Isaiah 21:10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

O my thrashing, &c. In these words, which form the conclusion of the prophecy, “the application, the end, and design of it, are admirably given in a short expressive address to the Jews, partly in the person of God, partly in that of the prophet.” The first words of the verse, O my thrashing, and the corn of my floor, are supposed to be spoken by God, in which thrashing is put for the corn thrashed, and the corn thrashed for people sorely afflicted and punished: as if he had said, “O my people, whom for your punishment I have made subject to the Babylonians, to try and to prove you, and to separate the chaff (or straw) from the corn, the bad from the good among you; hear this for your consolation: your punishment, your slavery and oppression, will have an end in the destruction of your oppressors.” The reader will observe, “the image of thrashing 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.” That which I have heard, &c. Here “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, he changes the form of address, and adds, in his own person, That which I have heard, &c., have I declared unto you.” In which words he signifies, that he had faithfully related to them what God had revealed to him, and that the predictions which he had uttered were not his own inventions, but the very word of God, which, therefore, would be infallibly accomplished in their season. See Bishop Lowth.