Comentário sobre Isaías 21:5

setting up the lamp (הַצָּפִית), Set up the lamp. In Gen. Rabbah (63:14) we learn that people call a lamp צָפִיתָא.

צפה הצפית I think that these words are hap. leg., and that the phrase means sing the song.¹²A. V., Watch the watchtower.—Since the word is declared to be hap. leg., we can only test by the context whether the given translation is right or not. The arrangements of the feast necessitate perhaps the introduction of song and music.

eating, drinking And in the midst of the eating and the drinking, they cried, “Arise, princes!”

Arise ye princes, and anoint the shield. For Belshazzar was killed that same night, and Darius, the old, was anointed king. The king is called shield, מָגֵז, because he protects the people; comp. Behold, O Lord, our shield¹³Our shield is not in apposition to O Lord; it is the objective case, governed by the imperative behold, and refers to the same person as the face of our anointed in the second half of the verse. The words Arise, etc., are according to this interpretation, no longer the words of Belshazzar, but the words of the prophet addressed to the princes of Babylon. (Ps. 84:10)

anoint a shield They were shields of boiled leather, and they would anoint them with oil so that the weapons would glide off. The same is mentioned concerning Saul (II Sam. 1:21): “For there the shield of the mighty was rejected.” It rejected its anointing and did not absorb it, and Saul’s shield became as though it was not anointed with oil.