Isaiah 21:13

THE BURDEN OF ARABIA (Isaiah 21:13-17)

"The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye judge, O ye caravans of Dedanites. Unto him that was thirsty they brought water; the inhabitants of the land of Tema did meet the fugitives with their bread. For they fled away from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war. For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, all the glory of Kedar shall fail; and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be few, the God of Israel hath spoken it."

This is the prophecy of the distress that shall come to the neighboring peoples of Judah when the long-expected assault from Assyria will finally occur in circa 702 B.C. As any marauding army would have done, the invading force here is foreseen as overrunning and destroying such neighbors of Judah as the Edomites and the Arabians. As Lowth said, "The distress of those peoples noted here is the subject of this prophecy."[15]

"Kedar ..." This word is the name of one of the twelve sons of Ishmael (Genesis 25:13); but the name was also used as a collective term to describe the desert-dwellers, the Bedouin generally.[16]

Along with Lowth, we identify the fulfillment of this prophecy with the last year prior to Sennacherib's attempt to sack Jerusalem; and this means that the prophecy was uttered only a year before that. See the line, "As the year of a hireling." This was a common way of saying "exactly one year." The hireling would see to it that it was no more than a year; and the master who hired him would see to it that it was no less! If this prophecy was given about 715 B.C.,[17] as Payne thought, then the destruction and warfare foreseen took place about a year later in one of the many incursions of Assyria into this part of the Mid-East. In that case, "Sargon's recorded invasion in 715"[18] would have been the occasion of fulfillment.

The destruction of the majority of the military men of Kedar is merely an example of what happened to all of the countries destroyed by the ruthless Assyrians, "the Breakers," as they were called throughout the world.

What about the Dedanites mentioned at the head of this paragraph? Norman noted that there is some obscurity about the people called by this name. One such place is the modern Alula, seventy miles south of Taima. "It was once a flourishing caravan city, as now known from cuneiform inscriptions."[19]