf. de conatu answers to the classical praesens de conatu ). Hence (what is here affirmed indirectly) the city is besieged, and in consequence of the long siege hunger and pestilence destroy the inhabitants, and every one who attempts to get away falls into the hands of the enemy, without venturing to defend himself, on account of his emaciation and exhaustion from hunger.

Whilst the prophet thus pictures to himself the fate of Jerusalem and Judah, through their infatuation, he is seized with inconsolable anguish.

Isa 22:1-3 The prophet exposes the nature and worthlessness of their confidence in Isa 22:1-3 : “What aileth thee, then, that thou art wholly ascended upon the house-tops? O full of tumult, thou noisy city, shouting castle, thy slain men are not slain with the sword, nor slaughtered in battle. All thy rulers departing together are fettered without bow; all thy captured ones are fettered together, fleeing far away.

” From the flat house-tops they all look out together at the approaching army of the foe, longing for battle, and sure of victory ( cullâk is for cullēk , Isa 14:29, Isa 14:31). They have no suspicion of what is threatening them; therefore are they so sure, so contented, and so defiant. מלאה תּשׂאות is inverted, and stands for תּשׁאות מלאת, like מנדּח אפלה in Isa 8:22.

עלּיזה is used to denote self-confident rejoicing, as in Zep 2:15. How terribly they deceive themselves! Not even the honour of falling upon the battle-field is allowed them. Their rulers ( kâtzin , a judge, and then any person of rank) depart one and all out of the city, and are fettered outside “without bow” ( mikkesheth ), i. e. , without there being any necessity for the bow to be drawn ( min , as in Job 21:9; 2Sa 1:22; cf.

, Ewald, §217, b ). All, without exception, of those who are attacked in Jerusalem by the advancing foe ( nimzâ'aik , thy captured ones, as in Isa 13:15), fall helplessly into captivity, as they are attempting to flee far away (see at Isa 17:13; the perf. de conatu answers to the classical praesens de conatu ). Hence (what is here affirmed indirectly) the city is besieged, and in consequence of the long siege hunger and pestilence destroy the inhabitants, and every one who attempts to get away falls into the hands of the enemy, without venturing to defend himself, on account of his emaciation and exhaustion from hunger.

Whilst the prophet thus pictures to himself the fate of Jerusalem and Judah, through their infatuation, he is seized with inconsolable anguish.

Isa 22:4-5 “Therefore I say, Look away from me, that I may weep bitterly; press me not with consolations for the destruction of the daughter of my people! For a day of noise, and of treading down, and of confusion, cometh from the Lord, Jehovah of hosts, in the valley of vision, breaking down walls; and a cry of woe echoes against the mountains. ” The note struck by Isaiah here is the note of the kinah that is continued in the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Jeremiah says sheber for shod (Lam 3:48), and bath - ammi (daughter of my people) is varied with batḣZion (daughter of Zion) and bath - yehudah (daughter of Judah). Mērēr babbeci (weep bitterly) is more than bâcâh mar (Isa 33:7): it signifies to give one’s self thoroughly up to bitter weeping, to exhaust one’s self with weeping. The two similar sounds which occur in Isa 22:5, in imitation of echoes, can hardly be translated.

The day of divine judgment is called a day in which masses of men crowd together with great noise ( mehūmâh ), in which Jerusalem and its inhabitants are trodden down by foes ( mebūsâh ) and are thrown into wild confusion ( mebūcâh ). This is one play upon words. The other makes the crashing of the walls audible, as they are hurled down by the siege-artillery ( mekarkar kir ).

Kirkēr is not a denom. of kı̄r , as Kimchi and Ewald suppose (unwalling walls), but is to be explained in accordance with Num 24:17, “he undermines,” i. e. , throws down by removing the supports, in other words, “to the very foundations” ( kur , to dig, hence karkârâh , the bottom of a vessel, Kelim ii. 2; kurkoreth , the bottom of a net, ib . xxviii. 10, or of a cask, Ahaloth ix.

16). When this takes place, then a cry of woe echoes against the mountain ( shōa‛ , like shūa‛ , sheva‛ ), i. e. , strikes against the mountains that surround Jerusalem, and is echoed back again. Knobel understands it as signifying a cry for help addressed to the mountain where Jehovah dwells; but this feature is altogether unsuitable to the God - forgetting worldly state in which Jerusalem is found.

It is also to be observed, in opposition to Knobel, that the description does not move on in the same natural and literal way as in a historical narrative. The prophet is not relating, but looking; and in Isa 22:5 he depicts the day of Jehovah according to both its ultimate intention and its ultimate result.