Isaiah 21:3

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

are: Isaiah 15:5, Isaiah 16:9, Isaiah 16:11, Habakkuk 3:16

pangs have: Isaiah 13:8, Isaiah 26:17, Psalms 48:6, Jeremiah 48:41, Jeremiah 49:22, Jeremiah 50:43, Micah 4:9, Micah 4:10, 1 Thessalonians 5:3

I was bowed: Deuteronomy 28:67, Daniel 5:5, Daniel 5:6

Reciprocal: Genesis 3:16 - in sorrow 1 Samuel 28:5 - he was afraid Job 4:15 - the hair Psalms 69:23 - make their Psalms 73:19 - they are Jeremiah 4:9 - that the heart Jeremiah 4:19 - My bowels Jeremiah 4:31 - I have heard Jeremiah 6:24 - anguish Jeremiah 13:21 - shall not Jeremiah 30:6 - every Jeremiah 50:24 - and thou wast Jeremiah 51:31 - to show Jeremiah 51:46 - a rumour shall Ezekiel 21:6 - with the Hosea 13:13 - sorrows Amos 8:10 - I will turn Micah 1:8 - I will wail Nahum 2:10 - and much Luke 6:25 - mourn

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

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 22:2
"Take your son," God said, "your only son Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah. Offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I will show you."

Joshua 24:3
But I took your father Abraham from beyond the Euphrates and led him through all the land of Canaan, and I multiplied his descendants. I gave him Isaac,

Matthew 1:2
Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.

Acts 7:8
Then God gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision, and Abraham became the father of Isaac and circumcised him on the eighth day. And Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob of the twelve patriarchs.

Romans 9:7
Nor because they are Abraham's descendants are they all his children. On the contrary, "Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned."

Hebrews 11:18
even though God had said to him, "Through Isaac your offspring will be reckoned."

Gill's Notes on the Bible

Therefore are my loins filled with pain,.... As a woman at the time of childbirth, as the following words show: these words are spoken by the prophet, not with respect to himself, as if he was pained at heart at the prophecy and vision he had of the ruin of Babylon, since that was a mortal enemy of his people; and besides, their sighing being made to cease could never be a reason of distress in him, but of joy: these words are spoken by him in the person of the Babylonians, and particularly of Belshazzar their king:

pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth; which come suddenly and at once, are very sharp and strong, and inevitable, which cannot be escaped; so the sudden destruction of the wicked, and particularly of antichrist at the last day, and the terror that shall attend it, are expressed by the same metaphor, 1 Thessalonians 5:2:

I was bowed down at the hearing [of it]; distorted and convulsed; not the prophet at the hearing of the prophecy, but Belshazzar, whom he personated, at hearing that Cyrus had entered the city, and was at the gates of his palace:

I was dismayed at the seeing [of it]; the handwriting upon the wall, at which his countenance changed, his thoughts were troubled, his loins loosed, and his knees smote one against another, Daniel 5:6.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Therefore - In this verse, and the following, the prophet represents himself as “in” Babylon, and as a witness of the calamities which would come upon the city. He describes the sympathy which he feels in her sorrows, and represents himself as deeply affected by her calamities. A similar description occurred in the pain which the prophet represents himself as enduring on account of the calamities of Moab (see Isaiah 15:5, note; Isaiah 16:11, note).

My loins - (see the note at Isaiah 16:11).

With pain - The word used here (חלחלה chalchâlâh) denotes properly the pains of parturition, and the whole figure is taken from that. The sense is, that the prophet was filled with the most acute sorrow and anguish, in view of the calamities which were coming on Babylon. That is, the sufferings of Babylon would be indescribably great and dreadful (see Nahum 2:11; Ezekiel 30:4, Ezekiel 30:9).

I was bowed down - Under the grief and sorrow produced by these calamities.

At the hearing it - The Hebrew may have this sense, and mean that these things were made to pass before the eye of the prophet, and that the sight oppressed him, and bowed him down. But more probably the Hebrew letter מ (m) in the word משׁמע mish^emoa' is to be taken “privatively,” and means, ‘I was so bowed down or oppressed that I could not see; I was so dismayed that I could not hear;’ that is, all his senses were taken away by the greatness of the calamity, and by his sympathetic sufferings. A similar construction occurs in Psalms 69:23 : ‘Let their eyes be darkened that they see not’ (מראות mēr^e'ôth) that is, “from” seeing.