Isaiah 18:1

Woe to the land shadowing with wings,.... Or, "O land", as calling to it; so Aben Ezra and Kimchi.

Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: Isaiah announces the overthrow of Sennacherib's hosts, and desires the Ethiopian ambassadors, now in Jerusalem, to bring

ISAIAH CHAPTER 18 God, in defence of his church and punishing her enemies, will destroy the Ethiopians, : an access thereby shall be to the church, . The land; either, 1. Of Arabia; or, 2. Of Ethiopia beyond Egypt; or, 3. Of Egypt, as some both ancient and later interpreters judge; of whom he speaks more darkly in this chapter, and then explains himself more clearly in the next chapter. But this controversy will be best determined by examining the following description. Shadowing with wings: the title of wings is oft given, both in Scripture and in other authors, unto divers things which have, some general kind of resemblance to wings, as to the battlements of a house or temple, as ; to the skirts of a garment, as , and oft elsewhere; to an army, as 49:22; and to the sails of a ship, as this word is here commonly understood, and as it is unquestionably used in other authors. And shadowing with wings is nothing else but overspread or filled with them; which title may be given either to Ethiopia or Egypt, in regard of the great numbers, either, 1. Of their armies; or rather, 2. Of their ships or vessels sailing upon the sea or rivers: for, 1. In these they exceeded most of those nations who had dealings with the Jews, whereas other nations equalled or exceeded them in numerous armies. But they had an innumerable company of ships or boats, not only because of the commodiousness of the river Nilus, and its’ many branches, and the Red Sea, and the Midland Sea, for navigation; but also because of the frequent overflowings of the river Nilus over their land, which made them absolutely necessary. 2. This best suits with the next verse. 3. Those ancient and venerable interpreters, the LXX. and the Chaldee, who best understood the Hebrew words and phrases, expound it so. Beyond; or, on this side, as this particle is rendered, 22:1, and in many other places. Or, as others translate it, besides, which may comprehend both sides; and so the land of which he speaks is supposed to be situated on both sides of this river or rivers; which is most true both of Egypt and of Ethiopia. The rivers: a late learned writer understands this of three or four rivers of Arabia Chusaeea, whereof one flows into the Red Sea, another into the Midland Sea, and a third into a great lake; which being obscure and very inconsiderable rivers, and running in so distant channels, it is not probable that this land should receive its denomination from them. And therefore it seems more reasonable to understand this of the great river Nilus. which comes from Ethiopia, and runs through the length of that land, and through Egypt, into the Midland Sea; and which is here called rivers, in the plural number, as it is also ,4, and unquestionably Nab. iii. 8.

Isaiah 18:1 Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which [is] beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:Ver. 1. Woe to the land.] To Ethiopia, described here, (1.) By the shady mountains wherewith it is surrounded; (2.) By the rivers wherewith it is watered. Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia.] Or, Which is along by the rivers, even Ethiopia, which also may be said to be "beyond the rivers," i.e., beyond the seven streams of Nile in respect of Jerusalem. Strabo.

XVIII. (1) Woe to the land shadowing with wings.—A new kingdom, hitherto unnamed by Isaiah, comes now within his horizon. The movements of Tirhakah, king of Cush or Ethiopia, from the upper valley of the Nile, subduing Egypt, and prepared to enter into conflict with the great Assyrian king (Isaiah 37:9), had apparently excited the hopes of such of Hezekiah’s counsellors as put their trust in an arm of flesh. To these Isaiah now turns with words of warning. The words “shadowing with wings” have been very variously interpreted as implying (1) the image of a mighty eagle stretching out its imperial wings (Ezekiel 17:1-8); (2) the urœus or disk with outspread wings which appears in Egyptian paintings as the symbol of Ethiopian sovereignty; (3) the rendering resounding being adopted instead of “shadowing,” the swarms of the tse-tse fly that have been the terror of all travellers in Abyssinia. Of these (2) has most to commend it, and receives confirmation from the inscription of Piankhi-Mer-Amon, translated by Canon Cook in Records of the Past (2 p. 89), in which that king, an Ethiopian, who had conquered Egypt, appears with the urœus on his head, and the chiefs of the north and south cry out to him, “Grant us to be under thy shadow.” (Comp. Isaiah 30:2-3.) The phrase, “beyond the river,” points, as in Zephaniah 3:10, to the region of the White and the Blue Nile, south of Meroe or Sennar, and not far from the Lake Nyanza of modern explorers.

CHAPTER XVIII This chapter contains a very obscure prophecy; possibly designed to give the Jews, and perhaps the Egyptians, whose country is supposed to be meant, 1, 2, and with whom many Jews resided, an indignation of God's interposition in favour of Sion, 3, 4; and of his counsels in regard to the destruction of their common enemy, Sennacherib, whose vast army, just as he thought his projects ripe, and ready to be crowned with success, 5, should become a prey to the beasts of the field, and to the fowls of heaven, 6; and that Egypt should be grateful to God for the deliverance vouchsafed her, 7. This is one of the most obscure prophecies in tho whole Book of Isaiah. The subject of it, the end and design of it, the people to whom it is addressed, the history to which it belongs, the person who sends the messengers, and the nation to whom the messengers are sent, are all obscure and doubtful. - L. NOTES ON CHAP. XVIII Verse 1. Wo to the land] הוי ארץ hoi arets! This interjection should be translated ho! for it is properly a particle of calling: Ho, land! Attend! Give ear! Shadowing with wings - "The winged cymbal] צלצל כנפים tsiltsal kenaphayim. I adopt this as the most probable of the many interpretations that have been given of these words. It is Bochart's: see Phaleg, iv. 2. The Egyptian sistrum is expressed by a periphrasis; the Hebrews had no name for it in their language, not having in use the instrument itself. The cymbal they had was an instrument in its use and sound not much unlike the sistrum; and to distinguish it from the sistrum, they called it the cymbal with wings. The cymbal was a round hollow piece of metal, which, being struck against another, gave a ringing sound: the sistrum was a round instrument, consisting of a broad rim of metal, through which from side to side ran several loose laminae or small rods of metal, which being shaken, gave a like sound. These, projecting on each side, had somewhat the appearance of wings; or might be very properly expressed by the same word which the Hebrews used for wings, or for the extremity, or a part of any thing projecting. The sistrum is given in a medal of Adrian, as the proper attribute of Egypt. See Addison on Medals, Series iii. No. 4; where the figure of it may be seen. The frame of the sistrum was in shape rather like the ancient lyre; it was not round. If we translate shadowing with wings, it may allude to the multitude of its vessels, whose sails may be represented under the notion of wings. The second verse seems to support this interpretation. Vessels of bulrushes, gome, or rather the flag papyrus, so much celebrated as the substance on which people wrote in ancient times, and from which our paper is denominated. The sails might have been made of this flag: but whole canoes were constructed from it.

1–3. The charge to the Ethiopian envoys, along with a poetic description of the land and people. The tendency of the ancient world to idealise the Ethiopians is familiar to students of classical literature. To the Greeks they were the “blameless Ethiopians” (Homer), “the tallest and handsomest of all men” (Herodotus). Isaiah would seem to have been struck by the fine physique of the ambassadors, and perhaps it was their narrative that furnished his vivid imagination with the picturesque details crowded into these three verses.

Woe to the land - (הוי hôy). This word, as has been already remarked (the note at Isaiah 17:12), may be a mere interjection or salutation, and would be appropriately rendered by ‘Ho!’ Or it may be a

1. Woe — Not minatory, but salutatory: Ho! Land shadowing with wings — Or, land of the clanging sound of wings; the buzz or rustling of insect wings; or, as some interpret, referring to the rustle