Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 1. The desert of the sea] This plainly means Babylon, which is the subject of the prophecy. The country about Babylon, and especially below it towards the sea, was a great flat morass, overflowed by the Euphrates and Tigris. It became habitable by being drained by the many canals that were made in it.
Herodotus, lib. i. 184, says that "Semiramis confined the Euphrates within its channel by raising great dams against it; for before it overflowed the whole country like a sea. " And Abydenus, (quoting Megasthenes, apud Euseb. Praep. Evang. ix. 41,) speaking of the building of Babylon by Nebuchadonosor, says, "it is reported that all this part was covered with water and was called the sea; and that Belus drew off the waters, conveying them into proper receptacles, and surrounded Babylon with a wall. " When the Euphrates was turned out of its channel by Cyrus, it was suffered still to drown the neighbouring country; and, the Persian government, which did not favour the place, taking no care to remedy this inconvenience, it became in time a great barren morassy desert, which event the title of the prophecy may perhaps intimate. Such it was originally; such it became after the taking of the city by Cyrus; and such it continues to this day.
As whirlwinds in the south "Like the southern tempests"] The most vehement storms to which Judea was subject came from the desert country to the south of it. "Out of the south cometh the whirlwind, "Job xxxvii. 9. "And there came a great wind from the wilderness, and smote the four corners of the house, "Job i. 19. For the situation of Idumea, the country (as I suppose) of Job, see Lam. iv. 21 compared with Job i. 1, was the same in this respect with that of Judea:- "And JEHOVAH shall appear over them, And his arrow shall go forth as the lightning; And the Lord JEHOVAH shall sound the trumpet; And shall march in the whirlwinds of the south." Zech. ix. 14.
Matthew Henry Commentary
- The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walke abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himsel mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear n upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, tha the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by the king of Assyria, thus stripped. The world will often deem believers foolish when singular in obedience to God. But the Lord will support his servants under the most trying effects of their obedience; and what they are called upon to suffer for his sake, commonly is light compared with what numbers groan under from year to year from sin Those who make any creature their expectation and glory, and so put it in the place of God, will, sooner or later, be ashamed of it. But disappointment in creature-confidences, instead of driving us to despair, should drive us to God, and our expectation shall not be in vain. The same lesson is in force now; and where shall we look for ai in the hour of necessity, but to the Lord our Righteousness _________________________________________________
Original Hebrew משׂא4853 מדבר4057 ים3220 כסופות5492 בנגב5045 לחלף2498 ממדבר4057 בא935 מארץ776 נוראה׃3372
