8. xx. UNTITLED. Also upon Egypt, but in narrative and of an earlier date than at least the latter half of xix. Tells how Isaiah walked naked and barefoot in the streets of Jerusalem for a sign against Egypt and against the help Judah hoped to get from her in the years 711-709, when the Tartan, or Assyrian commander-in-chief, came south to subdue Ashdod. See pp. 198-200. 9. xxi. 1-10. ORACLE FOR THE WILDERNESS OF THE SEA, announcing but lamenting the fall of Babylon. Probably 709. See pp. 202, 203. 10. xxi. 11, 12. ORACLE FOR DUMAH. Dumah, or _Silence_--in Ps. xciv. 17, cxv. 17, _the land of the silence of death_, the grave--is probably used as an anagram for Edom and an enigmatic sign to the wise Edomites, in their own fashion, of the kind of silence their land is lying under--the silence of rapid decay. The prophet hears this silence at last broken by a cry. Edom cannot bear the darkness any more. _Unto me one is calling from Seir, Watchman, how much off the night? how much off the night?[52] Said the watchman, Cometh the morning, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire, come back again._ What other answer is possible for a land on which the silence of decay seems to have settled down? He may, however, give them an answer later on, if they will come back. Date uncertain, perhaps between 704 and 701. [52] Our translation, though picturesque, is misleading. The voice does not inquire, "What of the night?" _i.e._, whether it be fair or foul weather, but "How much of the night is passed?" literally "What from off the night?" This brings out a pathos that our English version has disguised. Edom feels that her night is lasting terribly long. 11. xxi. 13-17. ORACLE FOR ARABIA. From Edom the prophet passes to their neighbours the Dedanites, travelling 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 merchants have to go aside from their great trading roads _in 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.