Matthew Poole and continuators on Isaiah 21:1

THE burden of the desert of the sea . As whirlewinds in the south pass through , so it cometh from the desert , from a terrible land .

Of Babylon, as is evident both from her destroyers, the Medians, v. 2. and especially from v. 9. where she is named. She seems to be called Desert Prophetically, to intimate, that although she was now a most Popular City and Kingdom, yet shortly she should be turned into a Desolate Wilderness, as was threatned ch. 13. 19. &c. But the Word here rendred Desert sometime signifies a Plain, as a very learned Interpreter hath observed, and thus it most properly agrees to Babylon and the Land about it, which Geographers note to be a very plain Country, without any Considerable Mountains in it. It is called the Desert of the Sea, because it is scituate by the Sea, as the Isles of the Sea, Est. 10. 1. are those Countries which were beside the Sea. And the Title of the Sea might well be given to the Waters of Babylon, because of the great plenty and multitude of them, the great Channel of Euphrates, and the several lesser Channels cut out, and the vast Lakes of Water; in which respects it is said to sit upon many waters, Ier. 51. 13. the Name of sea being given by the Hebrews to every great Collection of Waters.

In those Parts which lay Southward from Iudea, where there were many and great Desarts, in which the Winds have greater force. See Iob 1. 19. Ier. 4. 11.

As meeting with no stop or opposition.

The Burden or Judgment. Or, he, the Median, as it is in the next Verse.

From Media and Persia; thus expressed, either because those Countries were full of Desarts, or because a great Desart lay between them and Chaldaea, as Geographers and Historians report.

From the Medes, a warlike and formidable People, as appears both from Sacred and Prophane Writers.

Marginal references: Zech. 9 14.