Isaiah 18 - ESV - Bible Reading / Study Notes

Isaiah 18

An Oracle Concerning Cush

18:1   Ah, land of whirring wings
    that is beyond the rivers of Cush,¹
2   which sends ambassadors by the sea,
    in vessels of papyrus on the waters!
  Go, you swift messengers,
    to a nation tall and smooth,
  to a people feared near and far,
    a nation mighty and conquering,
    whose land the rivers divide.
3   All you inhabitants of the world,
    you who dwell on the earth,
  when 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 from my dwelling
    like clear heat in sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5   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   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 At that time tribute will be brought to the LORD of hosts

  from a people tall and smooth,
    from a people feared near and far,
  a nation mighty and conquering,
    whose land the rivers divide,

to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the LORD of hosts.

Footnotes

[1] 18:1 Probably Nubia

Commentary

v1-3: Isaiah's attention moves to Cush, in Africa, a region reaching far to the west, towards modern Congo, and including the horn of Africa. (There are commentators who regard Cush as indicative of all Africa.) The tall inhabitants, smooth skinned, having a different speech to the Semitic peoples around Israel, a people feared by others. The nation was powerful, able, in the time of Asa, to muster an army of 1 million men (2 Chr 14.9). It had fleets of sailing boats.

v4-6: The Lord looks down from His dwelling place, and pronounces judgment, bringing the nation, once so powerful, into desolation.

v7: The Lord God is over all the nations, bringing them into submission. The people of Cush, in common with all others, will bring their gifts to God, Rev 21.26. Peoples throughout Africa can see here a promise of God's restoration.