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Isaiah 18

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

A message to Cush

1 Ah, land of whirring wings, which is beyond the rivers of Cush, 2 which sends envoys by the sea, in vessels of papyrus on the face of the waters! Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, 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 banner is lifted up on the mountains, look! When the shofar is blown, listen! 4 For thus Yahweh said to me: I will be still and look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the 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 will cut off the shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches He will lop off and clear away. 6 They will all be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth; the birds of prey will spend the summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will spend the winter on them.

7 At that time a gift will be brought to Yahweh Tsevaot from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Yahweh Tsevaot, Mount Zion.

Notes

  • 18:1 Cush is the land south of Egypt along the Nile (ancient Nubia, in today's Sudan); in Isaiah's day its kings also ruled Egypt, and many Bibles call it "Ethiopia" (see 2 Kings 19:9). "Whirring wings" may describe the swarms of insects of the Nile country, or the sails of its boats.
  • 18:2 Cush had sent envoys up the Nile in light papyrus boats, likely to win Judah into an alliance against Assyria. The prophet sends them home: Judah's help will not come from treaties, for Yahweh Himself will act (verses 4-6). "Papyrus" is gome, the reed of which Moses' mother made his little ark (Exodus 2:3). "Mighty and conquering" is literally "line-line and trampling," a phrase whose exact sense is uncertain.
  • 18:4 Yahweh does not rush to act while the nations hurry back and forth with envoys and alliances. He waits, as quiet and certain as the summer heat and the morning dew that ripen the harvest; and when the moment comes, He acts (verse 5).
  • 18:5 The enemy, Assyria, is pictured as a vine about to bear its fruit; just before the grapes ripen, Yahweh prunes it away, and its plans come to nothing.
  • 18:7 The same distant nation that sent envoys to make alliances (verse 2) will one day bring a gift to Yahweh at Zion, "the place" where He put His name (Deuteronomy 12:5). Psalm 68:31 shares the hope: "Cush will hasten to stretch out her hands to Elohim." "From a people tall" follows the Dead Sea Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa-a) and the ancient Greek translation; the Masoretic text lacks "from" there and can be read "a people tall … will be brought" as the gift itself.

Isaiah 17 · Isaiah 19

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