Isaiah 21:13

(13) The burden upon Arabia.—Better, of the evening land. Here, again, the prophet alters the form of the word (Arab into Ereb) so as to convey a mystic meaning. The land of which he is about to speak is a land of shadow and of gloom. Evening is falling on it. It is a question whether the second Arabia is to retain its geographical form or to be translated “evening,” as before. In any case, of course, Arabia is the country spoken of. The “Dedanites” appear in Jeremiah 49:8; Ezekiel 25:13, and seem from Ezekiel 27:15 to have been dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Edomites (Jeremiah 49:8) as a commercial people trading with Tyre in ebony and ivory. The point of the oracle against them is that they shall be compelled by the presence of the Assyrian armies to leave the main lines of their traffic, probably, as before, on their way westward to Tyre, and to take bye-paths, pitching their tents not near towns and villages, but in the low brushwood of the wilderness.