Against Ethiopia
1 Woe to the land of whirring wings
beyond the rivers of Cush,
2 which sends ambassadors by sea
in papyrus boats over the waters!
Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and bronzed,
to a nation feared far and wide,
a nation conquering and strong,
whose land the rivers divide.
3 All you inhabitants of the world,
all you who dwell on earth,
when a banner on the mountain is raised, look!
When a horn on the hill is sounded, listen!
4 For thus Yahweh spoke to me:
“From where I dwell, I gaze untroubled,
like heat shimmering in the sunshine,
like a dewy mist in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the vintage,
when the flowers fall,
and the blooms become ripened grapes,
I will cut shoots and prune
and hew away spreading branches.
6 They will be left to the birds of prey
and to the beasts of the earth.
The birds will feed on them all summer,
and the beasts all winter.
7 At that time the tall, bronzed peo ple from a country traversed by rivers – a conquering and strong nation feared far and wide – will bring offer ings to Yahweh Sabaoth, to Mount Zion. For this is the place where the name of Yahweh dwells.
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Comments Isaiah, Chapter 18
• 18.1 See commentary on 13:1. How ever, in 18:7 and 19:16-24, note two additions placed there much later. The first mentions a cult which was celebrated in a Jewish temple built in Heliopolis (which means: City of the Sun).
The second is one of the most extraordinary paragraphs of the Old Testament, for it affirms that the day will come in which foreign nations will share all the privileges of Israel.