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Chapter 21

The Defeat of Babylon[a]

An oracle concerning the wilderness of the sea:

Like whirlwinds sweeping over the Negeb,[b]
    there comes from the desert,
    from a land that inspires terror,

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Footnotes

  1. Isaiah 21:1 Proud Babylon has fallen. The reference is either to 710 B.C., when Babylon was attacked by the Assyrian, Sargon, who put down the rebellion of Merodach-baladan (see 2 Ki 20:10; Jer 39:1-8), or to its fall in 539 B.C. under the attack of Cyrus. Tradition has it that the city was taken by the allied Medes and Persians during the night, while the ruler and his men were feasting in the assurance that the walls were impregnable (v. 5; see Dan 5).
  2. Isaiah 21:1 The desert: the plain of Babylonia. The Negeb: the vast southern wilderness of Palestine.