Isaiah 21

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21:1 MAS'A MIDBAR-YAM KE SUPHOT BA NEGEV LACHALOPH MI MIDBAR BA ME ERETS NORA'AH

מַשָּׂא מִדְבַּר יָם כְּסוּפוֹת בַּנֶּגֶב לַחֲלֹף מִמִּדְבָּר בָּא מֵאֶרֶץ נוֹרָאָה

KJ (King James translation): 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.

BN (BibleNet translation): The pronouncement on Midbar-Yam. Whereas sandstorms in the south sweep on, coming from the desert, coming from a dreadful land.

Our context shifts again, now to the "Wilderness of the Sea", wherever that may have been: a desert with storms? some distant point of the Cosmos? a crater on the moon? the land of the Pelishtim? or simply the name of a town?

And which sea? "Desert" in Kena'an means the entire south, at its west the Mediterranean below the five cities of the Pelishtim, then along the Azah Strip into Mitsrayim (Egypt); but at the southernmost point, at Eilat and Aqaba, it becomes the Edomite Sea (Red Sea).

However - I am thinking ahead to other words in this verse, and other verses in this chapter - the desert by the Yam ha Melach (Dead Sea) is the one that David went down into (I am phrasing it that way deliberately) when he was pursued into the Underworld (She'ol) by King Sha'ul (Saul) - 1 Samuel 19 onwards. David, in full Yedid-Yah, "the beloved of the full-moon goddess", is the representation in epic of the corn-god; so we need to read on and see, but it may be that this "oracle" is connected in some way to the corn-harvest, whether at the spring equinox setting up of the scarecrow on its T-shaped pole, or the burning of the no-longer-needed scarecrow after the harvest festival at the autumn equinox.

Is he still walking barefoot and loin-clothed? This isn't where he was walking in the previous chapter. (And was that always a metaphor anyway?)

SUPHOT: See my page on Yoseph (Joseph), especially the paragraph about the "prefictual Yud". No, better to quote that here, and let you read the rest of the commentary on this chapter before you go back to the Yoseph page to understand the context of the comment there:

If the prefictual Yud (י) is really Yah (יה), then do we have here Yah Suph (יה סוף)? It would be very interesting if we did. A Suph is a rush or reed, and particularly (Exodus 2:3, Isaiah 19:6) those that grow in the River Nile, and which are the vegetation most associated with Osher (Osiris), the Egyptian god whose story echoes Yoseph's in almost every aspect, and to whom Yoseph was high priest. Traditionally the waters of the Arabian Gulf, including the Red Sea itself and the many inland wadis of the Arabian Peninsula, are known collectively as Yam Suph (ים-סוף), but this is incorrect. The Reed Sea, which is what Yam Suph means, was the delta of the River Nile, where it breaks into the Mediterranean in the north of Egypt, precisely in the land of Goshen where Ya'akov settled, and from where Mosheh led the Beney Yisra-El into the Wilderness. Osher also represented the tempest or the whirlwind, as did his Babylonian equivalent Tammuz, and Suphah (סופה), the feminine form of Suph, is used for this throughout the Book of Job (21:18, 27:20, 37:9) as well as in Proverbs 10:25, Isaiah 17:13; Hosea 8:7 has a variation, Suphatah (סוּפָ֣תָה), with the same meaning. In later Yehudit this destructive power of the flooding Nile and the whirlwind gave rise to the verb Suph (סוף) = "to end" or, in the Hiphil form, "to destroy".

Is this storm then travelling eastwards from the Nile - where the last oracles were located - and recounting the local variations of the life of the corn-god as it travels? Is Y-Y trying to tell us that Osher, and David, and Philistine Hera-Kles, and Babylonian (but also, remember, Bethlehemite) Tammuz, are all the same deity (and if so, we should add Jesus to the list, but also Robin Hood and Guy Fawkes as the spring and autumn ends of the same epic)?

21:2 CHAZUT KASHAH HUGAD LI HA BOGED BOGED VE HA SHODED SHODED ALI EYLAM TSURI MADAI KOL ANCHATAH HISHBATI

חָזוּת קָשָׁה הֻגַּד לִי הַבּוֹגֵד בּוֹגֵד וְהַשּׁוֹדֵד שׁוֹדֵד עֲלִי עֵילָם צוּרִי מָדַי כָּל אַנְחָתָה הִשְׁבַּתִּי

KJ: A grievous vision is declared unto me; the treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O Elam: besiege, O Media; all the sighing thereof have I made to cease.

BN: A distressing vision has been revealed to me. The treacherous dealer deals treacherously, and the spoiler spoils. Go up, Eylam! Lay siege, Madai! I have put all of its sighing on hold.


Eylam and Madai (possibly Medea) suggest Persia.

ANCHATAH: Allusions, alongside word-games, sometimes both at once, are the favoured methodology of our author, and especially when he chooses words that do not often get chosen. So with ANCHAH here. What, then, might he be alluding to? Exodus 2:23 seems the most plausible, given the last few chapters. The only other options, Ezekiel 21:12 and Psalm 31:11, are far too nebulously generalised to merit the alluding, and Joel 1:18 is a much later text.

21:3 AL KEN MAL'U MATNAI CHALCHALAH TSIYRIM ACHAZUNI KE TSIYREY YOLEDAH NA'AVEYTI MI SHEMO'A NIVHALTI ME RE'OT

עַל כֵּן מָלְאוּ מָתְנַי חַלְחָלָה צִירִים אֲחָזוּנִי כְּצִירֵי יוֹלֵדָה נַעֲוֵיתִי מִשְּׁמֹעַ נִבְהַלְתִּי מֵרְאוֹת

KJ: Therefore are my loins filled with pain: pangs have taken hold upon me, as the pangs of a woman that travaileth: I was bowed down at the hearing of it; I was dismayed at the seeing of it.

BN: That is what has got my stomach churning with convulsions. Pangs have taken hold upon me, like the pangs of a woman in labour. I am doubled over from hearing it, trembling from the sight of it.

A new kind of imagery. Y-Y is physically affected by what he is hearing is taking place… but he is also talking about himself, which he has only done once before, describing in chapter 6 how he came to leave the regular priesthood and join the Guild of Prophets. In general the personal, the ego, does not play a role in the act of Prophetcy.

MAL'U MATNAI CHALCHALAH: KJ has the translation correct literally, but this is an idiom, and we do not use this idiom in this way today.

CHALCHALAH: KALKALAH (קלקלה) with two Kuphs means "rotten" in the sense of "despicable", and it is only ever used once in the entire Tanach, at Numbers 21:5; and the rest of that verse makes for quite a coincidence with this one. KALKALAH with two KAPHS (כלכלה) woAmidahuld be "economics" in today's world, but then meant "sustenance" in general, though specifically foodstuffs, including but not only corn. These oracles would have been delivered orally, so which of the three any member of the audience would have heard is difficult to say.

   Or maybe they would have heard an allusion from that third option, the double KAPHS, if they were regular attendees at the Temple, and accustomed to reciting the Standing Prayer, the Amidah. The second blessing, Gevurot, which states that the deity "mechalchel chayim be chesed - מְכַלְכֵּ֨ל חַיִּ֜ים בְּחֶ֗סֶד"... "You sustain the living with kindness... support the fallen, heal the sick, release the confined, and maintain your faith even in those who sleep in the dust."

ACHAZUNI: Pangs, as in labour. Kings, as in bad ones, the sort from whom Y-Y withdraws semicha and puts his son on the sacred throne in his place. Achaz, the father of Chizki-Yah. A modern equivalent might be a description of oneself as "completely thatchered", or simply "bushwhacked".

21:4 TA'AH LEVAVI PALATSUT BI'ATATNI ET NESHEPH HISHKI SAM LI LA CHARADAH

תָּעָה לְבָבִי פַּלָּצוּת בִּעֲתָתְנִי אֵת נֶשֶׁף חִשְׁקִי שָׂם לִי לַחֲרָדָה

KJ: My heart panted, fearfulness affrighted me: the night of my pleasure hath he turned into fear unto me.

BN: My heart is skipping beats; the horror of this has left me trembling; the cool breeze that I longed for has been turned against me as a violent storm.

TA'AH: Literally "to make mistakes".

PALATSUT: Used in Psalm 55:6, but virtually nowhere else. Rather more "horror", in the sense of "nightmare-causing", than "terror", which in today's world has a very different, though equally fear-inducing, connotation.

NESHEPH...CHARADAH: Yes, NESHEPH is used for the twilight period, both dawn and dusk, but that is because they are the times when the cooler wind blows, and the root is about the blowing, not the time of day. This is confirmed by CHARADAH, which root is all about the cause and not the impact, in this case the wind itself, not the consequences for the person blown by it.

21:5 AROCH HA SHULCHAN TSAPHO HA TSAPHIT ACHOL SHATOH KUMU HA SARIM MISHCHU MAGEN

עָרֹךְ הַשֻּׁלְחָן צָפֹה הַצָּפִית אָכוֹל שָׁתֹה קוּמוּ הַשָּׂרִים מִשְׁחוּ מָגֵן

KJ: Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.

BN: Prepare the table, lay out the tablecloth, eat, drink. Rise up, you princes, anoint the shield. {S}

AROCH HA SHULCHAN: Rabbi Joseph Caro would do this, though not until the 16th century CE. Click here for the full text. See also my note at Psalm 78:19, which is clearly in need of updating based on this verse.

TSAPHO HA TSAPHIT: How on earth does KJ get this to be about "watchtowers" - and if it is that, then cf Ezekiel's watchman (Ezekiel 33:1-6), though his dates are later. The answer is twofold:

i) The root TSAPHAH has to do with looking out over long views, as in Song of Songs 7:5, or the person doing so, as in 1 Samuel 14:16. But people who look out over great distances and report back on what they see may be tower-guards, or they may be the Heads of the Guilds of Prophets - see Jeremiah 6:17 where he makes precisely this play-on-words. So, yes, it is a legitimate translation, but what does it mean in the context? Whereas:

ii) See Exodus 25:24, where the table in question is not just any table, but precisely the Table of Values that inspired Joseph Caro's naming of his book.

And I said the answer is twofold, not that it may be one or the other. As per the very next verse, it is both.

MISHCHU MAGEN: And then, how and why does one anoint a shield? Anointing is the ordination of a priest or Prophet (the calling of him, even, to serve as a watchman!), or the equivalent of crowning for a sacred king. So perhaps, surmounted above this particular Law Code, to show that it is Yehudi, it is only a "shield" in one sense of that word: a Magen David, a Shield of David.

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21:6 KI CHOH AMAR ELAI ADONAI LECH HA'AMED HA METSAPEH ASHER YIR'EH YAGID

כִּי כֹה אָמַר אֵלַי אֲדֹנָי לֵךְ הַעֲמֵד הַמְצַפֶּה אֲשֶׁר יִרְאֶה יַגִּיד

KJ: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth.

BN: For thus has my Lord said to me: Go, set a watchman; let him declare what he sees!

ADONAI: Not YHVH on this occasion, so "the Lord" could as well be his king as his god.

So it is indeed the watchman who sees, but a watchman needs a Table of Values to enable him to describe meaningfully what he sees. I have given the Ezekiel lionk above, but let me quoting it in full here anyway:

"Man, say to your fellow-countrymen, When I set armies in motion against a land, its people must choose one from among themselves to be a watchman. When he sees the enemy approaching and blows his trumpet to warn the people, then if anyone does not heed the warning and is overtaken by the enemy, he is responsible for his own fate. He is responsible because, when he heard the alarm, he paid no heed to it; had he paid heed, he would have escaped. But if the watchman does not blow his trumpet to warn the people when he sees the enemy approaching, then any man who is killed is caught with all his sins upon him; but I will hold the watchman answerable for his death."

And we have asked previously, was one of the roles of the Prophet, as it most certainly was of the Temple and local shrine priests and priestesses, to make constant observation of the heavens, and report back on the changes, movements, diurnations? Or maybe I should rephrase the question: we know the role of the clergy in this, but they only observed, and were not expected to do more, unless the High Priest with the Urim and Tumim: but for the rest, pure astronomy; were the Prophets then the astrologers, and what we are reading is simply Biblical horoscopes? This is not the conclusion we have been drawing up until this point, but it is the way that the Prophets have been traditionally understood over the past two thousand years.

Or is the role of watchman not to observe the heavens at all, but to observe the behaviour of human beings, both at home and abroad, and to pass observation on it from within the Table of Values reflected from the overlay on the Shield of David?

21:7 VE RA'AH RECHEV TSEMED PARASHIM RECHEV CHAMOR RECHEV GAMAL VE HIKSHIV KESHEV RAV KASHEV

וְרָאָה רֶכֶב צֶמֶד פָּרָשִׁים רֶכֶב חֲמוֹר רֶכֶב גָּמָל וְהִקְשִׁיב קֶשֶׁב רַב קָשֶׁב

KJ: And he saw a chariot with a couple of horsemen, a chariot of asses, and a chariot of camels; and he hearkened diligently with much heed:

BN: And when he sees a chariot, with a pair of horsemen, or a donkey-cart, or a camel dragging a trailer, he shall not just watch it carefully, but very, very carefully.

VE RA'AH: Is Y-Y talking about himself in the 3rd person, himself this "watchman", or about another with that role? The question is significant anyway, but specifically so here, because VE RA'AH is in the past tense, whereas the previous verse ordered the calling of the watchman in the past, but set it for the future; have we then jumped into that future? This would be more straightforward if the text said VA YIR'EH, using the Vav Consecutive... but it doesn't. I have gone for the future in my translation, but only as a means of showing the alternative to the KJ usage of the past: either could be correct.

The point being the methodologies used by the unscrupulous: what looks like a donkey-cart may turn out to be a Trojan Horse.


21:8 VA YIKRA ARYEH AL MITSPEH ADONAI ANOCHI OMED TAMID YOMAM VE AL MISHMARTI ANOCHI NITSAV KOL HA LEILOT

וַיִּקְרָא אַרְיֵה עַל מִצְפֶּה אֲדֹנָי אָנֹכִי עֹמֵד תָּמִיד יוֹמָם וְעַל מִשְׁמַרְתִּי אָנֹכִי נִצָּב כָּל הַלֵּילוֹת

KJ: And he cried, A lion: My lord, I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime, and I am set in my ward whole nights:

BN: And he will call out: "I can see something! My Lord, I stand on the watch-tower throughout the day, and I am regularly on the duty-roster for night-shift ...

ARYEH: a lion indeed, but surely it is not an actual, physical lion that he has seen, unless this whole analogy is "oracular" in the most mystical of senses, the liuon beiong the emblem of Yehudah... but wait. Y-Y did not write this down. One of his disciples wrote this down. The watchman is in the tower, and about to tell what he has seen. RA'AH in the previous verse, and a question of past or future tense. How do you say "I will see" in Yehudit? ANI ER'EH (אני אראה) - yes, with an Aleph not a Yud, but if the scribe misunderstood...

ADONAI: Again not YHVH, though of course the ambiguity is intentional: the watchman is both the physical and the spiritual city-guard.


21:9 VE HINEH ZEH VA RECHEV ISH TSEMED PARASHIM VA YA'AN VA YOMER NAPHLAH NAPHLAH BAVEL VE CHOL PESIYLEI ELOHEYHA SHIBAR LA ARETS

וְהִנֵּה זֶה בָא רֶכֶב אִישׁ צֶמֶד פָּרָשִׁים וַיַּעַן וַיֹּאמֶר נָפְלָה נָפְלָה בָּבֶל וְכָל פְּסִילֵי אֱלֹהֶיהָ שִׁבַּר לָאָרֶץ

KJ: And, behold, here cometh a chariot of men, with a couple of horsemen. And he answered and said, Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.

BN: "And can you believe it, this chariot comes along, a man, a pair of horsemen. And he answered me, he said, 'Fallen. Bavel is fallen. Every one of its statues to its gods lie broken on the ground.'"

VE HINEH... I have the distinct impression that Y-Y is trying to do the voice of the watchman, decidedly Cockney in its, yer know, not exactly being grammatical.

VA YA'AN: A piece of text is missing here: "So I called down to him, and said, oi you, what you doing 'ere..." after which VA YA'AN, "and he answered".

If I were a Moslem reading this verse, I would be intrigued to know if Muhammad was also familiar with it! The conquest of Mecca, December 629 by today's calendar, January 630 by the then Julian, 10th to the 20th of Ramadan 8 AH in the Moslem. 

21:10 MEDUSHATI U VEN GARNI ASHER SHAMA'TI ME ET YHVH TSEVA'OT ELOHEY YISRA-EL HIGADETI LACHEM

מְדֻשָׁתִי וּבֶן גָּרְנִי אֲשֶׁר שָׁמַעְתִּי מֵאֵת יְהוָה צְבָאוֹת אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל הִגַּדְתִּי לָכֶם

KJ: O my threshing, and the corn of my floor: that which I have heard of the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, have I declared unto you.

BN: And you, my threshed corn, and you, the product of the winnowing, that which I have heard from YHVH, the Lord of the Hosts of the Heavens, the god of Yisra-El, I have reported to you. {P}

MEDUSHATI: I am assuming that the "man" from Bavel has finished speaking, and the tower-guard too has finished speaking, that this is once again Y-Y, wrapping up his oracle. He uses Tammuz images - the corn-god born on the threshing-floor at Sol Invictus, the reaped harvest - but they feel incomplete, and then the text shifts to a completely separate oracle - I suspect that something in the original writing down may be missing or in error here, perhaps what should have been two shorter chapters were erroneously fused as one. Check the Qumran version to see if it is the same there; but Qumran is much later and could have picked up the error, as Septuagint and Latin translations clearly do.

What follows next is clearly a new chapter, but not presented as such. Perhaps because the same happens more than once - see verse 13. (And of course the original Yehudit text didn't do chapters anyway, they are a later, Christian, emendation).


21:11 MASA DUMAH ELAI KOR'E MI SE'IR SHOMER MAH MI LAILAH SHOMER MA MI LEYL

מַשָּׂא דּוּמָה אֵלַי קֹרֵא מִשֵּׂעִיר שֹׁמֵר מַה מִּלַּיְלָה שֹׁמֵר מַה מִּלֵּיל

KJ: The burden of Dumah. He calleth to me out of Seir, Watchman, what of the night? Watchman, what of the night?

BN (option a): A pronouncement on Dumah. One calls to me from Se'ir: "Watchman, what did you see this night? Watchman, what do you see at nighttime?"

Shifts now to Dumah, but Dumah ("silence") is not an actual place, it is a poetic name for She'ol, the Underworld. So we have witnessed the corn god in his spring and autumn equinox manifestations, and now, after being winnowed in verse 10, he descends into the Winter phase in verse 11. These things do not happen in poetry or Prophetic oracles by randomness, accident or chance. And now look at Psalm 22, which is, as per my note at the link to Dumah: "the Psalm of the journey of the Earth-god through the Underworld, which in this case is the night sky, emerging at Ayalet ha Shachar, which is the dawn."

But if DUMAH is not a place, should we not read this as:

BN (option b): An oracle: Silence calls to me from Se'ir. "Watchman, what did you see this night? Watchman, what do you see at nighttime?"

Word-order and phrasing makes this a much more plausible reading.

Se'ir, also mentioned here, is a geographical reality, linked inexorably with Edom through Kayin (Cain), Esav (Esau) and Yishma-El (Ishmael); so again we are oracling foreign realms who have been Yisra-El's traditional enemies. And again the watchman (which may explain why two separate texts became linked), who reports cryptically in 21:12.

But if DUMAH is not a place, maybe SE'IR isn't either, or at least its mythological side renders it something different from a mere place. Go to my link on the name, above, and you will see that Se'ir served as a Kena'ani equivalent of Egyptian Set, the goat-god sent down into the Underworld, carrying human sins upon its back.

MI LALAH... MI LEYL: It looks at first like a textual error, but it is what the original Yehudit text says. LAILAH is the generality of night-time, which of course is another occasion of the Netherworld, alongside Winter and Death. But the Jewish day begins in the evening ("and there was evening, and then morning", as per Genesis 1), with the moon, and not in the morning with the sun. So, for example, when Jews today speak of LEYL SHABAT, they mean specifically the Friday evening, rather than any part of the Saturday. So DUMAH (see my note, above) reflects the night journey, as SE'IR (see my note, above) reflects the night journey. And then...

21:12 AMAR SHOMER ATAH BOKER VE GAM LAILAH IM TIV'AYUN BE'AYU SHUVU ETAYU

אָמַר שֹׁמֵר אָתָה בֹקֶר וְגַם לָיְלָה אִם תִּבְעָיוּן בְּעָיוּ שֻׁבוּ אֵתָיוּ

KJ: The watchman said, The morning cometh, and also the night: if ye will enquire, enquire ye: return, come.

BN: The watchman said: "Now is morning, but also night - if you must ask, do so. Ask, go home, come back, ask again." {P}

Once again that "darkness at noon" that we encountered in 16:3. 

ATAH: Means now. This is not a suggestion that "darkness at noon" is coming, as in the KJ. It is here, right now. Which is why I have slightly extended my translation of the last three words, to emphasise that it is now, and it is not going to change later on.

Once again this feels like an incomplete piece, perhaps two verses fragmented from something larger, elsewhere in the book, or not even included in the book.

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21:13 MASA BA ERAV BA YA'AR BA ERAV TALIYNU ORCHOT DEDANIM

מַשָּׂא בַּעְרָב בַּיַּעַר בַּעְרַב תָּלִינוּ אֹרְחוֹת דְּדָנִים

KJ: The burden upon Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall ye lodge, O ye travelling companies of Dedanim.

BN: The pronouncement on Arabia. In the forest in Arabia shall you lodge, you lawyers of the Dedanim.

And then another change, not of chapter, but of the subject of Y-Y's visions, this time to Arabia, which ties in with Se'ir and 21:2. The Dedanim appeared in the Genesis Toldot, once as an error for Rodanim, once as themselves. If I am right about the Davidic links, then we are in fact tracing the Tammuz route back to its source: the Aravah first, then across Mount Se'ir into the Jordanian desert, and now east into Arabia.

ERAV: But couldn't that just as easily be a pronouncement on the evening - HA EREV (עֶרֶב)? The word-play is unavoidable, though the verse will need to be placed before DUMAH, not after it, as here, to make chronological sense. Or have we already completed the day, and this is the evening of the second day?

ORCHOT: So too with this word we have to read both of its meanings: 

i) CARAVANS, from the root ARACH, "to go", which is usually LALECHET, so here understood as wandering, though there is also LENADNED for that (see the next verse). Genesis 37:25 makes it a travelling company, Judges 19:17 a wayfarer... and  many others.

ii) EDICTS, ADVICE, JUDGEMENT, from the root ARACH, spelled exactly the same, though it does rather overlap with ARACH spelled with an Ayin, from which we get the term for a "lawyer" - ORECH DIN (ערך דין). And is that not rather more what this is about, than wandering caravans? ARUCHAH, from this root, is used today to mean "a meal", but in its original usage it was not just any meal at any time, but a fixed diet at a fixed time; or indeed anything arranged by edict, medical prescription, prison rules etc. See 2 Kings 25:30.

21:14 LIKRA'T TSAM'E TEHAYU MAYIM YOSHVEY ERETS TEYMA BE LACHMO KIDMU NODED

לִקְרַאת צָמֵא הֵתָיוּ מָיִם יֹשְׁבֵי אֶרֶץ תֵּימָא בְּלַחְמוֹ קִדְּמוּ נֹדֵד

KJ: The inhabitants of the land of Tema brought water to him that was thirsty, they prevented with their bread him that fled.

BN: Bring water for he who is thirsty! The inhabitants of the land of Teyma brought bread for the wanderers.

Is Teyma a variation of Teman, which is the Yemen? Which of course is on the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, so it fits with verse 1 and the names above.

NODED: "Him that fled", as in the KJ translation, could mean somebody running from the law, but verse 15 rejects that: these are people who have either deserted, or been sent flying in all directions, by the swords of war. I raise this only because the traditional undersandiong of the root NOD is that Arabia was "the Land of Nod" in which Kayin wandered after killing Havel. That myth is intended to explain why some people are sedentary and others nomadic, and therefore LENADNED, the verb, means "to wander" (cf Psalm 55:8), and all these branches relate to the nomadic life of the Arabian Bedou. Yet the next verse definitely has them fleeing.

So we do what we always do in circumstances such as these, which is to track down other usages in the Tanach. And how curious, that the first place to occur with the other meaning, "fleeing", should be Psalm 31:12, the very next verse after our previous unusually used word: ANCHATAH at verse 2. Or look at Psalm 68:13, or Job 18:18, several others. So apparently this word did acquire a second meaning, and it is that meaning which is in use here.

And is he predicting the downfall of all these regions of Arabia, or is the journey into night an account of the journey of the exiles into Arabia, either in 722 or, more likely as far south as this, of 586 BCE? If so, "refugees" is definitely not appropriate, and "fugitives" becomes even less so. I am sticking to "wanderers" nonetheless, and hope to resolve the context eventually. Perhaps the next verse will help.

21:15 KI MI PENEY CHARAVOT NADADU MI PENEY CHEREV NETUSHAH U MI PENEY KESHET DERUCHAH U MI PENEY KOVED MILCHAMAH

כִּי מִפְּנֵי חֲרָבוֹת נָדָדוּ מִפְּנֵי חֶרֶב נְטוּשָׁה וּמִפְּנֵי קֶשֶׁת דְּרוּכָה וּמִפְּנֵי כֹּבֶד מִלְחָמָה

KJ: For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the grievousness of war.

BN: For they fled from the swords, from the drawn sword, and from the bent bow, and from the sheer brutality of war. {S}

NETUSHAH: at first sight, an instrument of war named a Netushah... but then, on second hearing, the rockets fired out of southern Lebanon in the early 1980s were Katyushah, with a Yud, and I think that Tet (ט) was a Tav (ת)...

This is definitely not the captive Yehudim en route to exile.

21:16 KI CHOH AMAR ADONAI ELAI BE OD SHANAH KI SHENEY SACHIR VE CHALAH KOL KEVOD KEDAR

כִּי כֹה אָמַר אֲדֹנָי אֵלָי בְּעוֹד שָׁנָה כִּשְׁנֵי שָׂכִיר וְכָלָה כָּל כְּבוֹד קֵדָר

KJ: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail:

BN: For thus did the Lord say to me: "Within a year, according to the years of a hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail;

ADONAI: Several times in recent passages it has been unclear whether ADONAI meant "Sire", and was addressed to the king, or "Lord", and was addressed to YHVH. Clearly YHVH here.

Kedar is found in Canticles 1:5. Y-Y mentions it again in 42:11 and 60:7. Interesting choice though, for a piece that appears to be all about darkness, blackness, winter and night-time: that Canticles verse describes the colour of the lover's skin as being "black as the tents of Kedar". Arabian black rather than African black, but black is black is black.


21:17 U SHE'AR MISPAR KESHET GIBOREY VENEY KEDAR YIM'ATU KI YHVH ELOHEY YISRA-EL DIBER

וּשְׁאָר מִסְפַּר קֶשֶׁת גִּבּוֹרֵי בְנֵי קֵדָר יִמְעָטוּ כִּי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל דִּבֵּר

KJ: And the residue of the number of archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, shall be diminished: for the LORD God of Israel hath spoken it.

BN: And those remaining of the archers, of the soldiers of the Beney Kedar, they shall be reduced to very few; for YHVH, the god of Yisra-El, has declared it. {S}

DIBER: See my previous notes on this.

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