Isaiah Chapter 21 verse 13 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 13-17. - THE BURDEN OF ARABIA. Edom will have companions in misfortune among the Arab tribes upon her borders, Dedan, Tema, and Kedar. War will enter their territory, derange their commerce (ver. 13), cause flight and privation (vers. 14, 15), and within a year greatly diminish the number of their fighting men (vers. 16, 17). The date of the prophecy is uncertain, but can scarcely be earlier than B.C. 715, when Sargon made an expedition into Arabia (O. Smith, 'Eponym Canon,' p. 66). Verse 13. - The burden upon Arabia; rather, in Arabia. The phrase is varied from its usual form, probably because it is not Arabia generally, but only certain of the more northern tribes, on whom calamity is about to fall. In the forest... shall ye lodge. The word used is commonly translated "forest;" but Arabia has no forests, and the meaning here must be "brushwood." Thorny bushes and shrubs are common in all parts of Arabia. The general meaning is that the caravans will have to leave the beaten track, and obtain such shelter and concealment as the scanty brushwood of the desert could afford. Ye traveling companies of Dedanim. The Dedanim, or Dedanites, were among the chief traders of the Arabian peninsula. They had commercial dealings with Tyre, which they supplied with ivory, ebony, and "precious clothes for chariots" (Ezekiel 27:15, 20). This trade they carried on by means of large caravans - the "travelling companies" of the present passage. They are thought to have had their chief settlements on the shores of the Persian Gulf, where the island of Dadan may be an echo of their name.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(13) The burden upon Arabia.--Better, of the evening land. Here, again, the prophet alters the form of the word (Arab into Ereb) so as to convey a mystic meaning. The land of which he is about to speak is a land of shadow and of gloom. Evening is falling on it. It is a question whether the second Arabia is to retain its geographical form or to be translated "evening," as before. In any case, of course, Arabia is the country spoken of. The "Dedanites" appear in Jeremiah 49:8; Ezekiel 25:13, and seem from Ezekiel 27:15 to have been dwelling in the neighbourhood of the Edomites (Jeremiah 49:8) as a commercial people trading with Tyre in ebony and ivory. The point of the oracle against them is that they shall be compelled by the presence of the Assyrian armies to leave the main lines of their traffic, probably, as before, on their way westward to Tyre, and to take bye-paths, pitching their tents not near towns and villages, but in the low brushwood of the wilderness.