A grievous vision is declared to me; the {c} treacherous dealer dealeth treacherously, and the spoiler spoileth. Go up, O {d} Elam: besiege, O Media; all her sighing have I made {e} to cease.

(c) The Assyrians and Chaldeans who had destroyed other nations will be overcome by the Medes and Persians: and this he prophesied a hundred years before it came to pass.

(d) By Elam he means the Persians.

(e) Because they will find no comfort, they will mourn no more, or I have caused them to cease mourning, whom Babylon had afflicted.

Wesley's Notes

21:2 A vision - A vision or prophecy, containing dreadful calamities which were to fall upon Babylon. The spoiler - The Medes and Persians used treachery as well as force against Babylon. Elam - Persia, so called, because Elam was an eminent province of Persia, bordering upon the Medes. Besiege - Namely, Babylon, ver.9. The sighing - The sighing and groaning of God's people, and other nations under the oppressions of that cruel empire.

King James Translators' Notes

grievous: Heb. hard

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. dealeth treacherously-referring to the military stratagem employed by Cyrus in taking Babylon. It may be translated, "is repaid with treachery"; then the subject of the verb is Babylon. She is repaid in her own coin; Isa 33:1; Hab 2:8, favor this.

Go up-Isaiah abruptly recites the order which he hears God giving to the Persians, the instruments of His vengeance (Isa 13:3, 17).

Elam-a province of Persia, the original place of their settlement (Ge 10:22), east of the Euphrates. The name "Persia" was not in use until the captivity; it means a "horseman"; Cyrus first trained the Persians in horsemanship. It is a mark of authenticity that the name is not found before Daniel and Ezekiel [Bochart].

thereof-the "sighing" caused by Babylon (Isa 14:7, 8).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

21:1-10 Babylon was a flat country, abundantly watered. The destruction of Babylon, so often prophesied of by Isaiah, was typical of the destruction of the great foe of the New Testament church, foretold in the Revelation. To the poor oppressed captives it would be welcome news; to the proud oppressors it would be grievous. Let this check vain mirth and sensual pleasures, that we know not in what heaviness the mirth may end. Here is the alarm given to Babylon, when forced by Cyrus. An ass and a camel seem to be the symbols of the Medes and Persians. Babylon's idols shall be so far from protecting her, that they shall be broken down. True believers are the corn of God's floor; hypocrites are but as chaff and straw, with which the wheat is now mixed, but from which it shall be separated. The corn of God's floor must expect to be threshed by afflictions and persecutions. God's Israel of old was afflicted. Even then God owns it is his still. In all events concerning the church, past, present, and to come, we must look to God, who has power to do any thing for his church, and grace to do every thing that is for her good.