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Expositor's Bible Commentary Isaiah 18:1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: 32 CHAPTER XVII ISAIAH TO THE FOREIGN NATIONS 736-702 B.C. Isaiah 14:24-32 ; Isaiah 15:1-9 ; Isaiah 16:1-14 ; Isaiah 17:1-14 ; Isaiah 18:1-7 ; Isaiah 19:1-25 ; Isaiah 20:1-6 ; Isaiah 21:1-17 ; Isaiah 23:1-18 THE centre of the Book of Isaiah (chapters 13 to 23) is occupied by a number of long and short prophecies which are a fertile source of perplexity to the conscientious reader of the Bible. With the exhilaration of one who traverses plain roads and beholds vast prospects, he has passed through the opening chapters of the book as far as the end of the twelfth; and he may look forward to enjoying a similar experience when he reaches those other clear stretches of vision from the twenty-fourth to the twenty-seventh and from the thirtieth to the thirty-second. But here he loses himself among a series of prophecies obscure in themselves and without obvious relation to one another. The subjects of them are the nations, tribes, and cities with which in Isaiah’s day, by war or treaty or common fear in face of the Assyrian conquest, Judah was being brought into contact. There are none of the familiar names of the land and tribes of Israel which meet the reader in other obscure prophecies and lighten their darkness with the face of a friend. The names and allusions are foreign, some of them the names of tribes long since extinct, and of places which it is no more possible to identify. It is a very jungle of prophecy, in which, without much Gospel or geographical light, we have to grope our way, thankful for an occasional gleam of the picturesque-a sandstorm in the desert, the forsaken ruins of Babylon haunted by wild beasts, a view of Egypt’s canals or Phoenicia’s harbours, a glimpse of an Arab raid or of a grave Ethiopian embassy. But in order to understand the Book of Isaiah, in order to understand Isaiah himself in some of the largest of his activities and hopes; we must traverse this thicket. It would be tedious and unprofitable to search every corner of it. We propose, therefore, to give a list of the various oracles, with their dates and titles, for the guidance of Bible-readers, then to take three representative texts and gather the meaning of all the oracles round them. First, however, two of the prophecies must be put aside. The twenty-second chapter does not refer to a foreign State, but to Jerusalem itself; and the large prophecy which opens the series (chapters 13-14:23) deals with the overthrow of Babylon in circumstances that did not arise till long after Isaiah’s time, and so falls to be considered by us along with similar prophecies at the close of this volume. (See Book V) All the rest of these chapters-14-21 and 23-refer to Isaiah’s own day. They were delivered by the prophet at various times throughout his career; but the most of them evidently date from immediately after the year 705, when, on the death of Sargon, there was a general rebellion of the Assyrian vassals. 1 Isaiah 14:24-27 -OATH OF JEHOVAH that the Assyrian shall be broken. Probable date, towards 701. 2 Isaiah 14:28-32 -ORACLE FOR PHILISTIA. Warning to Philistia not to rejoice because one Assyrian king is dead, for a worse one shall arise: "Out of the serpent’s root shall come forth a basilisk. Philistia shall be melted away, but Zion shall stand." The inscription to this oracle ( Isaiah 14:28 ) is not genuine. The oracle plainly speaks of the death and accession of Assyrian, not Judaean, kings. It may be ascribed to 705, the date of the death of Sargon and accession of Sennacherib. But some hold that it refers to the previous change on the Assyrian throne-the death of Salmanassar and the accession of Sargon. 3 Isaiah 15:1-9 - Isaiah 16:12 -ORACLE FOR MOAB. A long prophecy against Moab. This oracle, whether originally by himself at an earlier period of his life, or more probably by an older prophet, Isaiah adopts and ratifies, and intimates its immediate fulfilment, in Isaiah 16:13-14 : "This is the word which Jehovah spake concerning Moab long ago. But now Jehovah hath spoken, saying, Within three years, as the years of a hireling, and the glory of Moab shall be brought into contempt with all the great multitude, and the remnant shall be very small and of no account." The dates both of the original publication of this prophecy and of its reissue with the appendix are quite uncertain. The latter may fall about 711, when Moab was threatened by Sargon for complicity in the Ashdod conspiracy or in 704, when, with other states, Moab came under the cloud of Sennacherib’s invasion. The main prophecy is remarkable for its vivid picture of the disaster that has overtaken Moab and for the sympathy with her which the Jewish prophet expresses; for the mention of a "remnant" of Moab; for the exhortation to her to send tribute in her adversity "to the mount of the daughter of Zion"; { Isaiah 16:1 } for an appeal to Zion to shelter the outcasts of Moab and to take up her cause: "Bring counsel, make a decision, make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday; hide the outcasts, bewray not the wanderer;" for a statement of the Messiah similar to those in chapters 9 and 11; and for the offer to the oppressed Moabites of the security of Judah in Messianic times ( Isaiah 16:4-5 ). But there is one great obstacle to this prospect of Moab lying down in the shadow of Judah-Moab’s arrogance. "We have heard of the pride of Moab, that he is very proud," { Isaiah 16:6 , cf. Jeremiah 48:29 ; Jeremiah 48:42 ; Zephaniah 2:10 } which pride shall not only keep this country in ruin, but prevent the Moabites prevailing in prayer at their own sanctuary ( Isaiah 16:12 )-a very remarkable admission about the worship of another god than Jehovah. 4 Isaiah 17:1-11 -ORACLE FOR DAMASCUS. One of the earliest and most crisp of Isaiah’s prophecies. Of the time of Syria’s and Ephraim’s league against Judah, somewhere between 736 and 732. 5 Isaiah 17:12-14 -UNTITLED. The crash of the peoples upon Jerusalem and their dispersion. This magnificent piece of sound, which we analyse below, is usually understood of Sennacherib’s rush upon Jerusalem. Isaiah 17:14 is an accurate summary of the sudden break-up and "retreat from Moscow" of his army. The Assyrian hosts are described as "nations," as they are elsewhere more than once by Isaiah. { Isaiah 22:6 ; Isaiah 29:7 } But in all this there is no final reason for referring the oracle to Sennacherib’s invasion, and it may just as well be interpreted of Isaiah’s confidence of the defeat of Syria and Ephraim (734-723). Its proximity to the oracle against Damascus would then be very natural, and it would stand as a parallel prophecy to Isaiah 8:9 : "Make an uproar, O ye peoples, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of the distances of the earth: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces"-a prophecy which we know belongs to the period of the Syro-Ephraimitic league. 6 Isaiah 18:1-7 -UNTITLED. An address to Ethiopia, "land of a rustling of wings, land of many sails, whose messengers dart to and fro upon the rivers in their skiffs of reed." The prophet tells Ethiopia, cast into excitement by the news of the Assyrian advance, how Jehovah is resting quietly till the Assyrian be ripe for destruction. When the Ethiopians shall see His sudden miracle they shall send their tribute to Jehovah, "to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, Mount Zion." It is difficult to know to which southward march of Assyria to ascribe this prophecy-Sargon’s or Sennacherib’s? For at the time of both of these an Ethiopian ruled Egypt. 7 Isaiah 19:1-25 -ORACLE FOR EGYPT. The first fifteen verses ( Isaiah 19:1-15 ) describe judgment as ready to fall on the land of the Pharaohs. The last ten speak of the religious results to Egypt of that judgment, and they form the most universal and "missionary" of all Isaiah’s prophecies. Although doubts have been expressed of the Isaiah authorship of the second half of this chapter on the score of its universalism, as well as of its literary style, which is judged to be "a pale reflection" of Isaiah’s own, there is no final reason for declining the credit of it to Isaiah, while there are insuperable difficulties against relegating it to the late date which is sometimes demanded for it. On the date and authenticity of this prophecy, which are of great importance for the question of Isaiah’s "missionary" opinions, see Cheyne’s introduction to the chapter and Robertson Smith’s notes in "The Prophets of Israel" (p. 433). The latter puts it in 703, during Sennacherib’s advance upon the south. The former suggests that the second half may have been written by the prophet much later than the first, and justly says, "We can hardly imagine a more ‘swan-like end’ for the dying prophet." 8 Isaiah 20:1-6 -UNTITLED. Also upon Egypt, but in narrative and of an earlier date than at least the latter half of chapter 19. Tells how Isaiah walked naked and barefoot in the streets of Jerusalem for a sign against Egypt and against the help Judah hoped to get from her in the years 711-709, when the Tartan, or Assyrian commander-in-chief, came south to subdue Ashdod. 9 Isaiah 21:1-10 -ORACLE FOR THE WILDERNESS OF THESEA, announcing but lamenting the fall of Babylon. Probably 709. 10 Isaiah 21:11-12 -ORACLE FOR DUMAH. Dumah, or Silence - Psalm 94:17 ; Psalm 115:17 , "the land of the silence of death," the grave - is probably used as an anagram for Edom and an enigmatic sign to the wise Edomites, in their own fashion, of the kind of silence their land is lying under-the silence of rapid decay. The prophet hears this silence at last broken by a cry. Edom cannot bear the darkness any more. "Unto me one is calling from Seir, Watchman, how much off the night? how much off the night? Said the watchman, Cometh the morning, and also the night: if ye will inquire, inquire, come back again." What other answer is possible for a land on which the silence of decay seems to have settled down? He may, however, give them an answer later on, if they will come back. Date uncertain, perhaps between 704 and 701. 11. 21:13-17 -ORACLE FOR ARABIA. From Edom the prophet passes to their neighbours the Dedanites, travelling merchants. And as he saw night upon Edom, so, by a play upon words, he speaks of evening upon Arabia: "in the forest, in Arabia," or with the same consonants, "in the evening." In the time of the insecurity of the Assyrian invasion the travelling merchants have to go aside from their great trading roads "in the evening to lodge in the thickets." There they entertain fugitives, or (for the sense is not quite clear) are themselves as fugitives entertained. It is a picture of the "grievousness of war," which was now upon the world, flowing down even those distant, desert roads. But things have not yet reached the worst. The fugitives are but the heralds of armies, that "within a year" shall waste the "children of Kedar," for Jehovah, the God of Israel, hath spoken it. So did the prophet of little Jerusalem take possession of even the far deserts in the name of his nation’s God. 12 Isaiah 23:1-18 -ORACLE FOR TYRE. Elegy over its fall, probably as Sennacherib came south upon it in 703 or 702. To be further considered by us. These, then, are Isaiah’s oracles for the Nations, who tremble, intrigue, and go down before the might of Assyria. We have promised to gather the circumstances and meaning of these prophecies round three representative texts. These are- 1. "Ah! the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of mighty waters they rush; nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He rebuketh it, and it fleeth afar off, and is chased like the chaff on the mountains before the wind and like whirling dust before the whirlwind." { Isaiah 17:12-13 } 2. "What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find refuge the afflicted of His people." { Isaiah 14:32 } 3. "In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be My people Egypt, and the work of My hands Assyria, and Mine inheritance Israel". { Isaiah 19:24-25 } I. The first of these texts shows all the prophet’s prospect filled with storm, the second of them the solitary rock and lighthouse in the midst of the storm: Zion, His own watchtower and His people’s refuge; while the third of them, looking far into the future, tells us, as it were, of the firm continent which shall rise out of the waters-Israel no longer a solitary lighthouse, "but in that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth." These three texts give us a summary of the meaning of all Isaiah’s obscure prophecies to the foreign nations-a stormy ocean, a solitary rock in the midst of it, and the new continent that shall rise out of the waters about the rock. The restlessness of Western Asia beneath the Assyrian rule (from 719, when Sargon’s victory at Rafia extended that rule to the borders of Egypt) found vent, as we saw, in two great Explosions, for both of which the mine was laid by Egyptian intrigue. The first Explosion happened in 711, and was confined to Ashdod. The second took place on Sargon’s death in 705, and was universal. Till Sennacherib marched south on Palestine in 701, there were all over Western Asia hurryings to and fro, consultations and intrigues, embassies and engineerings from Babylon to Meroe in far Ethiopia, and from the tents of Kedar to the cities of the Philistines. For these Jerusalem, the one inviolate capital from the Euphrates to the river of Egypt, was the natural centre. And the one far-seeing, steady-hearted man in Jerusalem was Isaiah. We have already seen that there was enough within the city to occupy Isaiah’s attention, especially from 705 onward; but for Isaiah the walls of Jerusalem, dear as they were and thronged with duty, neither limited his sympathies nor marked the scope of the gospel he had to preach. Jerusalem is simply his watchtower. His field-and this is the peculiar glory of the prophet’s later life-his field is the world. How well fitted Jerusalem then was to be the world’s watchtower, the traveller may see to this day. The city lies upon the great central ridge of Palestine, at an elevation of two thousand five hundred feet above the level of the sea. If you ascend the hill behind the city, you stand upon one of the great view-points of the earth. It is a forepost of Asia. To the east rise the red hills of Moab and the uplands of Gilead and Bashan, on to which wandering tribes of the Arabian deserts beyond still push their foremost camps. Just beyond the horizon lie the immemorial paths from Northern Syria into Arabia. Within a few hours’ walk along the same central ridge, and still within the territory of Judah, you may see to the north, over a wilderness of blue hills, Hermon’s snowy crest; you know that Damascus is lying just beyond, and that through it and round the base of Hermon swings one of the longest of the old world’s highways-the main caravan road from the Euphrates to the Nile. Stand at gaze for a little, while down that road there sweep into your mind thoughts of the great empire whose troops and commerce it used to carry. Then, bearing these thoughts with you, follow the line of the road across the hills to the western coastland, and so out upon the great Egyptian desert, where you may wait till it has brought you imagination of the southern empire to which it travels. Then, lifting your eyes a little further, let them sweep back again from south to north, and you have the whole of the west, the new world, open to you, across the fringe of yellow haze that marks the sands of the Mediterranean. It is even now one of the most comprehensive prospects in the world. But in Isaiah’s day, when the world was smaller, the high places of Judah either revealed or suggested the whole of it. But Isaiah was more than a spectator of this vast theatre. He was an actor upon it. The court of Judah, of which during Hezekiah’s reign he was the most prominent member, stood in more or less close connection with the courts of all the kingdoms of Western Asia; and in those days, when the nations were busy with intrigue against their common enemy, this little highland town and fortress became a gathering place of peoples. From Babylon, from far-off Ethiopia, from Edom, from Philistia, and no doubt from many other places also, embassies came to King Hezekiah, or to inquire of his prophet. The appearance of some of them lives for us still in Isaiah’s descriptions: "tall and shiny" figures of Ethiopians { Isaiah 18:2 }, with whom we are able to identify the lithe, silky-skinned, shining-black bodies of the present tribes of the Upper Nile. Now the prophet must have talked much with these strangers, for he displays a knowledge of their several countries and ways of life that is full and accurate. The agricultural conditions of Egypt; her social ranks and her industries (chapter 19); the harbours and markets of Tyre (chapter 23); the caravans of the Arab nomads, as in times of war they shun the open desert and seek the thickets { Isaiah 21:14 } -Isaiah paints these for us with a vivid realism. We see how this statesman of the least of States, this prophet of a religion which was confessed over only a few square miles, was aware of the wide world, and how he loved the life that filled it. They are no mere geographical terms with which Isaiah thickly studs these prophecies. He looks out upon and paints for us, lands and cities surging with men-their trades, their castes, their religions, their besetting tempers and sins, their social structures and national policies, all quick and bending to the breeze and the shadow of the coming storm from the north. We have said that in nothing is the legal power of our prophet’s style so manifest as in the vast horizons, which, by the use of a few words, he calls up before us. Some of the finest of these revelations are made in this part of his book, so obscure and unknown to most. Who can ever forget those descriptions-of Ethiopia in the eighteenth chapter?-"Ah! the land of the rustling of wings, which borders on the rivers of Cush, which sendeth heralds on the sea, and in vessels of reed on the face of the waters! Travel, fleet messengers, to a people lithe and shining, to a nation feared from ever it began to be, a people strong, strong and trampling, whose land the rivers divide"; or of Tyre in chapter 23?-"And on great waters the seed of Shihor, the harvest of the Nile, was her revenue; and she was the mart of nations." What expanses of sea! what fleets of ships! what floating loads of grain! what concourse of merchants moving on stately wharves beneath high warehouses! Yet these are only segments of horizons, and perhaps the prophet reaches the height of his power of expression in the first of the three texts, which we have given as representative of his prophecies on foreign nations. Here three or four lines of marvellous sound repeat the effect of the rage of the restless world as it rises, storms, and breaks upon the steadfast will of God. The phonetics of the passage are wonderful. The general impression is that of a stormy ocean booming in to the shore and then crashing itself out into one long hiss of spray and foam upon its barriers. The details are noteworthy. In Isaiah 17:12 we have thirteen heavy M-sounds, besides two heavy B’s, to five N’s, five H’s, and four sibilants. But in Isaiah 17:13 the sibilants predominate; and before the sharp rebuke of the Lord the great, booming sound of Isaiah 17:12 scatters out into a long yish-sha ‘oon . The occasional use of a prolonged vowel amid so many hurrying consonants produces exactly the effect now of the lift of a storm swell out at sea and now of the pause of a great wave before it crashes on the shore. "Ah, the booming of the peoples, the multitudes, like the booming of the seas they boom; and the rushing of the nations, like the rushing of the mighty waters they rush: nations, like the rushing of many waters they rush. But He checketh it"-a short, sharp word with a choke and a snort in it-"and it fleeth far away, and is chased like chaff on mountains before wind, and like swirling dust before a whirlwind." So did the rage of the world sound to Isaiah as it crashed into pieces upon the steadfast providence of God. To those who can feel the force of such language nothing need be added upon the prophet’s view of the politics of the outside world these twenty years, whether portions of it threatened Judah in their own strength, or the whole power of storm that was in it rose with the Assyrian, as in all his flood he rushed upon Zion in the year 701. II. But amid this storm Zion stands immovable. It is upon Zion that the storm crashes itself into impotence. This becomes explicit in the second of our representative texts: "What then shall one answer the messengers of a nation? That Jehovah hath founded Zion, and in her shall find a refuge the afflicted of His people". { Isaiah 14:32 } This oracle was drawn from Isaiah by an embassy of the Philistines. Stricken with panic at the Assyrian advance, they had sent messengers to Jerusalem, as other tribes did, with questions and proposals of defences, escapes, and alliances. They got their answer, Alliances are useless. Everything human is going down. Here, here alone, is safety, because the Lord hath decreed it. With what light and peace do Isaiah’s words break out across that unquiet, hungry sea! How they tell the world for the first time, and have been telling it ever since, that, apart from all the struggle and strife of history, there is a refuge and security of men, which God Himself has assured. The troubled surface of life, nations heaving uneasily, kings of Assyria and their armies carrying the world before them-these are not all. The world and her powers are not all. Religion, in the very teeth of life, builds her a refuge for the afflicted. The world seems wholly divided between force and fear. Isaiah says, It is not true. Faith has her abiding citadel in the midst, a house of God, which neither force can harm nor fear enter. This then was Isaiah’s Interim-Answer to the Nations-Zion at least is secure for the people of Jehovah. III. Isaiah could not remain content, however, with so narrow an interim-answer: Zion at least is secure, whatever happens to the rest of you. The world was there, and had to be dealt with and accounted for-had even to be saved. As we have already seen, this was the problem of Isaiah’s generation; and to have shirked it would have meant the failure of his faith to rank as universal. Isaiah did not shirk it. He said boldly to his people, and to the nations: "The faith we have covers this vaster life. Jehovah is not only God of Israel. He rules the world." These prophecies to the foreign nations are full of revelations of the sovereignty and providence of God. The Assyrian may seem to be growing in glory; but Jehovah is watching from the heavens, till he be ripe for cutting down. { Isaiah 18:4 } Egypt’s statesmen may be perverse and wilful; but Jehovah of hosts swingeth His hand against the land: "they shall tremble and shudder". { Isaiah 19:16 } Egypt shall obey His purposes (chapter 17). Confusion may reign for a time, but a signal and a centre shall be lifted up, and the world gather itself in order round the revealed will of God. The audacity of such a claim for his God becomes more striking when we remember that Isaiah’s faith was not the faith of a majestic or a conquering people. When he made his claim, Judah was still tributary to Assyria, a petty highland principality, that could not hope to stand by material means against the forces which had thrown down her more powerful neighbours. It was. no experience of success, no mere instinct of being on the side of fate, which led Isaiah so resolutely to pronounce that not only should his people be secure, but that his God would vindicate His purposes upon empires like Egypt and Assyria. It was simply his sense that Jehovah was exalted in righteousness. Therefore, while inside Judah only the remnant that took the side of righteousness would be saved, outside Judah wherever there was unrighteousness, it would be rebuked, and wherever righteousness, it would be vindicated. This is the supremacy which Isaiah proclaimed for Jehovah over the whole world. How spiritual this faith of Isaiah was, is seen from the next step the prophet took. Looking out on the troubled world, he did not merely assert that his God ruled it, but he emphatically said, what was a far more difficult thing to say, that it would all be consciously and willingly God’s. God rules this, not to restrain it only, but to make it His own. The knowledge of Him, which is today our privilege, shall be tomorrow the blessing of the whole world. When we point to the Jewish desire, so often expressed in the Old Testament, of making the whole world subject to Jehovah, we are told that it is simply a proof of religious ambition and jealousy. We are told that this wish to convert the world no more stamps the Jewish religion as being a universal, and therefore presumably a Divine, religion than the Mohammedans’ zeal to force their tenets on men at the point of the sword is a proof of the truth of Islam. Now we need not be concerned to defend the Jewish religion in its every particular, even as propounded by an Isaiah. It is an article of the Christian creed that Judaism was a minor and imperfect dispensation, where truth was only half revealed and virtue half developed. But at least let us do the Jewish religion justice; and we shall never do it justice till we pay attention to what its greatest prophets thought of the outside world, how they sympathised with this, and in what way they proposed to make it subject to their own faith. Firstly then, there is something in the very manner of Isaiah’s treatment of foreign nations, which causes the old charges of religious exclusiveness to sink in our throats. Isaiah treats these foreigners at least as men. Take his prophecies on Egypt or on Tyre or on Babylon-nations which were the hereditary enemies of his nation-and you find him speaking of their natural misfortunes, their social decays, their national follies and disasters, with the same pity and with the same purely moral considerations with which he has treated his own land. When news of those far-away sorrows comes to Jerusalem, it moves this large-hearted prophet to mourning and tears. He breathes out to distant lands elegies as beautiful as he has poured upon Jerusalem. He shows as intelligent an interest in their social evolutions as he does in those of the Jewish State. He gives a picture of the industry and politics of Egypt as careful as his pictures of the fashions and statecraft of Judah. In short, as you read his prophecies upon foreign nations, you perceive that before the eyes of this man humanity, broken and scattered in his days as it was, rose up one great whole, every part of which was subject to the same laws of righteousness, and deserved from the prophet of God the same love and pity. To some few tribes he says decisively that they shall certainly be wiped out, but even them he does not address in contempt or in hatred. The large empire of Egypt, the great commercial power of Tyre, he speaks of in language of respect and admiration; but that does not prevent him from putting the plain issue to them which he put to his own countrymen: If you are unrighteous, intemperate, impure-lying diplomats and dishonest rulers-you shall certainly perish before Assyria. If you are righteous, temperate, pure, if you do trust in truth and God, nothing can move you. But, secondly, he, who thus treated all nations with the same strict measures of justice and the same fulness of pity with which he treated his own, was surely not far from extending to the world the religious privileges which he has so frequently identified with Jerusalem. In his old age, at least, Isaiah looked forward to the time when the particular religious opportunities of the Jew should be the inheritance of humanity. For their old oppressor Egypt, for their new enemy Assyria, he anticipates the same experience and education which have made Israel the firstborn of God. Speaking to Egypt, Isaiah concludes a missionary sermon, fit to take its place beside that which Paul uttered on the Areopagus to the younger Greek civilisation, with the words, "In that day shall Israel be a third to Egypt and to Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands and Israel Mine inheritance." The Expositor's Bible Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com . Used by Permission.

Woe to the land shadowing with wings. Isaiah 18:1-3 The Ethiopians F. Delitzsch. The people here peculiarly described are the Ethiopians, and the prophet prophesies the effect on Ethiopia of the judgment concerning Assyria which Jehovah executes, as Drechsler has convincingly proved, and as is now universally recognised. ( F. Delitzsch. ) Ethiopia A. Ritchie. What land is it of which the prophet speaks? It is no doubt Ethiopia itself, a great kingdom in the olden time. For although he says "beyond the rivers of Ethiopia," that is the Blue Nile, and the White Nile, and the Astaboras, the meaning is perhaps more accurately "beside" those rivers. In any event the ancient land of Ethiopia reached out to the south far beyond the confluence of those rivers in the mighty Nile, including probably all upper Egypt beyond Philae, Nubia, and the northern portion of modern Abyssinia. It was a fertile country, very rich in gold, ivory, ebony, frankincense, and precious stones. A country thickly inhabited by a stalwart well-formed race, "men of stature" the prophet calls them, who if they were black were yet comely. It was a mighty kingdom for many centuries, a rival of Egypt, sometimes its enemy, and apparently even its conqueror; a kingdom able to make war against the Assyrians, and a kingdom, too, carrying on a great trade by means of abundant merchandise with many people. ( A. Ritchie. ) "The land shadowing with wings A. Ritchie. 1. Full of poetic suggestion is the expression "shadowing with wings." The thought is of tender protection, as the mother bird hovers over and shields her young. The Psalmist is never tired of crying out to God, "Hide me under the covering of Thy wings." It was right that Israel and Judah should cry thus to Jehovah for protection, but not that they should look to the shadowing wings of Ethiopia. Just as it was pathetically true that in later times our Lord should say of the Holy City, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not" — so seven hundred years earlier it was true that Judah would not seek refuge under the wings of the Lord, but under the shadowing of Egypt and the covering of Ethiopia. 2. In the Revised Version we have the passage rendered, "Ah, the land of the rustling of wings." Some of the old commentators find in this an allusion to the multitude of bees and the swarms of flies in Ethiopia, so that there the hum of wings was never absent. More picturesque is another suggestion, that the reference is to the ever plashing waters of the rivers, hurrying along with swift current, in rapids and through cataracts until the broad bosom of father Nile was reached. The swish and lapping of the rushing waters seemed to the poet like the noise made by the swift flight of many birds, beating the air with strong pinions, as they sweep on towards the horizon. 3. If we turn to the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, we read the text thus: "Woe to you, ye wings of the land of ships." What are the wings of the land of ships but the many sails whereby those ships flit hither and thither? One sees before him a new picture. The graceful dahabiehs with their long yards and triangular sails, dotting the water everywhere, and naturally suggesting great sea birds, with outspread wings, shining in the starlight white and ghostly on the calm surface of the mysterious river which is Egypt's life. 4. Some of the more acute Hebrew scholars point out that it is possible to understand the prophet's language in yet another way: "Woe to the land where the shadow falleth both ways," that is, of course, near the Equator, where sometimes the shadows stretch out to the south and sometimes to the north, according to the time of the year. If we understand our text so, it is natural to see in it an allusion to the fickleness of the Ethiopians, a nation which Judah vainly trusted in, since today it would be found an ally and tomorrow an enemy. ( A. Ritchie. ) The prophet's charge to the Ethiopian ambassadors A. B. Davidson, LL. D. Ethiopia (Hebrews, "Cush") corresponds generally to the modern Soudan ( i.e. , the blacks). Egypt and Ethiopia were at this time ruled by Tirkakah (704-685). His ambassadors are in Jerusalem offering an alliance against the Assyrian; and the prophet sends them back to their people with the words, "Go, ye swift messengers," etc. Jehovah needs no help against His enemies. ( A. B. Davidson, LL. D. ) Note A. B. Davidson, LL. D. Full stop at "waters" (ver. 2), and omit "saying." The prophet speaks: "Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth...a nation all-powerful and subduing, whose land rivers divide (intersect)." "Smooth" may refer to the glancing, bronzed skin of the people. ( A. B. Davidson, LL. D. ) Vessels of bulrushes R. Macculloch., F. Delitzsch, D. D. It is well known that timber proper for building ships was very scarce in Egypt: to supply this deficiency, the Egyptians used bulrushes, or a reed called papyrus, of which they made vessels fit for sailing. Ships and boats built of this sort of materials, being extremely light, and drawing very little water, were admirably suited to traverse the Nile, along the banks of which there were doubtless many morasses and shoals. They were also very convenient and easy to be managed at the waterfalls, where they might be carried with no great difficulty to smooth water. From such circumstances as these, we may conclude, that they would sail exceeding fast, and afford a very speedy conveyance of all kinds of intelligence from one part of the country to another, and from Egypt to neighbouring nations. In them, therefore, ambassadors or messengers were often sent to different places with various kinds of information, after having received their orders in terms such as these, "Go, ye swift messengers." ( R. Macculloch. )They were made for folding together, so that they could be carried past the cataracts. ( F. Delitzsch, D. D. ) All ye inhabitants of the world...see ye. Isaiah 18:3 Missionary exertion Hugh M'Neile, M. A. Our whole hope of success rests on the prophecies of the Word of God, declaring it to be His will. We must first accurately examine what is the object we have in view, for if it be not in unison with the prophets it must be disappointed. I. THE LANGUAGE OF THE NEW TESTAMENT ON THIS SUBJECT. What does that give us reason to expect under the present dispensation? An elect Church, though in one sense it is called an universal Church, because it is gathered out of all nations on the earth. II. THE EXPERIENCE OF THE CHURCH AS STRENGTHENING THIS ARGUMENT. For long years the Gospel has been preached, and what is the result? But is it not written in the Scriptures that all flesh shall see the salvation of God, etc.? Do we not, then, rightly expect the conversion of all the people on the earth? Yes, it is written, and shall come to pass. But the means are also written, and the time. What are the means? What is the time? "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye!" When? "When He lifteth up an ensign on the mountains, and when He bloweth a trumpet, hear ye!" I will read you an extract from a missionary sermon preached by Dr. Buchanan shortly before his death: "The ensign to be lifted up is the Jewish Church restored to Zion; and the Gospel trumpet is to be sounded by Jewish missionaries, for to them is reserved the evangelising of the heathen." But before this will be the coming of the Son of God. ( Hugh M'Neile, M. A. ) For so the Lord said unto me, I will take My rest. Isaiah 18:4, 5 The rest of providence J. L. Adamson. Although much diversity of opinion exists among commentators in regard to the primary design of the prophecy from which this passage is taken, there can be but one sentiment as to the sublime moral which it teaches concerning the mode in which the Almighty conducts His government. There are times, probably, in every man's life, when he feels the temptations to scepticism unusually strong. They are the times of personal suffering, or of prosperous iniquity. I. How often has the sincere Christian mourned in bitterness of spirit, BECAUSE NO IMMEDIATE ANSWER SEEMED GIVEN TO HIS PRAYERS. In such circumstances, the assurance that providence is only taking its rest and considering, is in the highest degree consolatory. It is not in judgment, but in tender mercy, that God apparently suspends His answer to His people's prayers. Thus does He exercise their faith, and the trial of it is more precious than gold. Thus does He convince them of their needs, and the conviction leads them to greater self-abandonment. Thus does He call forth in them the feeling of Christian sympathy for those who are similarly tried, and this is better for them than heart's desire. Thus does He give unto them those experiences which, it is not improbable, may contribute to their felicity in heaven itself. II. A second example of providence taking its rest, is to be seen in THE COMPARATIVELY SLOW AND LIMITED PROGRESS WHICH THE BLESSED GOSPEL OF CHRIST HAS YET MADE IN THE WORLD. The march of His administration is not the less sublime, because it is occasionally invisible. III. Providence takes its rest WHEN SENTENCE AGAINST THE EVIL WORKS OF MEN IS NOT EXECUTED SPEEDILY. When the mystery of God is finished, His ways will appear at once marvellous and right. This "rest of providence" is beautifully illustrated by similitudes taken from nature — "a clear heat upon herbs, and a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." You have observed, on a fine summer day, the sunshine resting calmly on the cornfield, or the dew covering the plants at eventide. All is peaceful and serene. It seems as if the winds had forgotten to blow, or the thunder to utter its voice. Thus calmly and silently does the Almighty "rest in His dwelling place," till the time comes for interposition. The patience of God is a demonstration of His power, and His slowness to wrath a testimony to His infinite wisdom. The metaphor in ver. 5 is to be regarded as a continuation of the preceding one, and may be understood as intimating the utter disappointment of those plans which wicked men form against God, and which He so forbearingly allows them to mature. "Afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, He shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches." The meaning is, that at the very moment when the likelihood is, humanly speaking, greatest, that their projects shall be successful, He will awake to overturn them. Conclusion — 1. The passage under consideration, while it ought to alarm the enemies, may well enough bring comfort to the people of God. Let them look up for their redemption draweth nigh. 2. On the other hand, let not the impenitent flatter themselves into security because their Lord delayeth His coming. ( J. L. Adamson. ) Stillness A. B. Davidson. "A figure of perfect stillness." ( A. B. Davidson. ) The arrest of evil men F. B. Meyer, B. A. It is as though Jehovah were quietly looking on, and permitting the Assyrians to do their worst. So far from arresting them, He seems even to favour their plans. He is to them, as the dew to the growth of plants. But before the bud is formed, He arises to cut them off. This probably refers to the fatal blow which overwhelmed Sennacherib's army in a single night. The gratitude of surrounding nations for so great a deliverance would cause them to bring sacrifices to Jehovah's temple (ver. 7). ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) God's secret words F. B. Meyer, B. A. How striking are those secret words, whispered by God to His favoured servant, "The Lord said unto me." It was as though He had called Isaiah aside, and spoken to him confidentially of matters which must not be uttered to uncircumcised ears. It was thus that God spake of old to Abraham and Moses. And in modern days it is remarkable, in reading the journals of George Fox, to find how conscious he was of similar confidences reposed in him by his ever-present and faithful Friend. ( F. B. Meyer, B. A. ) God resting in His dwelling place E. Paxton Hood. I. THE DWELLING PLACE OF GOD AND HIS REPOSE. Let me ask where the queen rests in her love: You must pass and press beyond the regalia, beyond the throne-room, beyond the council, beyond the levee, there in the family, amidst her children, in a charmed family circle, — there she rests in love. And has not God such a circle, such a dwelling place, and home? "The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear Him." God has revealed to us this great thing, that He, too, lives in the sympathies and affections of His intelligent creatures. God's Church is His dwelling place. God descends to dwell in us, as we ascend to dwell in Him. I have been struck with a thought like this, when I have been on some quiet village hill, or in the deeps of some country forest, when, beneath me, or away from me, all the villagers were in the booths of some fair. I saw it, perhaps, at my feet, or heard the sounds dying away on my ear. So it is, as we rise to rest in God. At our feet the uproar the vice — the vanity — of the Babel booths — the dissoluteness and the song, — but with us deep peace, and quiet, and the rest of heart and soul, and the prospect of the glory and the vistas beyond; it is even so, as the world lies beneath us, and above us spreads the calm — when the soul possesses God, and God sinks into the soul — what does the soul look out upon: what does the soul look down upon? what does the soul look in upon: the soul one with God. II. "I WILL CONSIDER." "So the Lord said unto me, I will take My rest." Exceedingly sublime are all those magnificent passages in which the calm of the Divine mind is contrasted with the passion and the agitation of human affairs. This is the connection of the preceding verses (chap. 17:12, 13). It is amidst that turbulence of the oceans of the population that God says, "I will take My rest, and consider." III. THE ILLUSTRATIONS OF DIVINE CONSIDERATION, the loving and beautiful result. ( E. Paxton Hood. ) God's all-sufficiency There is that in God which is a shelter and refreshment to His people in all weathers, and arms them against the inconveniences of every change. Is the weather cool: There is that in His favour that will warm them. Is it hot: There is that in His favour that will cool them. Great men have their winter house and their summer house ( Amos 3:15 ); but they that are at home with God have both in Him. ( M. Henry . ) When the bud is perfect. The flower bud C. H. Grundy, M. A. B — U — D — bud. Beauty; use; design, shall be our three points. I. BEAUTY. Among the many kinds of beauty nature gives us, three are very noticeable — 1. Beauty of form. 2. Beauty of colour. 3. Beauty of scent. And to these man has added — 4. Beauty of association. II. USE. 1. Food. In the economy of nature flowers are useful as food for insect and bird and man. Groundsel for the birds of the air! The honeysuckle really belongs to, and is the early home of, a green moth, brown round the edges, with transparent wings. It also belongs to a caterpillar, which afterwards becomes a brown and white and dull blue butterfly. And so list after list might be given of flowers upon which the insect world feeds, and by which it is nourished. Again, it is from flowers that the bees collect the honey! Thus the flowers may be said literally to feed man. 2. Medicine. 3. Fruit. Flowering is a stage on the way to fruit. What Christian graces will you have to show when the time of the ingathering comes: III. DESIGN. Nature works on a plan. Who made the plan, the design? There cannot be a plan without someone to plan; nor a design without a designer. The Christian looks from nature to nature's God. ( C. H. Grundy, M. A. ).

18:1-7 God's care for his people; and the increase of the church. - This chapter is one of the most obscure in Scripture, though more of it probably was understood by those for whose use it was first intended, than by us now. Swift messengers are sent by water to a nation marked by Providence, and measured out, trodden under foot. God's people are trampled on; but whoever thinks to swallow them up, finds they are cast down, yet not deserted, not destroyed. All the dwellers on earth must watch the motions of the Divine Providence, and wait upon the directions of the Divine will. God gives assurance to his prophet, and by him to be given to his people. Zion is his rest for ever, and he will look after it. He will suit to their case the comforts and refreshments he provides for them; they will be acceptable, because seasonable. He will reckon with his and their enemies; and as God's people are protected at all seasons of the year, so their enemies are exposed at all seasons. A tribute of praise should be brought to God from all this. What is offered to God, must be offered in the way he has appointed; and we may expect him to meet us where he records his name. Thus shall the nations of the earth be convinced that Jehovah is the God, and Israel is his people, and shall unite in presenting spiritual sacrifices to his glory. Happy are those who take warning by his judgment on others, and hasten to join him and his people. Whatever land or people may be intended, we are here taught not to think that God takes no care of his church, and has no respect to the affairs of men, because he permits the wicked to triumph for a season. He has wise reasons for so doing, which we cannot now understand, but which will appear at the great day of his coming, when he will bring every work into judgment, and reward every man according to his works.