Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 11:14

"And they shall fly down upon the shoulder of the Philistines on the west; together shall they despoil the children of the east: they shall put forth their hand upon Edom and Moab; and the children of Ammon shall obey them." — Isaiah 11:14 (ASV)

They shall fly upon the shoulders of the Philistines ... — The English version is ambiguous, and it partly suggests the idea that the Philistines would carry the returning Israelites on their shoulders. Thus, the Septuagint states, And they shall speed their wings in the ships of the aliens. However, what is meant is that the returning exiles shall swoop down, like a bird of prey after its flight, “upon the shoulder of the Philistines,” that name being applied (Joshua 15:10) to the shape of the seaward-sloping country occupied by that people.

From this victorious onset in the West, they are to pass on to the children of the East—the generic name for the nomadic tribes found associated with the Midianites and Amalekites (Judges 6:3; Judges 6:33; Judges 7:12) and, as seen in Isaiah 2:6, with the Philistines themselves—and then to complete their triumph by avenging themselves on their old enemies of Edom, Moab, and Ammon.

The whole verse is singularly characteristic of what has already been spoken of as the limitation of prophetic knowledge. The seer has had the glory of the Messianic kingdom revealed to him—a kingdom like a restored Eden, full of the knowledge of Jehovah, with the Gentiles seeking light and salvation from it. Suddenly, he blends this with anticipations that belong to the feelings and complications of his own time. He sees Philistines, Moabites, Ammonites, in that far future. They will be then, as they were in his own times, the persistent foes of Israel , but will, at last, be subdued.