21:5 Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: {h} arise, ye princes, [and] anoint the shield.
(h) While they are eating and drinking, they will be commanded to run to their weapons.
21:5 Prepare - Furnish it with meats and drinks. The prophet foretells what the Babylonians would be doing when their enemies were at their doors. Watch - To give us notice of any approaching danger, that in the meantime we may more securely indulge ourselves. Princes - Of Babylon: arise from the table and run to your arms. Shield - Prepare yourselves and your arms for the approaching battle. The shield is put for all their weapons of offence and defence. They used to anoint their shields with oil, to preserve and polish them, and to make them slippery.
21:1-10 Babylon was a flat country, abundantly watered. The destruction of Babylon, so often prophesied of by Isaiah, was typical of the destruction of the great foe of the New Testament church, foretold in the Revelation. To the poor oppressed captives it would be welcome news; to the proud oppressors it would be grievous. Let this check vain mirth and sensual pleasures, that we know not in what heaviness the mirth may end. Here is the alarm given to Babylon, when forced by Cyrus. An ass and a camel seem to be the symbols of the Medes and Persians. Babylon's idols shall be so far from protecting her, that they shall be broken down. True believers are the corn of God's floor; hypocrites are but as chaff and straw, with which the wheat is now mixed, but from which it shall be separated. The corn of God's floor must expect to be threshed by afflictions and persecutions. God's Israel of old was afflicted. Even then God owns it is his still. In all events concerning the church, past, present, and to come, we must look to God, who has power to do any thing for his church, and grace to do every thing that is for her good.
