Isaiah 21:1-17
21 The pronouncement against the wilderness of the sea:+ Like storm winds+ in the south* in moving onward, from the wilderness it is coming, from a fear-inspiring land.+
2 There is a hard vision+ that has been told to me: The treacherous dealer is dealing treacherously, and the despoiler is despoiling.+ Go up, O Eʹlam! Lay siege, O Meʹdi·a!+ All sighing due to her I have caused to cease.+
3 That is why my hips have become full of severe pains.+ Convulsions themselves have grabbed hold of me, like the convulsions of a woman that is giving birth.+ I have become disconcerted so that I do not hear; I have become disturbed so that I do not see.
4 My heart has wandered about; a shuddering itself has terrified me. The twilight for which I had an attachment has been made for me a trembling.+
5 Let there be a setting of the table in order, an arranging of the location of seats, an eating, a drinking!*+ Get up, YOU princes,+ anoint the shield.+
6 For this is what Jehovah* has said to me:
“Go, post a lookout that he may tell just what he sees.”+
7 And he saw a war chariot [with] a span of steeds,* a war chariot of asses, a war chariot of camels. And he paid strict attention,* with much attentiveness.
8 And he proceeded to call out like a lion:+ “Upon the watchtower,* O Jehovah,* I am standing constantly by day, and at my guardpost I am stationed all the nights.+
9 And here, now, there is coming a war chariot of men,* [with] a span of steeds!”+
And he began to speak up and say: “She has fallen! Babylon has fallen,+ and all the graven images of her gods* he has broken to the earth!”+
10 O my threshed ones* and the son of my threshing floor,*+ what I have heard from Jehovah of armies, the God* of Israel, I have reported to YOU people.
11 The pronouncement against Duʹmah:* To me there is one calling out from Seʹir:+ “Watchman, what about the night? Watchman, what about the night?”+
12 The watchman said: “The morning has to come, and also the night. If YOU people would inquire, inquire. Come again!”
13 The pronouncement against the desert plain:* In the forest in the desert plain YOU will spend the night, O caravans of men of Deʹdan.+
14 To meet the thirsty one BRING water. O YOU inhabitants of the land of Teʹma,+ confront the one fleeing away with bread for him.
15 For because of the swords they have fled away, because of the drawn sword, and because of the bent bow and because of the heaviness of the war.
16 For this is what Jehovah* has said to me: “Within yet a year, according to the years of a hired laborer,+ all the glory of Keʹdar+ must even come to its end.
17 And the ones remaining over of the number of bow[men], the mighty men of the sons of Keʹdar, will become few,+ for Jehovah himself, the God of Israel, has spoken [it].”+
Footnotes
^ Or, “Negeb.”
^ In Heb. these four verbs are in the infinitive absolute, indefinite as to time and impersonal.
^ One of 134 scribal changes from YHWH to ʼAdho·naiʹ. See App 1B.
^ Or, “a couple of horsemen.”
^ Lit., “he paid attention with attentiveness.”
^ See vs 6 ftn.
^ Or, “lookout post.” Heb., mits·pehʹ.
^ “Men.” Heb., ʼish, sing. but in a collective sense.
^ “Her gods.” Heb., ʼelo·heyʹha.
^ Lit., “O that which is trampled down [in threshing] belonging to me!”
^ Or, “and my threshed one!”
^ “The God of.” Heb., ʼElo·hehʹ.
^ “Dumah” (meaning “Silence”), MTSyVg; LXX, “Idumea,” that is, the land of the Edomites.
^ “Against the desert plain.” Heb., baʽ·ravʹ (ʽaravʹ corresponds to ʽara·vahʹ, according to KB, p. 733); SyVg, “Arabia.”
^ See vs 6 ftn.
