Note 544 — Chapter XXVII
Reading edition
Isa. xxi. 6, A.V., "Watch in the watch-tower." Hitzig, Cheyne, "They spread the carpets." Much in this short oracle (xxi. 1-10) is obscure. Isaiah seems, in denouncing the fate of Babylon, to mourn for the ruin of the smaller states of which it was the prelude (G. Smith, Soc. of Bibl. Arch., ii. 320 Kleinert, Stud. u. Krit., 1877 W. R. Smith in Enc. Brit., s.v. "Isaiah").