Isaiah 21

¹ The burden of the wilderness of the sea. As whirlwinds in the South sweep through, it comes from the wilderness, from an awesome land.

² A grievous vision is declared to me. The treacherous man deals treacherously, and the destroyer destroys. Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media’s sighing.

³ Therefore my thighs are filled with anguish. Pains have seized me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am in so much pain that I can’t hear. I am so dismayed that I can’t see.

⁴ My heart flutters. Horror has frightened me. The twilight that I desired has been turned into trembling for me.

⁵ They prepare the table. They set the watch. They eat. They drink. Rise up, you princes, oil the shield!

⁶ For the Lord said to me, “Go, set a watchman. Let him declare what he sees.

⁷ When he sees a troop, horsemen in pairs, a troop of donkeys, a troop of camels, he shall listen diligently with great attentiveness.”

⁸ He cried like a lion: “Lord, I stand continually on the watchtower in the daytime, and every night I stay at my post.

⁹ Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs.” He answered, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.

¹⁰ You are my threshing, and the grain of my floor!” That which I have heard from the LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, I have declared to you.

¹¹ The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, “Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?”

¹² The watchman said, “The morning comes, and also the night. If you will inquire, inquire. Come back again.”

¹³ The burden on Arabia. You will lodge in the thickets in Arabia, you caravans of Dedanites.

¹⁴ They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread.

¹⁵ For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow, and from the heat of battle.

¹⁶ For the Lord said to me, “Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail,

¹⁷ and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few; for the LORD, the God of Israel, has spoken it.”

Around Isaiah 21

Context

Context for this book is being written. A note appears here only once it names its sources.

AI explanation

About Isaiah as a whole · Written by an AI model · Not reviewed by a theological reader

This explanation was written by an AI model to help you get started. It names no sources and can contain mistakes. Scripture comes first, and context with sources is shown separately on this page.

What this book is about

It begins with a vision. In the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet sees the Lord on a throne, high and lifted up, and voices call, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of Armies!” Then comes a call for someone to go, and the answer, “Here I am. Send me!”

What he is sent to say is hard and then tender. To Judah and Jerusalem, the first part of the book (chapters 1 to 39) warns of the consequences of injustice and false trust, and it promises a child who will rule on David’s throne. The second part (40 to 55) opens with “Comfort, comfort my people” and speaks to a people in exile, and it tells of a servant who suffers for others. The last part (56 to 66) looks ahead to a renewed people and to a new heavens and a new earth.

Background

Isaiah son of Amoz prophesied in Jerusalem in the second half of the eighth century before Christ, while the Assyrian threat hung over the land. Many scholars think chapters 40 to 66 come from later prophets in his tradition, speaking during and after the exile. Others hold that Isaiah wrote the whole book. Either way, the book reads as one long conversation between God and a people who swing between fear and false confidence.

How Christians read it

No prophet is quoted more in the New Testament. Readers have long weighed who the suffering servant is. Christians read the servant of chapter 53 as fulfilled in the death of Jesus, and Jewish interpretation has most often understood the servant as Israel. Passages such as 7:14 and 9:6 are read by Christians as pointing to Christ, while also having a meaning in Isaiah’s own day. These are old readings held by people who love the same pages.

About this explanation

Written by Claude Sonnet 5.5, an AI model, on 20 October 2026. It draws on the WEB text and general knowledge and was not checked against sources by a person. Every quotation from Scripture is checked automatically against the WEB text.

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