21:6,7
So the world knows nothing. God tells Isaiah to post a look out to see what is really happening. God then tells Isaiah what the lookout will see. He will see chariots, horses, donkeys and camels with their riders. Ie he will see invading armies. The response is then to be fully alert. In the gospels (eg parable of the wise and foolish virgins) and in various letters we are told to be alert and on our guard. We must be careful not to be taken in by the world, but to look to God for wisdom.
21:8,9
The prophecies in the Bible are not just giving information, or just telling what will happen in the future, they are creating a drama in order to communicate the message. The messages are meant to reach both the hearts and minds of the hearers. So the lookout, commanded in 21:6, stays at his post doing his job. He is there day after day, night after night, and seemingly nothing is happening. Then one day he sees a man in a chariot with a team of horses and the man gives the message “Babylon has fallen”. “Babylon has fallen” is a constant refrain in Revelation (Rev 14:8, 18:2; 19:1-10). Babylon did fall in 689 BC and 539 BC. The first of these falls would be the defeat of a nation that Judah so as a possible ally against Assyria, the second is the fall on her cruel oppressor. Whether Judah saw Babylon as a potential saviour, or as an oppressor from whom she would never escape, she was wrong!
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