Isaiah 21:8

8 Then the watchman called out, “Day after day I have stood on the watchtower, my lord. Night after night I have remained at my post.

Isaiah 21:8 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 21:8

And he cried, a lion
That is, the watchman cried, a lion, or that he saw a lion; not Uriah the priest, as the Septuagint; nor Habakkuk, as some Jewish writers; but Cyrus, at the head of the Persian and Median armies, compared to a lion for his fierceness, courage, and strength; see ( 2 Timothy 4:17 ) a type of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, by whom antichrist, or mystical Babylon, will be destroyed, ( Revelation 5:5 ) . The Targum is,

``the prophet said, the voice of armies, coming with coats of mail, as a lion.''

Aben Ezra interprets it, the watchman cried as a lion, with a great voice; upon sight of the chariots and horsemen, he lifted up his voice, and roared like a lion, to express the terror he was in, and the greatness of the calamity that was coming upon the city. I stand continually upon the watchtower in the daytime:
so that nothing could escape his notice: and I am set in my ward whole nights:
which expresses his diligence, vigilance, and constancy, in the discharge of his duty; and therefore what he said he saw might be depended on.

Isaiah 21:8 In-Context

6 Meanwhile, the Lord said to me, “Put a watchman on the city wall. Let him shout out what he sees.

7 He should look for chariots drawn by pairs of horses, and for riders on donkeys and camels. Let the watchman be fully alert.”

8 Then the watchman called out, “Day after day I have stood on the watchtower, my lord. Night after night I have remained at my post.

9 Now at last—look! Here comes a man in a chariot with a pair of horses!” Then the watchman said, “Babylon is fallen, fallen! All the idols of Babylon lie broken on the ground!”

10 O my people, threshed and winnowed, I have told you everything the LORD of Heaven’s Armies has said, everything the God of Israel has told me.

Footnotes

• [a]. As in Dead Sea Scrolls and Syriac version; Masoretic Text reads a lion.