Isaiah 18
English Standard Version
An Oracle Concerning Cush
18 Ah, land of (A)whirring wings
that is beyond the rivers of (B)Cush,[a]
2 which (C)sends ambassadors by the sea,
in vessels of papyrus on the waters!
Go, you swift messengers,
to a nation (D)tall and smooth,
to a people feared near and far,
a nation (E)mighty and conquering,
whose land the rivers divide.
3 All you inhabitants of the world,
you who dwell on the earth,
when (F)a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
When a trumpet is blown, hear!
4 For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look (G)from my dwelling
like clear heat in sunshine,
like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 (H)For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,
and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,
and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
6 (I)They shall all of them be left
to the birds of prey of the mountains
and to the beasts of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.
7 (J)At that time tribute will be brought to the Lord of hosts
from a people (K)tall and smooth,
from a people feared near and far,
a nation mighty and conquering,
whose land the rivers divide,
to (L)Mount Zion, the place of the (M)name of the Lord of hosts.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 18:1 Probably Nubia
Isaiah 18
1599 Geneva Bible
18 1 Of the enemies of the Church. 7 And of the vocation of the Gentiles.
1 Oh, the [a]land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
2 Sending ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of [b]reeds upon the waters, saying, [c]Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation that is scattered abroad, and spoiled, unto a terrible [d]people from their beginning even hitherto: a nation by little and little even trodden under foot: whose land the [e]floods have spoiled.
3 All ye the inhabitants of the world, and dwellers in the earth, shall see when [f]he setteth up a sign in the mountains, and when he bloweth the trumpet, ye shall hear.
4 For so the Lord said unto me, I will [g]rest and behold in my tabernacle, as [h]the heat drying up the rain, and as a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
5 For afore the harvest, when the flour is finished, and the fruit is ripening in the flour, then he shall cut down the branches with hooks, and shall take away, and cut off the boughs:
6 They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the [i]beasts of the earth: for the fowl shall summer upon it, and every beast of the earth shall winter upon it.
7 At that time shall a [j]present be brought unto the Lord of hosts (a people that is scattered abroad, and spoiled, and of a terrible people from their beginning hitherto, a nation by little and little even trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled) to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, even the mount Zion.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 18:1 He meaneth that part of Ethiopia, which lieth toward the sea, which was so full of ships that the sails (which he compareth to wings) seemed to shadow the sea.
- Isaiah 18:2 Which in those countries were great, insomuch as they made ships of them for swiftness.
- Isaiah 18:2 This may be taken, that they sent others to comfort the Jews, and to promise them help against their enemies, and so the Lord did threaten to take away their strength, that the Jews should not trust therein: or that they did solicit the Egyptians, and promised them aid to go against Judah.
- Isaiah 18:2 To wit, the Jews, who because of God’s plague, made all other nations afraid of the like, as God threatened, Deut. 28:37.
- Isaiah 18:2 Meaning, the Assyrians, as Isa. 8:7.
- Isaiah 18:3 When the Lord prepared to fight against the Ethiopians.
- Isaiah 18:4 I will stay a while from punishing the wicked.
- Isaiah 18:4 Which two seasons are most profitable for the ripening of fruits, whereby he meaneth, that he will seem to favor them, and give them abundance for a time, but he will suddenly cut them off.
- Isaiah 18:6 Not only men shall contemn them, but the brute beasts.
- Isaiah 18:7 Meaning, that God will pity his Church, and receive that little remnant as an offering unto himself.
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