Isaiah 21:13-17

C.—AGAINST ARABIA

Isaiah 21:13-17

13          The burden upon arabia.

In the forest10 in Arabia shall ye lodge,

O ye11 travelling companies of Dedanim.

14     The inhabitants of the land of Tema

12 Brought water to him that was thirsty,

They prevented with their bread him that fled.

15     For they fled13 from the swords,

From the drawn sword, and from the bent bow,And from the grievousness of war.

16     For thus hath the Lord said unto me,

Within a year, according to the years of an hireling,And all the glory of Kedar shall fail:

17     And the residue of the number of14 archers,

The mighty men of the children of Kedar,Shall be diminished:For the Lord God of Israel hath spoken it.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isaiah 21:13. בערב is ambiguous. Arabia is called עְַרַב; the pausal form is עְַרָב, which, except in pause, occurs only 2 Chronicles 9:14. The second בערב is clearly the source of the first. In the same way “the desert of the sea,” Isaiah 21:1, and “the valley of vision,” Isaiah 22:2 (comp. Isaiah 21:5) have arisen. How else could we explain the prefix בְּ which in no other case stands after מַשָּׂא? It is doubtful how the second בערב was originally vocalized. The significations “in Arabia” and “in the evening,” are both suitable. The old versions give the latter. But the evening is never denoted by עְַרַב. Still it could be. The form would then come from עַָרב, “to be dark,” after the analogy of גְּבַר (once for גֶּבֶר Psalms 18:26) etc.. The Prophet can have designedly employed the uncommon form instead of the usual עֶרֶב, in order to give the double sense of Arabia and evening, and perhaps to intimate that Arabia should be a land not of the rising, but of the setting sun.

Isaiah 21:14. הֵתָיוּ can be either perfect or imperative. But it must be taken here as perfect, as the next verb קִרְּמוּ is certainly perfect.

Isaiah 21:16. Mark the triple alliteration in this verse. First, we have three words beginning with א, then three beginning with שׁ, then three (or four) whose first letter is a k sound.

Isaiah 21:17. Mark the accumulation of substantives dependent on a noun in the construct state. No less than five words in the construct state occur together.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. Even the free pastoral and martial tribes of the Arabian desert must succumb to a power that crushes all before it. The Prophet vividly describes the fate of those tribes in his own peculiar way by setting before our eyes one effect of the pressure of the great worldly power. The caravans proceeding to the various chief emporiums of trade in ancient times, such as Tyre, Sidon, Babylon, were wont to cross the desert without molestation from mighty foes. But now a force assails them, against which they are unable to defend themselves, as they could against the attacks of the separate plundering tribes of Bedouins (comp. Movers,Phœn. II., p. 409). They are forced to give way, and are scattered. The fugitives seek shelter where they can find it. They are fortunate if, far from the regular route, in one of the oäses, or on a mountain slope, they can reach a wood which will conceal them from the eyes of their pursuers, and in which they can find pasture and shade for their cattle. Out of this wood they dare not venture. In order, therefore, that they may obtain subsistence, the inhabitants of the neighboring places must bring them bread and water (Isaiah 21:13-14). From this single circumstance it is easy to infer that the glory of the Arabians who bordered on Syria and Babylon, as whose representatives the Kedarenes are mentioned, is hastening to an end. Within the space of a year, says the Prophet, their power will be reduced to a minimum (Isaiah 21:16-17).

2. In the forest——of war.

Isaiah 21:13-15. I do not think that we should, as Wetzstein supposes, take יער in the sense of the Arabic war, i.e. a place covered with fragments of volcanic rock. For the Hebrew word never means anything else than forest. We are simply informed here that the caravans driven from their course sought shelter in some wood; and woods there actually are there, partly in the oäses, partly on the slopes of the western mountains. The forest conceals the fugitives, and at the same time furnishes shelter and pasture for the cattle. If they lodge (pass the night) in such a forest, it is a matter of course that evening has arrived. But the remark that the forest was situated in Arabia would likewise be superfluous. For if the occurrence happened in the neighborhood of Tema, that sufficiently indicates that the locality is in Arabia. But the expression בערב, as having the double meaning “in Arabia” and “in the evening,” is not superfluous. Dedan is according to Genesis 10:7 (1 Chronicles 1:9) a descendant of Cush; according to Genesis 25:3 (1 Chronicles 1:32) a grandson of Keturah also bears this name. In Jeremiah 25:23 Dedan is named along with Tema. In Jeremiah 49:8 they appear as belonging to Edom. And so in Ezekiel 25:13. They are marked as a commercial people in Ezekiel 27:15; Ezekiel 27:20; Ezekiel 38:13. Wetzstein (in his excursus in Delitzsch’s Commentary) finds their abode on the Red Sea, “east of the Nile, including the desert to the brook of Egypt or the borders of Edom.” He calls them Cushite tribes. However this may be, they are clearly enough denoted in the Old Testament as merchants, a people carrying on the caravan trade, especially with Tyre. If such a caravan has found in a forest shelter and pasture for the cattle, only bread and water for the men would be needed. At the dictate of hospitality the inhabitants of Tema bring these requisites to the fugitives in the forest. Wetzstein (as above) describes the situation of Tema (Jeremiah 25:23; Job 6:19) after careful personal investigations. It lies, according to him, two days’ journey by dromedary from Dumah north-east of Tebûk, a station on the route for pilgrims from Damascus to Mecca. Dumah is marked by him as lying in the oäsis el-Gof, four days’ journey by dromedary to the southwest of Babylon. He maintains against Ritter that there are not two places called Tema. Isaiah 21:15 explains why the Dedanians must flee. War in every form, and with all its terrors, has assailed them.

3. For thus hath——spoken it.

Isaiah 21:16-17. What could be learned inferentially (Isaiah 21:13-15) from a single fact is now stated directly in general terms. Kedar’s might and glory must be destroyed. Kedar is, first of all, according to Genesis 25:13, a son of Ishmael. But the name stands here, as very frequently in the later rabbinical usage, for the Arabs, i.e., for the inhabitants of Western Arabia, who alone were known to the Jews. In one year, exactly computed (comp. on Isaiah 16:14), the glory of Kedar shall have an end. As Isaiah beyond a doubt uttered this prediction, its fulfilment must have taken place while the might of Assyria flourished. We know generally that the Assyrians subdued the Arabians, for Sennacherib is called by Herodotus (II., 141) “King both of the Arabians and Assyrians,” and that while mention is made of his expedition against Egypt. This is not without significance. For when Herodotus states that Sennacherib as “King of the Arabians and Assyrians” attacked Egypt, he thereby gives us to understand that he marched against Egypt with an army composed of Arabians and Assyrians. And this fact tallies well with our remark on Isaiah 21:11-12, that the Assyrian in invading Egypt must have cared for the covering of his left flank and line of retreat. This object could be secured only by placing himself free from danger from the inhabitants of Arabia Petraea and Deserta. Our prophecy was therefore delivered before Sennacherib’s invasion of Egypt, which according to the Assyrian monuments, must have occurred in the year 700 B. C. (comp. Schrader,The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, p. 196). In accordance with what we have before observed touching the way in which prophecy advances to its complete fulfilment, it is not at all needful that the predicted catastrophe should have come upon the Arabians as a single stroke, which was not afterwards repeated. It would be sufficient to justify our regarding the prophecy as fulfilled, if in the specified time an event occurred, which was a proper beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy, and therefore guaranteed its complete realization. We must confess that we cannot furnish direct evidence of such a particular event having taken place. The Kedarenes are here characterized as a warlike nation distinguished for the use of the bow. In this latter respect they walk in the footsteps of their ancestor, who is celebrated as an archer (Genesis 21:20).

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. On Isaiah 21:2 “God punishes one villain by means of another, and a man is punished by the very sin which he himself commits (Wis 11:17). Thus God punished the Babylonians by the Persians, the Persians by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, the Romans by the Goths, Longobardi, and Saracens.”—Cramer. [The Persians shall pay the Babylonians in their own coin; they that by fraud and violence, cheating and plundering, unrighteous wars and deceitful treaties, have made a prey of their neighbors, shall meet with their match, and by the same methods shall themselves be made a prey of. Henry. D. M.].

2. On Isaiah 21:3. “The Prophets do not rejoice at the loss suffered by their enemies; but have sympathy for them as for men made in the image of God. We ought not to cast off every humane feeling towards our foes (Matthew 5:34).”—Cramer.

3. On Isaiah 21:5. “Invadunt urbem vino somnoque sepultam.” Virgil. “We see here how people commonly feel the more secure, the more they indulge their fleshly lusts, although they are drawing nearer their punishment. So was it with the antediluvian world, so is it now also in these last times when the coming of Christ is expected, as He says, Matthew 24:38.”—Renner. The Prophet Isaiah expounded, etc.—Stuttgart, 1865, p. 73.

4. On Isaiah 21:6 sqq. “It is a grand, infallible evidence of the prophetic Scriptures, and of their divine inspiration, that they do not speak in general uncertain terms, but describe future things so accurately, and exactly, as if we saw them before our eyes. This serves to establish the authority of the Holy Scriptures.”—Cramer.

5. On Isaiah 21:10. Only what the Lord said to him, and all that the Lord said to him, the Prophet declares. Therefore he is sure and certain, even when he has incredible things to announce. Therefore is he firm and courageous, though what he has to proclaim does not please the world. He conceals and keeps back nothing; neither does he add anything. He is a faithful declarer of the mind of God, and does not spare even himself. The proof, fulfilment and accomplishment he leaves to Him who spake through him.

6. On Isaiah 21:11. “He who sets the watch without God, watches in vain (Psalms 127:1). And when God Himself is approaching, then no care of the watchmen is of any use, whether it be day or night. For when the day of the Lord begins to burn, even the stars of heaven and his Orion, do not shine brightly. For God covers the heavens, and makes the stars thereof dark, and covers the sun with a cloud (Ezekiel 32:7). For when God the Creator of all things frowns on us, then all creatures also frown on us, and are terrible and offensive to us.”—Cramer. From this place Christian Friedr. Richter, has composed his fine morning hymn:—

Hüter, wird die Nacht der SündenNicht verschwinden?

[Comp. in English Bowring’s well-known hymn:—

Watchman, tell us of the night,What its signs of promise are.—D. M.]

7. On Isaiah 21:14. “We ought not to forget to be hospitable towards the needy (Hebrews 13:1).”—Cramer.

8. On Isaiah 21:16. “I regard as a true Prophet him who does not declare a matter upon mere imagination and conjecture, but measures the time so exactly that he fixes precisely when a thing shall happen.”—Cramer.

9. On Isaiah 22:2 sqq. To see the enemy at the gates, and at the same time to regard him merely with curiosity, and to indulge in mirth and jollity, as if all were well, and this too at a time when God’s servants warn men with tears, as Isaiah did Jerusalem (Isaiah 22:4), this is blind presumption which God will punish. But when the calamity has burst upon them, and all expedients by which they try to avert it are of no avail, for men to despise then the only one who can help them, and to spend the brief remaining time in sensual pleasure, this is open-eyed defiance, and will lead to judicial blindness, and that sin which will not be forgiven (Matthew 12:32).

10. On Isaiah 22:13. This is the language of swine of the herd of Epicurus, comp. Isaiah 56:12; Wis 2:6 sqq.; 1 Corinthians 15:32.

11. On Isaiah 22:14. It is true, as Augustine says, that “no one should despair of the remission of his sin, seeing that even they who put Christ to death obtained forgiveness,” and “the blood of Jesus Christ was so shed for the forgiveness of all sins that it could wash away the sins of those by whom it was shed”—but that obstinacy, which refuses to see the needed help, excludes itself from grace and forgiveness.

12. On Isaiah 22:15 sqq. The mission which Isaiah here receives, reminds us strongly of that which Jeremiah had to discharge towards Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 22:1 sqq., esp. Isaiah 22:19), and also of what he was obliged to say to Pashur (Isaiah 20:6). A Prophet of the Lord must show no respect of persons. Isaiah indeed seems to have produced the desired effect; for we find 36 and 37. Shebna as Scribe and Eliakim as steward of the house. But Jeremiah received as recompense for the fulfilment of his mission bitter hatred and cruel persecution.

13. On Isaiah 22:17. The Vulgate translates here: Ecce Dominus asportari te faciet, sicut asportatur gallus gallinaceus. And Jerome in his exposition says: “Hebraeus, qui nos in lectione veteris Testamenti erudivit, gallum gallinaceum transtulit. Sicut inquit gallus gallinaceus humero portatoris de allo loco transfertur ad alium, sic te Dominus de loco tuo leviter asportabit.” The cock which is never mentioned in the Old Testament, and for which we have no genuine Hebrew word, is in fact called גֶּבֶר by the Talmudists. “Conscience, wanting the word of God, is as a ball rolling on the ground, and cannot rest.”—Luther.

14. On Isaiah 22:19. “Service at court is not in itself to be condemned, and a good ruler and a worthy prime minister are the gift of God (Sir 4:8; Sir 4:11; Ch. 10). Let him therefore who is called to such an office abide, as the Lord has called him (1 Corinthians 7:17), and beware of excessive pomp. For God can quickly depose the proud.”—Cramer.

15. On Isaiah 22:21 sqq. The comparison of a magistrate in high position with a father is very appropriate. The whole extent, and the proper measure of a ruler’s power are involved in this similitude. The authority of a father and that of a ruler have a common root in love. Eliakim in having the keys of the house of David laid on his shoulder that he might open and no one shut, and shut and no one open is (Revelation 3:7) viewed as a type of Christ, who is the administrator appointed by God over the house of David in the highest sense, i. e., over the kingdom of God. Christ has this power of the keys in unrestricted measure. The ministers of the Lord exercise the same only in virtue of the commission which they have from Him; and their exercise of it is only then sanctioned by the Lord, when it is in the Spirit which the Lord breathed into the disciples before He committed to them the power of the keys (John 20:22 sq.). [“The application of the same terms to Peter (Matthew 16:19) and to Christ Himself (Revelation 3:7) does not prove that they here refer to either, or that Eliakim was a type of Christ, but merely that the same words admit of different applications.” Alexander. “It is God that clothes rulers with their robes, and, therefore, we must submit ourselves to them for the Lord’s sake and with an eye to Him (1 Peter 2:13). And since it is He that commits the government into their hand,—they must administer it according to His will, for His glory. And they may depend on Him to furnish them for what He calls them to; according to the promise here. I will clothe him: and then there follows, I will strengthen him.” After Henry—D. M.]

16. On Isaiah 22:25. “No one is so exalted or raised to such high dignity as to abide therein. But man’s prosperity, office and honor, and whatever else is esteemed great in the world are, like human life, on account of sin inconstant, vain and liable to pass away. This serves as an admonition against pride and security.” Cramer.

HOMILETICAL HINTS ON 21–22

1. On Isaiah 21:1-4. God’s judgments are terrible, 1) for him on whom they fall; 2) for him who has to announce them.

2. On Isaiah 21:6-10. The faithful watchman. 1) He stands upon his watch day and night. 2) He announces only what he has seen and what he has heard from the Lord (Isaiah 22:9-10). 3) But he announces this as a lion, i. e. aloud and without fear.

3. On Isaiah 22:11-12. The spiritual night on earth. 1) It is a. a night of tribulation, b. a night of sin. 2) It awakens a longing for its end. 3) It does not entirely cease till the Lord “vouchsafes to us a happy end, and graciously takes us from this valley of weeping to Himself in heaven.”

4. On Isaiah 21:14 sq. We may fitly employ this text for a charity sermon on any occasion when an appeal is made to the benevolence of the congregation (especially for exiles, as those banished from the Salzburg territory for their Evangelical faith). What we ought to consider when our contributions are asked. 1) Our own situation (we dwell in the land of Tema, a quite fertile oasis). 2) The situation of those who come to us in their distress. 3) What we have to give them.

5. On Isaiah 22:1-7. Warning against thoughtlessness. Pride precedes a fall. Blind presumption is often changed into its opposite.

6. On Isaiah 22:8-14. Blind presumption is bad, but open-eyed obstinacy is still worse. The latter is when one clearly perceives the existing distress, and the insufficiency of our own powers and of the means at our command, and yet refuses to look to Him who alone can help, or to consider the fate which awaits those who die without God, and seeks before the impending catastrophe happens to snatch as much as possible of the enjoyments of this world.

7. On Isaiah 22:15-19. He who will fly high is in danger of falling low. God can easily cast him down. The waxen wings of lcarus. Shebna illustrates, 1 Peter 5:5.

8. On Isaiah 22:20-25. A mirror for those in office. Every one who has an office, ought 1) to be conscious that he has come into the office legally, and according to the will of God; 2) He ought to be a father to those over whom he is set; 3) He ought so to do everything which he does in his office, that its justice is apparent, and that no one can impugn it. 4) He ought not to be like a nail on which all the relations of his family strive to fasten their hope of success; for that is bad for himself and for those who would so abuse his influence.

Footnotes:

[10]in the evening.

[11]caravans.

[12]Or, Bring ye.

[13]Heb. from the face of.

[14]Heb. bows.