Isaiah 21:16
For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail: For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Within a year, according to the years of an hireling, and all the glory of Kedar shall fail:
Isaiah 21:16 stands within a series of burdens or prophecies concerning nations such as Babylon, Philistia, and Moab. It fixes a precise limit for Kedar, that within one year all its glory would fail. That year is measured as exactly as the agreed term of a hired worker, as strictly and precisely counted as a hireling counts his contracted time.
Its fulfillment came upon the Ishmaelites and other Arab tribes in their being harassed by Assyrian and Chaldean power, with some of their tribes nearly wiped out, though the Arabs as a people were not ultimately subdued. The one-year period is a basis for reckoning a prophetic day as twelve months. That within a year is linked with the year of the redeemed and the day of vengeance in support of the use of a prophetic year. It has a special application in the coming time of trouble, when the remnant church which keeps God's commandments must flee from its persecutors.