Isaiah21chapter 21

The frame of the chapter is a real job. A city posted lookouts on the wall or on a tower, in shifts, day and night, and their whole duty was to call out what they saw on the road. Isaiah is told to set a watchman and have him declare what he sees. What comes is a pair of riders, and then the report: Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and all the carved images of her gods are broken on the ground.

Babylon revolted against Assyria again and again in these years, and in 689 BC Sennacherib destroyed the city, diverting water over the ruins. It rose again, became an empire, and fell to Cyrus in 539 BC. A watchman's report of Babylon falling would have been heard more than once.

The oiled shield is a soldier's detail. Leather shields were greased so blows would slide off and the hide would not crack, and oiling the shields was the last thing done before battle — the equivalent of loading weapons. Isaiah pictures a banquet interrupted by that order: they set the table, they watch, they eat and drink; arise, princes, anoint the shield.

The last two oracles ride the trade routes. Dumah and Seir look toward Edom, and the exchange is famous for its bleakness: watchman, what of the night? The morning comes, and also the night. Then the caravans of Dedan are told to camp in the scrub instead of the towns, and the people of Tema are told to bring water and bread out to fugitives, because the men are running from drawn swords. Kedar's archers, the best-known bowmen of the northern Arabian tribes, get one year — counted the way a hired man counts his contract — and then their glory is gone.