The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Isaiah 21
1 The burdenofthe wilderness ofthe 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 troopofdonkeys, a troopof 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
Yahweh of Armies, the God ofIsrael, 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 Yahweh, the God of
Israel, has spoken it.”