| Back to Home Page | Back to Book Index
|
Isaiah Chapter
Eighteen
Isaiah 18
Chapter Contents
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.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Isaiah》
Isaiah 18
Verse 1
[1] Woe
to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:
The lord —
Either Ethiopia beyond Egypt; or of Egypt.
Wings —
The title of wings is given, in scripture, to divers things which have some
kind of resemblance to wings, as to the battlements of an house or temple, to
an army, and to the sails of a ship, as this word is here commonly understood.
And shadowing with wings is nothing else but overspread or filled with them.
Which title may be given either to Ethiopia or Egypt, in regard of the great
numbers either of their armies, or of their ships or vessels sailing upon the
sea or rivers.
Besides —
Situated on both sides of the Nile.
Rivers —
Called rivers, in the plural number, either for its greatness, or for the many
rivulets that run into it, or for the various streams into which it is divided.
Verse 2
[2] That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the
waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a
people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden
down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!
Sendeth —
That at this time are sending ambassadors, to strengthen themselves with alliances.
Bulrushes —
Both the Egyptians and Ethiopians, used boats of rushes or reeds, which were
more convenient for them than those of wood, because they were both cheaper and
swifter, and lighter for carriage from place to place. These seem to be the
words of the prophet, who having pronounced a woe against the land hitherto
described, here continues his speech, and gives a commission from God to these
messengers, to go to this nation scattered, etc. Then he calls to all nations
to be witnesses of the message sent, verse 3, and then the message follows in the
succeeding verses.
Messengers —
Whom I have appointed for this work, and tell them what I am about to do with
them.
Scattered —
Not by banishment but in their habitations. Which agrees well to the
Ethiopians, for the manner of their habitation, which is more scattered than
that of other people.
Peeled —
Having their hair plucked off. This is metaphorically used in scripture, for
some great calamity, whereby men are stripped of all their comforts. And this
title may be given to them prophetically, to signify their approaching
destruction.
Terrible —
Such were the Egyptians, and Ethiopians, as appears both from sacred and
profane histories.
Meted —
Meted out as it were with lines to destruction.
Trodden — By
Divine sentence, and to be trodden down by their enemies.
The rivers —
Which may be understood of the Assyrians or Babylonians breaking in upon them
like a river, and destroying their land and people.
Verse 3
[3] All
ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth
up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.
When —
When God shall gather together the nations, as it were by the lifting up of an
ensign, or by the sound of a trumpet, to execute his judgments upon this
people.
Verse 4
[4] For
so the LORD said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my
dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the
heat of harvest.
Rest — I
will not bestir myself, to help this people. God is said in scripture to rest,
or sit still, when he doth not work on the behalf of a person or people.
Dwelling-place — In
heaven, the place where God dwells.
Harvest —
The sense is, that God would look upon them with as uncomfortable an influence
as the sun with a clear heat upon the herbs, which are scorched and killed by
it; and as a cloud of the dew, which brings dew or rain, in the heat of
harvest, when it is unwelcome and hurtful.
Verse 5
[5] For 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.
For —
Before they receive the end of their hopes.
When —
When the bud or flower is turned into a grape, which gives hopes of good
vintage.
He — The Lord.
The branches —
Instead of gathering the grapes, shall cut down the tree, and throw it into the
fire.
Verse 6
[6] They
shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of
the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the
earth shall winter upon them.
Thy —
The branches being cut down and thrown upon the ground, with the unripe grapes
upon them.
Left — They
shall lie upon the earth, so that either birds or beasts may shelter themselves
with them, or feed on them, both summer and winter.
Verse 7
[7] In
that time shall the present be brought unto the LORD of hosts of a people
scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto;
a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled,
to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the mount Zion.
In that time — At
or after that time, when the judgment shall be compleatly executed.
A people —
The people of whom I am speaking shall present themselves, and their
sacrifices, to the true God.
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Isaiah》
18 Chapter 18
Verses 1-7
Verses 1-3
Woe to the land shadowing with wings
The Ethiopians
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
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”
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
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
Full stop at “waters” (Isaiah 18:2), 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
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.)
Verse 3
All ye inhabitants of the world . . . see ye
Missionary exertion
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.)
Verse 4-5
For so the Lord said unto me, I will take My rest
The rest of providence
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 Isaiah 18:5 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 figure of perfect stillness.” (A. B. Davidson.)
The arrest of evil men
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 (Isaiah 18:7). (F. B. Meyer, B. A.)
God’s secret words
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
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
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.)
──《The Biblical Illustrator》