Isaiah 21:1

The burden of the desert of the sea. As whirlwinds in the south pass through; so it cometh from the desert, from a terrible land.

He does not narrate the event, but graphically supposes himself a watchman in Babylon, beholding the events as they pass.

The burden of the desert of the sea - The champaign between Babylon and Persia. It was once a desert, and it was to become so again.

Of the sea. The plain was covered with the water of the Euphrates, like a "sea" (; : so , "the (Egyptian) sea" - the Nile), until Semiramis raised great dams against it. Cyrus removed these dykes, and so converted the whole country again into a vast desert-marsh.

As whirlwinds in the south - (; .) The south wind comes upon Babylon from the deserts of Arabia, and its violence is the greater from its course being unbroken along the plain (, "a great wind from the wilderness").

(So) it cometh from the desert - the plain between Babylon and Persia. From a terrible land - Media, to guard against which was the object of Nitocris' great works (Herodotus, 1:

185). Compare as to "terrible" applied to a wilderness, as being full of unknown dangers, .