Perhaps no piece can be found which is more fa­mil­iar to the Amer­i­can church­es than this…Every man seems to think he un­der­stands it, and gives a force to its chal­lenge in the di­rect­ion of mis­sion­a­ry ef­fort at once. The brief pre­dic­tion in Isai­ah 21:11, 12, is, how­ev­er, one of the most ob­scure in the Bi­ble. The en­tire pro­phe­cy is con­tained in two vers­es of the chap­ter, and ap­pears to bear no re­la­tion to what goes be­fore it or what fol­lows. But the im­age it pre­sents is sin­gu­lar­ly dra­ma­tic and pic­tur­esque. The scene is laid in the midst of the Ba­by­lon­i­an ca­ptiv­i­ty. A lone­ly watch­man is rep­re­sent­ed as stand­ing on the ram­parts of some tow­er along the de­fenc­es of the ci­ta­del. He seems to be anx­ious­ly look­ing for the is­sues of the siege laid against it. The time is mid­night. Ca­lam­i­ty is over the land. The peo­ple are af­flict­ed. Their en­e­mies are press­ing them hard. That sol­i­tary sen­ti­nel sad­ly re­mains at his post, peer­ing into the un­lit gloom, try­ing to dis­cern signs of de­liv­er­ance. But the heav­ens are starl­ess and the im­pen­e­tra­ble clouds keep roll­ing on. Sud­den­ly an un­known voice pierc­es the air. Whe­ther in wail­ing sor­row or in bit­ter taunt, is not ev­i­dent; but out from the still­ness al­rea­dy grown op­press­ive breaks the ques­tion with re­pe­ti­tious per­ti­na­ci­ty—“Watch­man, what of the night? Watch­man, what of the night?” The sen­ti­nel waits through a moment of sur­prised me­di­ta­tion, and then tran­qui­lly an­swers: “The morn­ing cometh, and al­so the night: if ye will in­quire, in­quire ye: re­turn, come.” Then the di­a­logue laps­es in­to si­lence again, the night ga­thers its un­brok­en sha­dows deepe­r than ev­er.

This hymn evokes a vi­vid child­hood mem­o­ry. Two men with deep, so­nor­ous voic­es sang this song at the Christ­mas Eve mid­night ser­vice each year as long as we can re­mem­ber. The church was dark, the watch­man’s and tra­vel­er’s two lan­terns giv­ing the on­ly light in a hushed sanc­tu­a­ry. The watch­man stood at the al­tar, and the tra­vel­er slow­ly made his way down the aisle, as the two sang the quest­ion-re­ply vers­es to each other. It was hard to miss the sym­bol­ism of the lone­ly tra­vel­er mak­ing his way to the One Who sheds light on a dark world.