Isaiah 22:6

(6) Elam . . . Kir . . .—The two nations are named as the chief elements of the Assyrian army then invading Judæa. Elam, previously named as the destroyer of Babylon (Isaiah 21:2), was at this time, as the inscriptions of Sargon show, subject to Assyria (Records of the Past, vii. 29). As in later history (Herod. i. 73, iii. 21; Jeremiah 49:35), it was conspicuous chiefly for its archers. “Kir,” named in 2 Kings 16:11 as the region to which Tiglath-pileser carried off the people of Damascus, has been identified with the region near the river Kyros, the modern Georgia. There are, however, both linguistic and historical grounds against this identification, and we must be content to look on it as an otherwise unknown region of Mesopotamia. To “uncover the shield” was to draw it out of its leather case (comp. “Scutis tegumenta detrahere”; Cæs. Bell. Gall. 2:21), and so to be prepared for battle.