Isaiah 21:2

A grievous vision is declared unto me,.... The prophet; meaning the vision of Babylon's destruction, which was "hard", as the word signifies, and might seem harsh and cruel; not to him, nor to the

A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.

A grievous vision; a vision or prophecy, containing dreadful calamities which were to fall upon Babylon. The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth: this is spoken either, 1. Of the Chaldeans, as their sin, for which God sends the following judgment. So the sense is, The Chaldeans still persist in the practice of treachery and rapine, to which they have been so long accustomed. Or, 2. Of the Medes and Persians, who are here noted to pay the Babylonians in their own coin, and to use the same treachery and violence towards them which they had done to others. To which purpose the words are and may well be rendered otherwise; either thus, the treacherous dealer hath found a treacherous dealer, and the spoiler hath found a spoiler; or thus, O thou that dealest treacherously with the treacherous dealer, and that spoilest the spoiler, go up, O Elam, &c., as it followeth. These words will be much illustrated by compared them with . There is no doubt to be made but the Medes and Persians used treachery as well as force against Babylon. And besides brias, and following their counsel and conduct in taking the city, which made them partakers of their treason. Go up, to fight against her. These are God’ s words, either giving them command and commission to do so, or rather foretelling what they would do; which is oft done in this form of speech. Elam; Persia, called Elam synecdochically, because Elam was an eminent province of Persia, bordering upon the Medes. Besiege, to wit, Babylon, . All the sighing thereof; either, 1. Babylon’ s sighing, which shall cease, because they shall have no time to sigh, or lament their miseries, being suddenly surprised, and cut off in a moment, as they were. As God is said to seek out the wickedness of wicked men till he find none, , when he utterly destroyeth them in or with their sins. Or, 2. The sighing and groanings of God’ s people and other nations under the heavy oppressions of that potent and cruel empire; the pronoun her, or thereof, being taken here not passively, as commonly it is; but actively, or efficiently, as sometimes it is, as , your fear, i.e. the fear of you; and , my terror, i.e. the terror or dread of me upon thee.

Isaiah 21:2 A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.Ver. 2. A grievous vision.] Heb., Hard, harsh, tyrannorum speculum: here is hard for hard; God loveth to retaliate. Babylon had been the "maul of the earth"; now a hard messenger is sent, a harsh vision is declared against her. They who do what they should not, shall hear what they would not; a burdenous prophecy, a grievous vision. This "treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and this spoiler spoileth," for so some read the next words. The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously.] Or, O thou treacherous dealer and notable spoiler: thou Elam, I mean; go up, thou Media, besiege. God oft maketh use of one tyrant to punish another; as here he stirreth up the Persians to plunder and waste the Babylonians. So the Persians were afterwards in like sort punished by the Macedonians, the Macedonians by the Romans, those Romans by the Huns, Vandals, Lombards, Saracens, Turks; all whom Christ shall destroy at his last coming. Go up, O Elam,] i.e., Thou Persian. Elymais is properly that part of Persia that lieth towards Media. Here they are appointed their work 170 years before it was done; and Cyrus afterwards named as the chief doer. All the sighing thereof have I made to cease.] Thereof, or of her, that is, of Babylon, not of Judea, which the prophet ever had in his heart, as some sense it; the sighing, quo ipsa, sua tyrannide et oppressione, cogebat alios flere et gemere, that she forced from others, specially from God’ s oppressed people. Or, they shall not have long to sigh, for I will soon put an end to their lives. Vatab.

(2) A grievous vision . . .—The verse contains, as it were, the three tableaux that came in succession before the prophet’s gaze: (1) The treacherous dealer, the Assyro-Chaldæan power, spoiling and oppressing, breaking treaties, and, as its kings boasted (Habakkuk 2:5; Records of the Past, vii. 42, 44), “removing landmarks.” (2) The summons to Elam and Media to put an end to this tyranny. (3) The oppressed peoples ceasing to sigh, and rejoicing in their liberation. Elam appears here as combined with Media, which is named in Isaiah 13:17 as the only destroyer of Babylon, and this has been urged as evidence of a later date. As a matter of fact, however, Sargon at this very time was carrying on a fierce war against Elam (Records of the Past, cvii. 41-49) as well as against Media (ibid, p. 37). In Ezekiel 32:24, Elam is numbered among the extinct nations, but the name, at all events, re-appears as applied to the Persians, though they were of a distinct race. It was, even as a mere forecast, perfectly natural that the two should be associated together as the future destroyers of the Nineveh and Babel empires, which to the prophet’s eye were identical in character and policy. The advance described as “from the wilderness” implies a march of part at least of the Medo-Persian army down the Choaspes and into the lowland of Chuzistan, bordering on the great Arabian desert.

Verse 2. The treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth - "The plunderer is plundered, and the destroyer is destroyed."] הבוגד בוגד והשודד שודד habboged boged vehashshoded shoded. The MSS. vary in expressing or omitting the ו vau, in these four words. Ten MSS. of Kennicott are without the ו vau in the second word, and eight MSS. are without the ו vau in the fourth word; which justifies Symmachus, who has rendered them passively: ὁαθετωναθετειταικαιὁταλαιπωριζωνταλαιπωρει. He read בגוד שדוד bagud shadud. Cocceius (Lexicon in voce) observes that the Chaldee very often renders the verb בגד bagad, by בזז bazaz, he spoiled; and in this place, and in Isaiah 33:1, by the equivalent word אנס anas, to press, give trouble; and in Isaiah 24:16 both by אנס anas and בזז bazaz; and the Syriac in this place renders it by טלם talam, he oppressed. All the sighing thereof have I made to cease - "I have put an end to all her vexations"] Heb. "Her sighing; that is, the sighing caused by her." So Kimchi on the place: "It means those who groaned through fear of him: for the suffixes of the nouns refer both to the agent and the patient. All those who groaned before the face of the king of Babylon he caused to rest;" Chald. And so likewise Ephrem Syr. in loc., edit. Assemani: "His groans, viz., the grief and tears which the Chaldeans occasioned through the rest of the nations."

2. A grievous (lit. “hard”) vision is declared unto me]—by the “watchman,” Isaiah 21:6. “Hard” may mean either “calamitous” (1 Kings 14:6) or “difficult,” “hard of interpretation” (John 6:60). the treacherous dealer … spoileth] Cf. ch. Isaiah 24:16. It is difficult to decide whether this is a description of the besieging foe or of the conduct of the Babylonians towards their captives. The former view might be defended by Isaiah 33:1 (assuming that the Assyrians are there alluded to) but it requires us to substitute for “treacherous dealer,” “robber,” which is not the exact sense of the word. The other alternative is supported by the last clause of this verse (see below). Elam … Media] The dominions of Cyrus. The former lay east of the Tigris and north of the Persian Gulf; Media was the mountainous district adjoining it on the north. Cyrus, according to the Babylonian records, was originally king of Anzan, in the north of Elam; in 549 he conquered Media, uniting the two in one kingdom. The name “Persia” never occurs in pre-exilic books. all the sighing thereof] The misery produced by her (Babylon’s) ruthless oppressions. The verb shews that Jehovah is the speaker.

A grievous vision - Margin, as in Hebrew ‘Hard.’ On the word ‘vision,’ see the note at Isaiah 1:1. The sense here is, that the vision which the prophet saw was one that indicated great calamity Isaiah 21:3-4.

2. A grievous vision — A sad and most afflictive prophetic view is shown. The treacherous dealer — Babylonian tyranny overreaches itself in its cruelties.