The Pulpit Commentary on Isaiah 21:1-10

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

THE BURDEN OF THE DESERT OF THE SEA. This is a short and somewhat vague, but highly poetic, "burden of Babylon" It is probably an earlier prophecy than Isaiah 13:1-22. and 14; and perhaps the first revelation made to Isaiah with respect to the fall of the great Chaldean capital.

It exhibits no consciousness of the fact that Babylon is Judah's predestined destroyer, and is expressive rather of sympathy (verses 3, 4) than of triumph. Among recent critics, some suppose it to refer to Sargon's capture of the city in B.

C. 710; but the objection to this view, from the entire absence of all reference to Assyria as the conquering power, and the mention of "Elam" and "Media" in her place, is absolutely fatal to it. There can be no reasonable doubt that the same siege is intended as in Isaiah 13:1-22; where also Media is mentioned (Isaiah 13:17); and there are no real grounds for questioning that the event of which the prophet is made cognizant is that siege and capture of Babylon by Cyrus the Great which destroyed the Babylonian empire.

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