Bible Commentaries

THE BURDEN OF DUMAH

‘Watchman, what of the night?… The morning cometh.’

Isaiah 21:11-12

Isaiah was pre-eminently the patriot-prophet of Judah. He was ever on his watch-tower guarding the movements of surrounding nations as well as the highest interests of his own people. In this chapter he pronounces their destinies. In this instance he hears the needy cry of Edom and answers it. We note—

I. The announcement of a piteous cry.—‘Seir’ was a mountain range in Edom—Esau’s inheritance—so called, possibly, from its rugged, serrated appearance, or more probably from the awful silence of its wild solitudes. From those silent and jagged rocks, where the sentinels of Edom were wont to watch the foe, the voice seemed to come to Isaiah as the watchman-prophet of Jerusalem. The closeness of the relationship between the descendants of Esau and Jacob only added to the bitterness of the hatred that sprang up between them. The Edomites were the constant terror of the people of Judah on their southern frontier. Thus Edom symbolised to them the sinful and hostile world around. Hence the force of the figure (Isaiah 63) of the great Conqueror and Deliverer coming from Edom. It was from the land of the most inveterate foe of the Jewish people that Isaiah heard this cry, ‘How far is the night gone?’ or ‘How much longer will it last?’ The repetition of the cry in a condensed form shows further the intensity of the yearning for morning. Thus Isaiah traces down deep in the heart of Edom a misery, and a yearning for the light and joy which only God could send.

II. The reply given to that cry.—The reply was enigmatical, yet painfully significant. A glimmering of dawn would come to them, but only to deepen again into darkness. Their history would be the alternations of dawning day and darkening night. That, in brief enigmatical form, was all that the prophet could now say. But with a heart that could pity the cry of those, whom as a mere patriot he would have found most difficult to pity, he closed his answer in a burst of gracious encouragement: ‘If ye will inquire, inquire ye: return ye, come.’ In other words, ‘If you are in earnest, go on asking, yea, and in asking turn your heart to Him Whom you have forsaken. Repeat the earnest question until a fuller and more gracious answer be sent you.’ Here the patriot is lost in the prophet and evangelist. In these closing words we have the Gospel of Isaiah to desolate Edom.

Now, just as Isaiah heard the sad cry of Edom, or St. Paul the needy cry of Macedonia, may Christian watchmen hear the needy cry of a hostile but sad world. Beneath all their hostility we may trace their misery. Shall we not fling the glad message of love and mercy back to the world from our watch-towers, and thus meet its enmity and misery with the story of the Cross!

Illustration

‘To those that watch the Eastern sky, standing on the mount of vision afforded by the Word of God, there is but one answer—“The morning cometh, but also the night.” The morning of millennial glory, and of the bridal chamber; of the taking home of the saints, and the revelation of Jesus Christ; but the night of unutterable sorrow to the servant who knew the Lord’s will and did it not, and to the world which would not have this Man to reign over it. Yet if individuals will turn from darkness to light, and from Satan to God, they shall receive an inheritance amongst the children of the morning.’