Isaiah 18 ASV
Summary: Isaiah addresses "the land shadowing with wings" beyond the rivers of Cush (Ethiopia), a nation of tall, smooth-skinned people whose swift messengers are sent by sea, telling them to watch as the LORD acts. God describes quietly observing from His dwelling place like clear heat or a cloud of dew, while He lets a coming harvest of judgment ripen before He acts like a farmer cutting off shoots and pruning branches, leaving them for birds and beasts to feed on through a summer and winter. The chapter closes with the promise that eventually this same feared, powerful, "meted out" nation will bring a gift to the LORD of hosts at Mount Zion, turning a picture of threat into one of eventual homage. It is one of the shorter, more enigmatic oracles, focused on watching and waiting for God's timing.
1Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;
2that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation that meteth out and treadeth down, whose land the rivers divide!
3All ye inhabitants of the world, and ye dwellers on the earth, when an ensign is lifted up on the mountains, see ye; and when the trumpet is blown, hear ye.
4For thus hath Jehovah said unto me, I will be still, and I will behold in my dwelling-place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.
5For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becometh a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and the spreading branches will he take away and cut down.
6They shall be left together unto the ravenous birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth; and the ravenous birds shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
7In that time shall a present be brought unto Jehovah of hosts from a people tall and smooth, even from a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation that meteth out and treadeth down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the mount Zion.
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