Christianity was rejected by David Hume, the eighteenth-century British philosopher. A friend once met him hurrying along a London street and asked where he was going. “To hear George Whitefield preach,” he replied. “But surely,” his friend said with some astonishment, “you don’t believe what Whitefield preaches, do you?” “No, I don’t,” answered Hume, “but he does.” David Hume would have also likely gone to hear Isaiah. In chapter 21, we get a glimpse of the prophet’s personality, and it is evident that he was a sensitive man, deeply affected by the destruction which he foretold. Like Jesus, who wept over the sinful state of Jerusalem, and like Paul, who experienced the same emotions when he thought about the lost condition of his fellow Jews, Isaiah was deeply troubled by the thought of coming judgment. “I grow faint when I hear what God is planning; I am too afraid to look. My mind reels and my heart races” (v 3b-4a, NLT). An insincere preacher is hard to tolerate. But those who truly labor for God cannot help but be stirred by their own message. As Isaiah looks at the world, he helps us see through outward appearances into the inner character of cultures that are common still today. Babylon was a culture of hedonism, devoted to their pursuit of pleasure. But their self-indulgent luxury and confident sense of power will give way to complete devastation. Isaiah portrays them as “the wilderness of the sea,” which sounds contradictory, but he is foreseeing a time when they will be both deserted and flooded. In other words, Babylon is a doubly hopeless mess. Political and military betrayals will doom them, and the LORD calls Isaiah to serve as a lookout, warning of the invading army. As the book of Revelation tells us, this ancient prophecy foreshadows God’s final judgment of the entire world. But God’s suffering people, “threshed and winnowed,” oppressed by the powers of worldwide Babylon, are kept safe in His own mighty care (v 1-10). Seir, or Edom, was a culture of despair. This is where Jacob’s twin brother Esau went. The Edomites often treated God’s people with brutality. Despite the sad question one of them asks Isaiah, they will remain as “Dumah,” which means silence. They are given no answer, no word of hope from God (v 11-12). Next Isaiah sees a culture of decline. The name “Arabia” sounds like the Hebrew word for “evening,” so the prophet uses this word play to announce an Arabian twilight from which they will not recover. Arabia felt safely remote, far from the prophet’s voice. But soon they will be overwhelmed as desperate refugees of war. Human distress is coming; their glory is ending (v 13-17). For further meditation: