What Does Isaiah 21:5 Mean?

(5) **Prepare the table, watch in the watch-tower.**—The words (historical infinitive) are better taken as indicative: *They prepare ***. . .** *they watch. *The last clause has been variously rendered, *they spread the coverlet; i.e., *for the couches of the revellers (Amos 6:4); and *they take a horoscopes *(Ewald). Here, with hardly a shadow of a doubt, there is a reference to the temper of reckless revel such as was the immediate forerunner of the capture of Babylon. The prophet had, perhaps, an analogue of such blind security before his eyes at the very time he wrote (Isaiah 22:13), which led him to anticipate a like state of things in Babylon. **Anoint the shield . . .**—The summons is one which in the prophet’s vision breaks in on the songs and music of the revel. The shields thought of were those covered with leather, which was oiled, partly to protect it from wet, partly to make the stroke of the sword glide off from it. The call implies that even this precaution had been neglected by the revellers.