3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, see ye, and when a trumpet is blown, hear ye!
And he will lift up a banner to the nations afar off, and will hiss for one from the end of the earth; and behold, it will come rapidly [and] lightly.
Jehovah, thy hand is lifted up, but they do not see: [yet] they shall see [thy] jealousy [for] the people, and be ashamed; yea, the fire which is for thine adversaries shall devour them.
{A Psalm. Of Asaph.} ùGod, Elohim-Jehovah, hath spoken, and called the earth from the rising of the sun unto the going down thereof.
Hear, [ye] heavens, and give ear, [thou] earth! for Jehovah hath spoken: I have nourished and brought up children; and they have rebelled against me.
Lift up a banner upon a bare mountain, raise the voice unto them, shake the hand, that they may enter the gates of the nobles.
The noise of a multitude on the mountains, as of a great people; a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations assembled together: Jehovah of hosts mustereth the host of the battle.
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? Shall there be evil in a city, and Jehovah not have done [it]? But the Lord Jehovah will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, -- who will not fear? The Lord Jehovah hath spoken, -- who can but prophesy?
Hear, ye mountains, Jehovah's controversy, and ye, unchanging foundations of the earth; for Jehovah hath a controversy with his people, and he will plead with Israel.
And Jehovah shall be seen over them, and his arrow shall go forth as the lightning; and the Lord Jehovah will blow the trumpet, and will march with whirlwinds of the south.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Isaiah 18
Commentary on Isaiah 18 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 18
Whatever country it is that is meant here by "the land shadowing with wings,' here is a woe denounced against it, for God has, upon his people's account, a quarrel with it.
Isa 18:1-7
Interpreters are very much at a loss where to find this land that lies beyond the rivers of Cush. Some take it to be Egypt, a maritime country, and full of rivers, and which courted Israel to depend upon them, but proved broken reeds; but against this it is strongly objected that the next chapter is distinguished from this by the title of the burden of Egypt. Others take it to be Ethiopia, and read it, which lies near, or about, the rivers of Ethiopia, not that in Africa, which lay south of Egypt, but that which we call Arabia, which lay east of Canaan, which Tirhakah was now king of. He thought to protect the Jews, as it were, under the shadow of his wings, by giving a powerful diversion to the king of Assyria, when he made a descent upon his country, at the time that he was attacking Jerusalem, 2 Ki. 19:9. But though by his ambassadors he bade defiance to the king of Assyria, and encouraged the Jews to depend upon him, God by the prophet slights him, and will not go forth with him; he may take his own course, but God will take another course to protect Jerusalem, while he suffers the attempt of Tirhakah to miscarry and his Arabian army to be ruined; for the Assyrian army shall become a present or sacrifice to the Lord of hosts, and to the place of his name, by the hand of an angel, not by the hand of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, v. 7. This is a very probable exposition of this chapter. But from a hint of Dr. Lightfoot's, in his Harmony of the Old Testament, I incline to understand this chapter as a prophecy against Assyria, and so a continuation of the prophecy in the last three verses of the foregoing chapter, with which therefore this should be joined. That was against the army of the Assyrians which rushed in upon Judah; this is against the land of Assyria itself, which lay beyond the rivers of Arabia, that is, the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, which bordered on Arabia Deserta. And in calling it the land shadowing with wings he seems to refer to what he himself had said of it (ch. 8:8), that the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel! The prophet might perhaps describe the Assyrians by such dark expressions, not naming them, for the same reason that St. Paul, in his prophecy, speaks of the Roman empire by a periphrasis: He who now letteth, 2 Th. 2:7. Here is,