The Burden Upon Arabia (Isaiah 21:13-17).
Arabia is not offered such hope. She is rightly apprehensive, and her troops, which had been involved in the alliance, have returned as fugitives. And she has no future. Within one year disaster will come on them. So much for the alliance in which their hopes had been placed.
Analysis.
· The burden upon Arabia. You will lodge in the forest in Arabia, O you travelling companions of Dedanites (Isaiah 21:13).
· To him who was thirsty, they brought water. The inhabitants of the land of Temah met the fugitives with their bread (Isaiah 21:14).
· For they fled from the sword, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war (Isaiah 21:15).
· For thus has the Lord said to me, “Within a year, according to the years of a hired servant, and all the glory of Kedar will fail. And the residue of the numbers of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few.” For the mouth of Yahweh, the God of Israel has spoken it (Isaiah 21:16-17).
In ‘a' he addresses those who were usually caravanners, travelling the trade routes, and warns them that because of what has happened they will have to take refuge in the forest of Arabia, and in the parallel points out that it will be hopeless, for within a year their glory will fail and their numbers will be few, because Yahweh has declared it In ‘b' the people of Temah bring the fugitives water and bread, and in the parallel it is because they are fugitives from the sword, and from grievous war.
‘The burden upon Arabia. You will lodge in the forest in Arabia, O you travelling companions of Dedanites. To him who was thirsty, they brought water. The inhabitants of the land of Temah met the fugitives with their bread. For they fled from the sword, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.'
Arabia (or ‘the Arabs') had been involved in the fighting, and now they fled for their lives. Those who were normally travelling companions (‘caravans') of Dedanites, fearlessly making their way along the main highways, now hid, ate and slept in the denseness of the thickets in the remote desert scrubland. They dare not come near the regular oases. Sympathisers brought them water, those from the land of Temah brought them bread, for they were without provisions and in hiding and totally dependent on the generosity of others. It was so different from the proud dream that had earlier been theirs. Their fate was a warning to all. You cannot trust in alliances with Babylon or with the world.
The Dedanites were a north Arabian tribe from near Edom (see Jeremiah 49:8; Ezekiel 25:13). Temah was an oasis city in the desert on the main trade route through Arabia.
They were there because they had fled from the drawn sword, the sword drawn ready for battle, and from the bent bow with its arrow fixed ready for the kill, pursued by enemies who were determined on slaughter. But above all they had fled from the grievousness of war. Note the threefold pattern once again, the drawn sword, the bent bow and the grievousness of war indicating the complete nature of their predicament.
‘For thus has the Lord said to me, “Within a year, according to the years of a hired servant, and all the glory of Kedar will fail. And the residue of the numbers of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few. For the mouth of Yahweh, the God of Israel has spoken it.'
But punishment would follow exactly within a year and would fall especially on Kedar, a powerful north Arabian tribe (Isaiah 42:11; Isaiah 60:7). It would lose its main resources. Its archers and its fighting men would be decimated until they were few in number. The alliance had failed them. And all this would be at the word of Yahweh, the God of Israel.
We know that Kedar were paying tribute to Assyria in 738 BC and that in 715 BC Sargon II was campaigning against the tribes near Temah and that in around 703 BC Arabs supported the rebellion of Merodach Baladan and were finally subdued by Sennacherib. Thus they were continually involved with Assyria and in alliances against them, to their cost. Now their reward will come on their own heads.
‘Within a year, according to the years of a hired servant.' Compare Isaiah 16:14. Within exactly a year, calculated in accordance with the method used for determining the services of hired servants, it would happen (possibly a 365 day year rather than a twelve moon period year). Their refuge would not save them.