3 All you peoples of the world, and you who are living on the earth, when a flag is lifted up on the mountains, give attention; and when the horn is sounded, give ear.
And he will let a flag be lifted up as a sign to a far-off nation, whistling to them from the ends of the earth: and they will come quickly and suddenly.
Lord, your hand is lifted up, but they do not see: let them see ... yes, your haters will be burned up in the fire.
<A Psalm. Of Asaph.> The God of gods, even the Lord, has sent out his voice, and the earth is full of fear; from the coming up of the sun to its going down.
Give ear, O heavens, and you, O earth, to the word which the Lord has said: I have taken care of my children till they became men, but their hearts have been turned away from me.
Put up a flag on a clear mountain-top, make a loud outcry to them, give directions with the hand, so that they may go into the doors of the great ones.
The noise of great numbers in the mountains, like the noise of a strong people! The noise of the kingdoms of the nations meeting together! The Lord of armies is numbering his forces for war.
If the horn is sounded in the town will the people not be full of fear? will evil come on a town if the Lord has not done it? Certainly the Lord will do nothing without making clear his secret to his servants, the prophets. The cry of the lion is sounding; who will not have fear? The Lord God has said the word; is it possible for the prophet to keep quiet?
Give ear, O you mountains, to the Lord's cause, and take note, you bases of the earth: for the Lord has a cause against his people, and he will take it up with Israel.
And the Lord will be seen over them, and his arrow will go out like the thunder-flame: and the Lord God, sounding the war-horn, will go in the storm-winds 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,