Isaiah 21:16
16 For thus hath the Lord ['Adonay] said ['amar] unto me,
Within a year [shaneh (in pl. only),],
according to the years [shaneh (in pl. only),]
of an hireling [sakiyr], and all the glory [kabowd] of Kedar [Qedar] shall fail
[kalah]: KJV-Interlinear
16 For thus the Lord said to me,
"In a year, as a hired man would count it, all the splendor of Kedar will
terminate; NASB
The year being
now mentioned is an exact one year. It is
not a figure of speech nor symbolic in any way. But the time of that year was
not in the past, but in the future at the end of human history. Human history is defined as the time when man
rules, and will end when Christ returns at the Second Advent and then sets up
His own rule in Gods Kingdom here on the earth for that 1000 year period called
the Millennium.
The Tribulation
is the last seven year period wherein the anti-christ will rule and virtually bring
the world to the brink of total destruction.
The Tribulation is
seven years in its total duration, and is divided up into two halves, each half
lasting three-and-a-half years. It is in
the last half of the Tribulation that most of the worst calamities will occur.
Kedar, was a son
of Ishmael. The Kedites are an ambiguous
people who did not have a permanent home, but were nomadic in nature, and lived
in the general region of Arabia, always on the move.
And that is what
this verse is describing, an undefined and general region, along with a vague
description of a people that were comingled with many peoples.
When the middle of
the Tribulation occurs, the anti-christ will dedicate a newly constructed
temple in Jerusalem. In that dedication,
he will take the seat of God thus becoming the abomination of
abominations. It is at that time that a
great assault against the Jewish people will begin. The Bible warns all who see that event, to
get out and to get out now. The
slaughter will be great. Sooner or later
this war will overflow into the latter portion of the Tribulation, and at some
point the Armageddon campaign will begin.
At some point, this trouble will reach into the Arabian Desert and all
that was there, all of its grandeur, all of its trade, all that is held dearly,
will no longer exist in the space of a single year.
The year is a
workers paid year, not just a season, but in the space of a twelve month year.
For those who
live in that region at that time, and if they should happen upon these words of
Isaiah, then they have fair warning to get out, but we already know that they
have nowhere to go, so their one and only hope is faith in Christ, such that if
they hide well, they just might survive until the Second Advent, otherwise if
they are caught up in death as will happen to nearly everyone, then they will
at least end up in heaven and an eternal life with God.
Of those of us
that are alive now during this Church Age, then our priority is to advance in
our spiritual lives, as God has graciously given us time to live now, and to
advance now, under circumstances that even the worst of which are pretty good when
compared to the Tribulation.
