Isaiah 21:10

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹This is an oracle concerning the Desert by the Sea: Like whirlwinds sweeping through the Negev, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror. ²A dire vision is declared to me: "The traitor still betrays, and the destroyer still destroys. Go up, O Elam! Lay siege, O Media! I will put an end to all her groaning." ³Therefore my body is filled with anguish. Pain grips me, like the pains of a woman in labor. I am bewildered to hear, I am dismayed to see. ⁴My heart staggers; fear makes me tremble. The twilight of my desire has turned to horror. ⁵They prepare a table, they lay out a carpet, they eat, they drink! Rise up, O princes, oil the shields! ⁶For this is what the Lord says to me: "Go, post a lookout to report what he sees. ⁷When he sees chariots with teams of horsemen, riders on donkeys, riders on camels, he must be alert, fully alert." ⁸Then the lookout shouted, "Day after day, O lord, I stand on the watchtower; night after night I stay at my post. ⁹Look, here come the riders, horsemen in pairs." And one answered, saying, "Fallen, fallen is Babylon! All the images of her gods lie shattered on the ground." ¹⁰O My people, crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard from the LORD of Hosts, the God of Israel.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

my threshing: Isaiah 41:15, Isaiah 41:16, 2 Kings 13:7, Jeremiah 51:33, Micah 4:13, Habakkuk 3:12, Matthew 3:12

corn: Heb. son

that which: 1 Kings 22:14, Ezekiel 3:17-19, Acts 20:26, Acts 20:27

Reciprocal: Isaiah 28:28 - Bread Isaiah 48:6 - and will Ezekiel 40:4 - declare Micah 4:12 - for he shall

Cross-References

Genesis 17:19
But God replied, "Your wife Sarah will indeed bear you a son, and you are to name him Isaac. I will establish My covenant with him as an everlasting covenant for his descendants after him.

Genesis 17:21
But I will establish My covenant with Isaac, whom Sarah will bear to you at this time next year."

Genesis 20:11
Abraham replied, "I thought to myself, 'Surely there is no fear of God in this place. They will kill me on account of my wife.'

Genesis 21:6
Then Sarah said, "God has made me laugh, and everyone who hears of this will laugh with me."

Genesis 21:7
She added, "Who would have told Abraham that Sarah would nurse children? Yet I have borne him a son in his old age."

Genesis 21:11
Now this matter distressed Abraham greatly because it concerned his son Ishmael.

Genesis 21:12
But God said to Abraham, "Do not be distressed about the boy and your maidservant. Listen to everything that Sarah tells you, for through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned.

Genesis 21:22
At that time Abimelech and Phicol the commander of his army said to Abraham, "God is with you in all that you do.

Genesis 21:31
So that place was called Beersheba, because it was there that the two of them swore an oath.

Genesis 22:10
Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to slaughter his son.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

O my threshing, and the corn of my floor,.... Which may be understood either of the Babylonians, now threshed or punished by the Lord, and whom he had made use of as instruments for the punishment of others; or rather of the people of the Jews, whom the prophet calls "his", as being his countrymen, to whom he was affected, and with whom he sympathized; and besides, he speaks in the name of the Lord; or it is the Lord that speaks by him, calling the church of the Jews his floor, and the people his corn, which were dear and valuable to him, as choice grain, wheat, and other things; and therefore, though he threshed or afflicted them, it was for their good, to purge and cleanse them, and separate the chaff from them; and indeed it was on their account, and for their good, that all this was to be done to Babylon, before predicted; where they were, as corn under the threshing instrument, greatly oppressed and afflicted, but now should be delivered; for the confirmation of which it is added:

that which I have heard of the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you; the preceding prophecy was not a dream of his, but a vision from the Lord of hosts; it was not devised by him, but told him by the Lord, and that for the good and comfort of the people of Israel, whose covenant God he was; and the prophet acted a faithful part, in delivering it just as he received it, which might be depended on.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O my threshing - The words ‘to thresh,’ ‘to tread down,’ etc., are often used in the Scriptures to denote punishments inflicted on the enemies of God. An expression likes this occurs in Jeremiah 51:33, in describing the destruction of Babylon: ‘The daughter of Babylon is like a threshing floor; it is time to thresh her.’ In regard to the mode of threshing among the Hebrews, and the pertinency of this image to the destruction of the enemies of God, see the note at Isaiah 28:27. Lowth, together with many others, refers this to Babylon, and regards it as an address of God to Babylon in the midst of her punishment: ‘O thou, the object on which I shall exercise the severity of my discipline; that shall lie under my afflicting hand like grain spread out upon the floor to be threshed out and winnowed, to separate the chaff from the wheat.’ But the expression can be applied with more propriety to the Jews; and may be regarded as the language of “tenderness” addressed by God through the prophet to his people when they should be oppressed and broken down in Babylon: ‘O thou, my people, who hast been afflicted and crushed; who hast been under my chastening hand, and reduced to these calamities on account of your sins; hear what God has spoken respecting the destruction of Babylon, and your consequent certain deliverance.’ Thus it is the language of consolation; and is designed, like the prophecies in Isaiah 13:0; Isaiah 14:0, to comfort the Jews, when they should be in Babylon, with the certainty that they would be delivered. The language of “tenderness” in which the address is couched, as well as the connection, seems to demand this interpretation.

And the corn of my floor - Hebrew, ‘The son of my threshing floor’ - a Hebraism for grain that was on the floor to be threshed. The word ‘son’ is often used in this special manner among the Hebrews (see the note at Matthew 1:1).

That which I have heard ... - This shows the scope or design of the whole prophecy - to declare to the Jews the destruction that would come upon Babylon, and their own consequent deliverance. It was important that they should be “assured” of that deliverance, and hence, Isaiah “repeats” his predictions, and minutely states the manner in which their rescue would be accomplished.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 21:10. O my threshing — "O thou, the object upon which I shall exercise the severity of my discipline; that shalt lie under my afflicting hand, like corn spread upon the floor to be threshed out and winnowed, to separate the chaff from the wheat!" The image of threshing is frequently used by the Hebrew poets, with great elegance and force, to express the punishment of the wicked and the trial of the good, or the utter dispersion and destruction of God's enemies. Of the different ways of threshing in use among the Hebrews, and the manner of performing them, see the note on Isaiah 28:27.

Our translators have taken the liberty of using the word threshing in a passive sense, to express the object or matter that is threshed; in which I have followed them, not being able to express it more properly, without departing too much from the form and letter of the original. "Son of my floor," Heb. It is an idiom of the Hebrew language to call the effect, the object, the adjunct, any thing that belongs in almost any way to another, the son of it. "O my threshing." The prophet abruptly breaks off the speech of God; and instead of continuing it in the form in which he had begun, and in the person of God, "This I declare unto you by my prophet," he changes the form of address, and adds, in his own person, "This I declare unto you from God."