The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?
Ver. 11. The burden of Dumah,] i.e., Of Idumea, a or of the Edomites. For burden, see on Isaiah 13:1. This prophecy is the shorter the harder. The Jews apply this prophecy to Rome. They read for Dumah, Roma. The Romans they call the new Idumeans, and the Pope's kingdom the wicked kingdom of Edom. Some of them say that Julius Caesar was an Idumean; others that Aeneas came out of Idumea into Egypt; from thence into Lybia; thence to Carthage; thence to Italy, and that there he built Alba, out of which sprang Rome. The rise of this fiction seemeth to have been the destruction of the Jewish state by Titus and his Romans, who were thereupon for their cruelty by those Jews called Edomites.
He calleth to me out of Seir.] Or, One is calling to me out of Seir, which was a mountain possessed by the Edomites.
Watchman, what of the night?] b Interrogatio ironica est argue sarcastica - a scoffing question whereby the prophet is derided and upbraided with false foretelling a night of misery to the Edomites, whenas they felt no change, but enjoyed rather a lightsome morning; a fine time, as we say, of liberty and prosperity.
a Onus Idumeae. - Sept.
b Custos, quid de nocte?