Bible Strands
Isaiah 21:5
They prepare a table, they lay out a carpet, they eat, they drink! Rise up, O princes, oil the shields!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The prophet relays a vision of sudden judgment to Judah, positioned between his own trembling fear in Isaiah 21:4 and a divine command to post a lookout in Isaiah 21:6. The text describes a scene of careless revelry abruptly interrupted by a call to arms for Babylonian officials.
The words — The Hebrew verb עָרֹ֧ךְ ('a.Rokh) literally means "they are arranging," describing how a table (הַ/שֻּׁלְחָ֛ן, ha./shul.Chan) is set beside a rug (הַ/צָּפִ֖ית, ha./tza.Fit). The imperative ק֥וּמוּ (Ku.mu) commands officials (הַ/שָּׂרִ֖ים, ha./sa.Rim) to rise and prepare for combat.
The thread — The pattern of a feast followed by sudden violence appears in Jeremiah 51:11, Jeremiah 51:39, and Jeremiah 51:57, where a divinely orchestrated drinking feast precedes the mobilization and fall of Babylonian leaders. These passages share a literary structure of revelry interrupted by military action and judgment.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that perceived security and indulgence are immediately vulnerable to divine intervention. It requires the reader to treat warnings of sudden judgment as factual rather than metaphorical.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Prepare the table, watch in the watchtower, eat, drink: arise, ye princes, and anoint the shield.
Cross-references
- Jeremiah 51:11 Sharpen the arrows! Fill the quivers! The LORD has aroused the spirit of the kings of the Medes, because His plan is aimed at Babylon to destroy her, for it is the vengeance of the LORD—vengeance for His temple.
- Jeremiah 51:39 While they are flushed with heat, I will serve them a feast, and I will make them drunk so that they may revel; then they will fall asleep forever and never wake up, declares the LORD.
- Jeremiah 51:57 I will make her princes and wise men drunk, along with her governors, officials, and warriors. Then they will fall asleep forever and not wake up,” declares the King, whose name is the LORD of Hosts.
- Daniel 5:1 Later, King Belshazzar held a great feast for a thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine with them.
- Isaiah 13:2 Raise a banner on a barren hilltop; call aloud to them. Wave your hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.
- Isaiah 13:17 Behold, I will stir up against them the Medes, who have no regard for silver and no desire for gold.
- Isaiah 22:13 But look, there is joy and gladness, butchering of cattle and slaughtering of sheep, eating of meat and drinking of wine: “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!”
- Isaiah 45:1 This is what the LORD says to Cyrus His anointed, whose right hand I have grasped to subdue nations before him, to disarm kings, to open the doors before him, so that the gates will not be shut:
- Jeremiah 51:27 “Raise a banner in the land! Blow the ram’s horn among the nations! Prepare the nations against her. Summon the kingdoms against her—Ararat, Minni, and Ashkenaz. Appoint a captain against her; bring up horses like swarming locusts.
- 1 Corinthians 15:32 If I fought wild beasts in Ephesus for human motives, what did I gain? If the dead are not raised, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.”