1 Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; 2 that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, "Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide!" 3 All you inhabitants of the world, and you dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the trumpet is blown, listen! 4 For Yahweh said to me, "I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." 5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches. 6 They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will summer on them, and all the animals of the earth will winter on them. 7 In that time, a present will be brought to Yahweh of Armies from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh of Armies, Mount Zion.
'The eighteenth chapter of Isaiah,' says bishop Horsley, 'is one of the most obscure passages of the ancient prophets. It has been considered as such by the whole succession of interpreters from Jerome to Dr. Lowth.' 'The object of it,' says Dr. Lowth, 'the end and design of it; the people to whom it is addressed; the history to which it belongs; the person who sends the messengers; and the nation to whom they are sent, are all obscure and doubtful. Much of the obscurity lies in the highly figurative cast of the language, and in the ambiguity of some of the principal words, arising from the great variety of the senses often comprehended under the primary meaning of a single root.'
Lowth supposes that Egypt is the country referred to; that the prophecy was delivered before the return of Sennacherib's expedition to Egypt; and that it was designed to give to the Jews, and perhaps likewise to the Egyptians, an intimation of the destruction of their great and powerful enemy. Taylor, the editor of Calmet's "Dictionary," supposes that it relates to a people lying in southern, or Upper Egypt, or the country above the cataracts of the Nile, that is, Nubia; and that the people to whom the message is sent are those who were situated north on the river Nile: where the various streams which go to form the Nile become a single river; and that the nation represented as 'scattered and peeled,' or as he renders it, 'a people contracted and deprived,' that is, in their persons, refers to the Pigmies, as they are described by Homer, Sirabo, and others (see this view drawn out in the "Fragments" appended to Calmet's "Dict." No. cccxxii.) Rosenmuller says of this prophecy, that 'it is involved in so many: and so great difficulties, on account of unusual expressions and figurative sentences, and the history of those times, so little known to us, that it is impossible to explain and unfold it.
We seem to be reading mere "enigmas," in explaining which, although many learned interpreters have taken great pains, yet scarcely two can be found who agree.' Gesenius connects it with the closing verse of the previous chapter; and so does also Vitringa. Gesenius supposes that it refers to a nation in distant Ethiopia in alliance with Israel. To this, says he, and to all the nations of the earth, the prophet addresses himself, in order to draw their attention to the sudden overthrow which God would bring upon the enemy, after he has quietly looked upon their violence for a long time. According to this view, the prophecy belongs to the period immediately preceding the 14th year of Hezekiah, when the Assyrian armies had already overrun, or were about to overrun Palestine on their way to Egypt, and the prophet confidently predicts their destruction. At this time, he remarks, Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, with a part of Egypt, had armed himself against the Assyrians, for which purpose he had probably entered into an alliance with the Hebrews. To this friend and ally of Israel, the prophet gives the assurance that God was about to destroy completely the common enemy, the Assyrian. By some, the land here referred to has been supposed to be Egypt; by others, Ethiopia in Africa; by others, Judea; by others, the Roman empire; and others have supposed that it refers to the destruction of Gog and Magog in the times of the Messiah. Vitringa supposes that the prophecy must be referred either to the Egyptians or the Assyrians; and as there is no account, he says, of any calamity coming upon the Egyptians like that which is described in Isaiah 17:4-6, and as that description is applicable to the destruction of the Assyrians under Sennacherib, he regards it as referring to him.
Calvin says that many have supposed that the Troglodytes of Upper Egypt are meant here, but that this is improbable, as they were not known to have formed any alliances with other nations. He supposes that some nation is referred to in the vicinity of Egypt and Ethiopia, but what people he does not even conjecture. Amidst this diversity of opinion, it may seem rash to hazard a conjecture in regard to the situation of the nation who sent the messengers, and the nation to whom they were "sent;" and it is obviously improper to hazard such a conjecture without a careful examination of the phrases and words which occur in the prophecy. When that is done - when the characteristics of the nation have been fully determined, then, perhaps, we may be able to arrive at some satisfactory conclusion in regard to this very difficult portion of the Bible. The prophecy consists of the following parts:
1. The prophet addresses him self to the nation here described as a 'land shadowing with wings,' and as sending ambassadors, in a manner designed to call their attention to the great events soon to occur Isaiah 18:1-2.
2. He addresses all nations, calling upon them also to attend to the same subject Isaiah 18:3.
3. He says that God had revealed to him that destruction should come upon the enemies here referred to, and that the immense host should be left to the beasts of the earth, and to the fowls of the mountains Isaiah 18:4-6.
4. The consequence, he says, of such events would be, that a present would be brought to Yahweh from the distant nation 'scattered and peeled,' and whose land the rivers had spoiled Isaiah 18:7.
This chapter contains a very obscure prophecy; possibly designed to give the Jews, and perhaps the Egyptians, whose country is supposed to be meant, Isaiah 18:1, Isaiah 18:2, and with whom many Jews resided, an indignation of God's interposition in favor of Sion, Isaiah 18:3, Isaiah 18:4; and of his counsels in regard to the destruction of their common enemy, Sennacherib, whose vast army, just as he thought his projects ripe, and ready to be crowned with success, Isaiah 18:5, should become a prey to the beasts of the field, and to the fowls of heaven, Isaiah 18:6; and that Egypt should be grateful to God for the deliverance vouchsafed her, Isaiah 18:7.
This is one of the most obscure prophecies in the whole Book of Isaiah. The subject of it, the end and design of it, the people to whom it is addressed, the history to which it belongs, the person who sends the messengers, and the nation to whom the messengers are sent, are all obscure and doubtful. - L.
INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 18
This chapter is a prophecy of the desolation of a land or country, described by the wings with which it was shaded, and by the rivers by which it was situated, Isaiah 18:1 by its messengers and message to another nation, which is also described, Isaiah 18:2 all the nations of the world are called upon to observe the judgment about to be inflicted on it, Isaiah 18:3 and a promise is made, that at the same time God will take up his rest and dwelling among his own people, and refresh and protect them, Isaiah 18:4 and the time, and manner, and nature of the destruction of the people before threatened, are metaphorically expressed, Isaiah 18:5 and the issue of all will be the glory of God, since these people will be brought, in after times, as a present to him in Mount Zion, Isaiah 18:7.
God's care for his people; and the increase of the church.
Ethiopia's Submission to Jehovah - Isaiah 18:1-7
The notion that Isaiah 18:4-6 contains an account of the judgment of Jehovah upon Ethiopia is quite an untenable one. The prophet is here predicting the destruction of the army of Sennacherib in his usual way, and in accordance with the actual fulfilment (Isaiah 37:36). The view which Hofmann has adopted from the Jewish expositors - namely, that the people so strangely described at the commencement and close of the prophecy is the Israelitish nation - is equally untenable. It is Ethiopia. Taking both these facts together, then, the conclusion to which we are brought is, that the prophet is here foretelling the effect that will be produced upon Ethiopia by the judgment which Jehovah is about to inflict upon Asshur. But it is altogether improbable either that the prophecy falls later than the Assyrian expedition against Egypt (as Schegg supposes), or that the Ethiopian ambassadors mentioned here are despatched to Judah to seek for friendship and aid (as Ewald, Knobel, Meier, and Thenius maintain). The expedition was still impending, and that against Judah was the means to this further end. The ambassadors are not sent to Judah, but carry commands with the most stirring despatch to every province under Ethiopian rule. The Ethiopian kingdom is thrown into the greatest excitement in the face of the approaching Assyrian invasion, and the messengers are sent out to raise the militia. At that time both Egypts were governed by the Ethiopian (or twenty-fifth) dynasty, Sabako the Ethiopian having made himself master of the country on the Lower Nile.
(Note: See Brugsch, Histoire d'Egypte, i. (1859) 244-246.)
The king of Egypt who was contemporaneous with Sennacherib was the Tirhaka of the Old Testament, the Tarakos of Manetho, and the Tearkon of Strabo - a great conqueror, according to Megasthenes, like Sesostris and Nebuchadnezzar, who had carried his conquests as far as the Pillars of Hercules (Strabo, xv 1, 6). This explains the strangely sounding description given in Isaiah 18:2, Isaiah 18:7 of the Ethiopian people, which had the universal reputation in antiquity of gigantic strength and invincibility. It is impossible to determine the length of time that intervened between the composition of the prophecy and the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, in which the Assyrian army commenced the expedition across Judah to Egypt. The event which the prophecy foretells - namely, that the judgment of Jehovah upon Asshur would be followed by the submission of Ethiopia to Jehovah - was only partially and provisionally fulfilled (2-Chronicles 32:23). And there is nothing to surprise us in this, inasmuch as in the prophecies delivered before the destruction of Assyria the latter always presented itself to the mind of the prophet as the kingdom of the world; and consequently the prophecy had also an eschatological feature, which still remained for a future and remote fulfilment.
*More commentary available by clicking individual verses.