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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comJamieson Fausset Brown Commentary - Isaiah 21:11 - 21:11
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Isa 21:11, Isa 21:12. A prophecy to the Idumeans who taunted the afflicted Jews in the Babylonish captivity.
One out of Seir asks, What of the night? Is there a hope of the dawn of deliverance? Isaiah replies, The morning is beginning to dawn (to us); but night is also coming (to you). Compare Psa 137:7. The Hebrew captives would be delivered, and taunting Edom punished. If the Idumean wish to ask again, he may do so; if he wishes an answer of peace for his country, then let him “return (repent), come” [Barnes].
Dumah - a tribe and region of Ishmael in Arabia (Gen 25:14; 1Ch 1:30); now called Dumah the Stony, situated on the confines of Arabia and the Syrian desert; a part put for the whole of Edom. Vitringa thinks “Dumah,” Hebrew, “silence,” is here used for Idumea, to imply that it was soon to be reduced to silence or destruction.
Seir - the principal mountain in Idumea, south of the Dead Sea, in Arabia-Petraea. “He calleth” ought to be rather, “There is a call from Seir.”
to me - Isaiah. So the heathen Balak and Ahaziah received oracles from a Hebrew prophet.
Watchman - the prophet (Isa 62:6; Jer 6:17), so called, because, like a watchman on the lookout from a tower, he announces future events which he sees in prophetic vision (Hab 2:1, Hab 2:2).
what of the night - What tidings have you to give as to the state of the night? Rather, “What remains of the night?” How much of it is past? [Maurer]. “Night” means calamity (Job 35:10; Mic 3:6), which, then, in the wars between Egypt and Assyria, pressed sore on Edom; or on Judah (if, as Barnes thinks, the question is asked in mockery of the suffering Jews in Babylon). The repetition of the question marks, in the former view, the anxiety of the Idumeans.