Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 18

Woe to the land shadowing with wings. —A new kingdom, until now unnamed by Isaiah, now comes within his horizon. The movements of Tirhakah, king of Cush or Ethiopia, from the upper valley of the Nile, subduing Egypt, and prepared to enter into conflict with the great Assyrian king (Isaiah 37:9), had apparently excited the hopes of those of Hezekiah’s counselors who put their trust in an arm of flesh.

To these Isaiah now turns with words of warning. The words “shadowing with wings” have been interpreted in various ways:

1. The image of a mighty eagle stretching out its imperial wings (Ezekiel 17:1–8).
2. The urœus or disk with outspread wings, which appears in Egyptian paintings as the symbol of Ethiopian sovereignty.
3. The swarms of the tse-tse fly that have been the terror of all travellers in Abyssinia, based on adopting the rendering resounding instead of “shadowing.”

Of these interpretations, the second has the most to commend it. This view receives confirmation from the inscription of Piankhi-Mer-Amon, translated by Canon Cook in Records of the Past (volume 2, p. 89). In this inscription, that king, an Ethiopian who had conquered Egypt, appears with the urœus on his head, and the chiefs of the north and south cry out to him, “Grant us to be under your shadow” .

The phrase “beyond the river” points, as in Zephaniah 3:10, to the region of the White and the Blue Nile, south of Meroe or Sennar, and not far from the Lake Nyanza of modern explorers.

That sends ambassadors ... —The words point to the embassies which the Ethiopian king had sent, in the papyrus boats used for the navigation of the Upper Nile, down that river to Hezekiah and other princes, inviting them to join the alliance against Assyria.

Go, you swift messengers ... —With the interpolated “saying” omitted, the words that follow are the prophet’s address to the messengers, as he sends them back to their own people. Instead of “scattered and peeled,” we are to read tall and polished, as describing the physique which had probably impressed itself on Isaiah’s mind. (Compare the Sabeans as men of stature in Isaiah 45:14.) They were terrible then, as they had always been (i.e., imperious and mighty), a nation that treads down its foes.

Instead of “meted out and trodden down,” they are a nation of command, command (or, perhaps, “strength, strength”). The rivers are literally the affluents of the Nile that intersect and fertilise (not “spoil”) the hills and valleys of Nubia. Some commentators, however, though with less probability, accept the Authorised Version, and refer the words to Israel, as “scattered and plundered,” with its land “spoiled” by the rivers of invading armies (Isaiah 8:7).

When he lifteth up an ensign ... —Both clauses are better taken as indefinite, when an ensign is set up ... when a trumpet is sounded. The prophet calls on all nations (Ethiopia being specially included) to watch for the signal that shall be given, distinct as the beacon-fire on the hill, or the alarm of the trumpet, to proclaim the downfall of Assyria.

I will take my rest ... —The words that follow paint with marvelous vividness the calmness and deliberation of the workings of Divine judgments. God is at once unhasting and unresting. He dwells in His resting-place (i.e., palace or throne), and watches the ripening of the fruit which He is about to gather.

While there is a clear heat in sunshine, while there is a dew-cloud in harvest-heat, through all phenomenal changes, He waits still. Then, before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the fruit becomes the full-ripe grape, He comes as the Lord of the vineyard, and cuts off the branches with His pruning-hooks.

(Compare to the striking parallels of Aeschylus, Suppliants 90-98, and Shakespeare, Henry VIII, 3:2.)

They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains ... —The figure and the reality are strangely blended. The grapes of that vintage cut off by those pruning-hooks are none other than the carcasses of the host of the Assyrians left unburied, to be devoured by the dogs and vultures.