11.  xxi.  13 — 17.  Oracle  for  Arabia.  From
Edom  the  prophet  passes  to  their  neighbours  the
Dedanites,  traveUing  merchants.  And  as  he  saw  night
upon  Edom,  so,  by  a  play  upon  words,  he  speaks  of
evening  upon  Arabia:  in  the  forest ^  in  Arabia^  or  with
the  same  consonants,  in  the  evening.  In  the  time  of
the  insecurity  of  the  Assyrian  invasion  the  travelling
nxerchants  have  to  go  aside  from  their  great  trading
roads  iit  the  evening  to  lodge  in  the  thickets.  There
they  entertain  fugitives,  or  (for  the  sense  is  not  quite
clear)  are  themselves  as  fugitives  entertained.  It  is  a
picture  of  the  grievousness  of  war,  which  was  now  upon
the  world,  flowing  down  even  those  distant,  desert
roads.  But  things  have  not  yet  reached  the  worst.  The
fugitives  are  but  the  heralds  of  armies,  that  within  a
year  shall  waste  the  children  of  Kedar^  for  Jehovah,  the
God  of  Israel,  hath  spoken  it.  So  did  the  prophet
of  little  Jerusalem  take  possession  of  even  the  far
deserts  in  the  name  of  his  nation's  God.
12.  xxiii.  Oracle  for  Tyre.  Elegy  over  its  fall,
probably  as  Sennacherib  came  south  upon  it  in  703  or
702.    To  be  further  considered  by  us  (pp.  288  ff.).
These  then  are  Isaiah's  oracles  for  the  Nations,  who
tremble,  intrigue  and  go  down  before  the  might  of
Assyria.
We  havc:  promised  to  gather  the  circumstances  and
meaning  of  these  prophecies  round  three  representative
texts.     These  are —

I.  Ah!  the  booming  of  the  peoples  y  the  multitudes,  like
the  booming  of  the  seas  they  boom;  and  the  rushing  of  the


278  THE  BOOK  OF  ISAIAH.
nations,  like  the  rushing  of  mighty  waters  they  rush;
nations,  like  the  rushing  of  many  waters  they  rush.
