Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 18:1

"Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;" — Isaiah 18:1 (ASV)

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.