Isaiah 21:6-9 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

For thus hath the Lord said unto me— The Holy Spirit, having proposed to make Isaiah, and by him the church, most certain of this memorable event, confirms the preceding revelation by an elegant emblem, offered to the prophet in vision; which confirmation makes the other part of this prophetic. This emblem exhibits to us the prophet commanded by God to set a watchman, in this verse; and in what follows, the consequence of the execution of the command; namely, that the watchman appointed by the prophet attended accurately to the least motion of the nations against Babylon, and at length, after long expectation, had discovered, and, like a lion, had declared with a loud voice what he had seen. The seventh verse should be rendered, And he saw a cavalcade; two file of horse; with ass-carriages, and carriages of camels; and he attended with very close attention. The meaning is, that the watchman saw the army of the Medes and Persians, with their usual cavalcade of horse, attended by those beasts of burden, asses and camels, which accompanied armies in those countries, moving towards Babylon; upon which he gave the greatest attention possible. Vitringa reads in the eighth verse, And he cried as a lion; declaring what he now saw; namely, the hostile cavalcade approaching to Babylon; Behold, here cometh a cavalcade of men; two file of horse: Immediately after which, he declares the consequence of this approach to the enemy; Babylon is fallen, is fallen. See Revelation 18:1-2. This repetition was intended, according to some, to shew the certainty of the event; though Vitringa thinks that it, as well as the whole prophesy, might have a mystical reference to the fall of the spiritual Babylon; as much as to say, "Babylon is fallen, nay, and shall hereafter fall." As to the last expression, All the graven images of her gods he hath broken, it is remarkable, that Xerxes, after his return from his unfortunate expedition into Greece, partly out of religious zeal, being a professed enemy to image worship, and partly to reimburse himself, seized the sacred treasures, plundered or destroyed the temples and idols of Babylon, and thereby accomplished the prophesies of Isaiah; which will gain great light by a comparison with what Jeremiah has written on this subject. See Vitringa and Bishop Newton.