Vol 01 - The Land Shadowing With Wings

The Land Shadowing With Wings

Isaiah 18:1-7. "The land shadowing with wings, which (is) beyond the rivers of Cush," means, I think, a country outside the limits of those nations which up to the prophet’s time had menaced Israel; a country beyond Assyria and Babylon, which were contiguous to one of these rivers and beyond Egypt, which lay along the other. For Scripture connects Cush with these two districts, if not with more: an Asiatic as well as an African Ethiopia. The meaning is, then, a land which should essay to protect the long-oppressed Jew, and that land beyond those rivers which characterized the great powers which hitherto were best known to and had most interfered with Israel.

It was not only a distant but a maritime power (" sending ambassadors by the sea "). " Vessels of bulrushes " looks more like Egypt than anything else in the chapter, but it cannot outweigh the other evidence. Perhaps others may throw light on the phrase. The burden of Egypt follows, and is expressly named in the succeeding chapter. Here the name is withheld.

It is distinguished in the plainest way from the nation in whose behalf it employs its vessels and swift messengers. I cannot therefore but think those commentators far astray who interpret the land in verse 1, and the people to whom the message is sent in verse 2, of Egypt and the Egyptians. Happily here the question depends not on mere verbal criticisms, but on the general bearing of the context, which the English reader is quite capable of judging.

There is no doubt on either side that the same people to whom the messengers are sent are described in the latter part of verse 2, as well as in verse 7. The words which characterize them are certainly open, in their force and translation, to a good deal of dispute. Few, however, will be disposed to accept the notion that מְמֻשׇׁךְ= " harnessed in leather," which has not the least support from elsewhere. It is used in Proverbs 13:12, of hope prolonged or deferred. Other forms of the same word occur frequently in the Bible, and mean to draw (literally or figuratively), stretch out, continue. Gesenius gives it here the sense of duraturus, robustus, which seems to me not to harmonize with the conjoined word. The English translators may have given the Gesenius gives it here the sense kal participle (poel) means "him that soweth" (marg. draweth forth) seed in Amos 9:13. I rather think the term alludes to the long trials and painful suspense of the Jews, and this seems confirmed by וּמו֗רׇמ, "and peeled" or made bare, rather than " shaven;" for, in such an application, the word is used only of cases where the hair was fallen off

(Leviticus 13:40-41), or forcibly plucked off (Ezra 9:3; Nehem. 13: 25; Isaiah 1:6). The sense of "peeling" the shoulder occurs in Ezekiel 29:19, which would yield the same figurative sense, the latter being taken from the skin as the former from the hair. "Furbished" or polished is the general sense when spoken of the sword, metals, etc., and Gesenius thence derives the tropical meaning which he assigns to the word here, "populus acer h. e. celer, vehemens;" a highly improbable turn in my opinion. The general bearing of the next clause remains undisturbed. What follows is literally "a nation of a line, a line," which Dathe connected, I presume, with Isaiah 28:10, and our translators with chap. 25: 17; 34:11, 17; and Lamentations 2:8. Either of these, and the last particularly, I consider preferable to the far-fetched allusion to land-measuring, which, it will be observed, causes some to change "nation " into the " country ’ meted out;" which is the more surprising and inconsistent, because in the sentence before it was justly remarked that it was the people, not the country. The same term נּו֗י is used in both cases. I have no doubt whatever that וּמְבוּםׇהקַויקׇו describes not their vast strength, trampling down all before it (as Gesenius will have it), but rather their obnoxiousness to every form of hostile appropriation and indignity. (Compare Isaiah 22:5; Isaiah 28:4.) This is confirmed and determined by the last words of the verse, whether we adopt the textual rendering or the margin of the English. Bible, or even Gesenius’s theory of "cleaving," which he finds, though to my mind with slight show of evidence, in the word. Still any of these seem to me incomparably better than a fancied allusion to "inundation," which has really nothing to favor it, any more than the fancy that the previous words refer to the practice of sending pigs or goats to tread down the seed under their feet. I hope to be pardoned for considering them both an unlawful importation into this text. All these mistakes flow out of the first great error of treating the people under debate as the Egyptians. To this I may add that מֵעֵבֶר. ("beyond") is made to mean "on this side," quite untenably, though at first sight there might seem more reason for it, especially in the English Bible. However, there is no space here to trace in what circumstances the word is susceptible of that force. I can only say that "beyond," as it is the natural, so here seems to me the true meaning. It is only in very special cases that we can give the other rendering, and the reason must be shown before it can be assumed.

5. As regards the intervening verses, 3-6, all are summoned to see and hear what befalls the people of the Lord, Israel. He, as it were, retires, and watches. Man is active. The Jews, brought back by human intervention, seem to flourish; but suddenly, " afore the harvest," all is arrested, and disappointment comes. The nations turn once more against the Jews. "They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth." Compare the chapter before, especially verses 9-14.

6. "In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of Hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion," -Here, waiving the question of. the terms repeated from verse 2, and already discussed, I think the English version is more accurate than most others. For there are in verse 7 not two peoples, but two things taught about Israel; that a present should be made (1) of them, and (2) from them, to Jehovah of Hosts. The Jewish nation should be brought a present, and they should also bring one to the Lord in Mount Zion, after their signal deliverance from the fury of the Gentiles.