[[Isa-21]] Prev: [[Prophecies in Isa-20]] | Next: [[Prophecies in Isa-22]] --- ### Go up, Elam; attack! I have stopped all of Media's sighing. ... Behold, here comes a troop of men, horsemen in pairs. He answered, 'Fallen, fallen is Babylon; and all the engraved images of her gods are broken to the ground.' *Type*: prophecy *Summary*: The prophet predicts the fall of the Babylonian Empire at the hands of the Medes and the Persians (Elamites), resulting in the destruction of Babylon's idols. *Historical context*: This prophecy was historically fulfilled in 539 BC when the Medo-Persian coalition, under Cyrus the Great, conquered Babylon. Historical records like the Cyrus Cylinder and the Nabonidus Chronicle confirm that the Persians (often identified with Elam in older texts) and the Medes were the primary forces that overthrew the Babylonian Empire, marking the end of its supremacy and the destruction of its religious hegemony. *Related to*: ### Within a year, as a worker bound by contract would count it, all the glory of Kedar will fail, and the residue of the number of the archers, the mighty men of the children of Kedar, will be few. *Type*: prophecy *Summary*: A specific time-bound prediction stating that within exactly one year, the military power and prestige of the Arabian tribe of Kedar will be decimated. *Historical context*: Theologians and historians identify the fulfillment of this prophecy in the campaigns of the Assyrian kings Sargon II (c. 715 BC) or Sennacherib (c. 688 BC). Assyrian annals record a targeted campaign against the Arabian tribes of Kedar and their queens, resulting in the capture of their gods and the scattering of their famous bowmen, occurring shortly after the prophecy was given. *Related to*: ### In the forest in Arabia you will lodge, you caravans of Dedanites. They brought water to him who was thirsty. The inhabitants of the land of Tema met the fugitives with their bread. For they fled away from the swords... *Type*: prophecy *Summary*: A prediction of a sudden military invasion that would force the wealthy merchant caravans of the Dedanites to hide in the thickets and seek refuge/sustenance from the people of Tema. *Historical context*: This was fulfilled during the Neo-Assyrian expansion into the Arabian Peninsula. The Dedanites were prominent merchants whose trade routes were disrupted by the Assyrian army. Inscriptions from the reign of Tiglath-Pileser III and Sargon II describe subduing these desert regions, causing the displacement of tribal groups as described in the vision. *Related to*: ### The burden of Dumah. One calls to me out of Seir, 'Watchman, what of the night?' ... The watchman said, 'The morning comes, and also the night.' *Type*: prophecy *Summary*: A prophecy regarding Dumah (Edom/Seir), suggesting a brief period of relief (morning) followed by a return to darkness or desolation (night). *Historical context*: Historically, Edom (associated with Seir and Dumah) experienced cycles of brief independence or relief followed by total conquest by the Assyrians, then the Babylonians, and finally the Nabataeans. The 'night' of this prophecy culminated in the eventual disappearance of the Edomite nation from history, a state of 'silence' which is the literal meaning of the name Dumah. *Related to*: --- #ai_prophecy