Isaiah 21 WEB
Summary: The "burden of the desert of the sea" pictures a terrible vision of Babylon's fall coming like whirlwinds from the desert, so dreadful that Isaiah's body is convulsed with pain and fear, his pleasure turned to fear. A watchman is set to report what he sees, and he cries that Babylon has fallen, its carved images broken to the ground, news given especially for the threshed and afflicted people of Israel. Shorter burdens follow: against Dumah (Edom), where a voice from Seir asks the watchman how much of the night remains, and against Arabia, warning the fleeing caravans of Dedan to bring water to the thirsty and bread to fugitives from the sword and battle. The chapter closes with a burden against Kedar, prophesying that within a year its glory and archers will be diminished, leaving only a small remnant.
1The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.
2A 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.
3Therefore 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.
4My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.
5They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!
6For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.
7When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.”
8He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.
9Behold, 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.
10You 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.
11The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”
12The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”
13The burden on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites.
14They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.
15For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.
16For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,
17and 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.”
Also read this chapter in: KJV, ASV, WYC, GNV, WBT, DBY, YLT