The power which first brings destruction upon the city of the world, is a hostile army composed of several nations. "As storms in the south approach, it comes from the desert, from a terrible land. Hard vision is made known to me: the spoiler spoils, and the devastator devastates. Go up, Elam! Surround, Maday! I put an end to all their sighing." "Storms in the south" (compare Isaiah 28:21; Amos 3:9) are storms which have their starting-point in the south, and therefore come to Babylon from Arabia deserta; and like all winds that come from boundless steppes, they are always violent (Job 1:19; Job 37:9; see Hosea 13:15). It would be natural, therefore, to connect mimmidbâr with lachalōph (as Knobel and Umbreit do), but the arrangement of the words is opposed to this; lachalōōph ("pressing forwards") is sued instead of yachalōph (see Ges. 132, Anm. 1, and still more fully on Habakkuk 1:17). The conjunctio periphrastica stands with great force at the close of the comparison, in order that it may express at the same time the violent pressure with which the progress of the storm is connected. It is true that, according to Herod. i. 189, Cyrus came across the Gyndes, so that he descended into the lowlands to Babylonia through Chalonitis and Apolloniatis, by the road described by Isidor V. Charax in his Itinerarium,

(Note: See C. Masson's "Illustration of the route from Seleucia to Apobatana, as given by Isid. of Charax," in the Asiatic Journal, xii. 97ff.)

over the Zagros pass through the Zagros-gate (Ptolem. vi. 2) to the upper course of the Gyndes (the present Diyala), and then along this river, which he crossed before its junction with the Tigris. But if the Medo-Persian army came in this direction, it could not be regarded as coming "from the desert." If, however, the Median portion of the army followed the course of the Choaspes (Kerkha) so as to descend into the lowland of Chuzistan (the route taken by Major Rawlinson with a Guran regiment),

(Note: See Rawlinson's route as described in Ritter's Erdkunde, ix. 3((West-asien), p. 397ff.)

and thus approached Babylon from the south-east, it might be regarded in many respects as coming mimmidbâr (from the desert), and primarily because the lowland of Chuzistan is a broad open plain - that is to say, a midbâr. According to the simile employed of storms in the south, the assumption of the prophecy is really this, that the hostile army is advancing from Chuzistan, or (as geographical exactitude is not to be supposed) from the direction of the desert of ed-Dahna, that portion of Arabia deserta which bounded the lowland of Chaldean on the south-west. The Medo-Persian land itself is called "a terrible land," because it was situated outside the circle of civilised nations by which the land of Israel was surrounded. After the thematic commencement in Isaiah 21:1, which is quite in harmony with Isaiah's usual custom, the prophet begins again in Isaiah 21:2. Châzuth (a vision) has the same meaning here as in Isaiah 29:11 (though not Isaiah 28:18); and châzuth kâshâh is the object of the passive which follows (Ges. 143, 1, b). The prophet calls the look into the future, which is given to him by divine inspiration, hard or heavy (though in the sense of difficilis, not gravis, câbēd), on account of its repulsive, unendurable, and, so to speak, indigestible nature. The prospect is wide-spread plunder and devastation (the expression is the same as in Isaiah 33:1, compare Isaiah 16:4; Isaiah 24:16, bâgad denoting faithless or treacherous conduct, then heartless robbery), and the summoning of the nations on the east and north of Babylonia to the conquest of Babylon; for Jehovah is about to put an end (hishbatti, as in Isaiah 16:10) to all their sighing (anchâthâh, with He raf. and the tone upon the last syllable), i.e., to all the lamentations forced out of them far and wide by the oppressor.

Isaiah 21:8 Parallel Commentaries

cried. A lion. or, cried as a lion

Isaiah 5:29 Their roaring shall be like a lion, they shall roar like young lions: yes, they shall roar, and lay hold of the prey...

Jeremiah 4:7 The lion is come up from his thicket, and the destroyer of the Gentiles is on his way...

Jeremiah 25:38 He has forsaken his covert, as the lion: for their land is desolate because of the fierceness of the oppressor...

Jeremiah 49:19 Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan against the habitation of the strong...

Jeremiah 50:44 Behold, he shall come up like a lion from the swelling of Jordan to the habitation of the strong...

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walks about, seeking whom he may devour:

I stand

Isaiah 56:10 His watchmen are blind: they are all ignorant, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark; sleeping, lying down, loving to slumber.

Isaiah 62:6 I have set watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: you that make mention of the LORD...

Psalm 63:6 When I remember you on my bed, and meditate on you in the night watches.

Psalm 127:1 Except the LORD build the house, they labor in vain that build it: except the LORD keep the city, the watchman wakes but in vain.

Habakkuk 2:1,2 I will stand on my watch, and set me on the tower, and will watch to see what he will say to me...

whole nights. or, every night