18:1 Woe to the a land shadowing with wings, which [is] beyond
the rivers of Cush:
(a) He means that part of Ethiopia which lies toward the
sea, which was so full of ships that the sails (which
he compares to wings) seemed to shadow the sea.
18:2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of b
bulrushes upon the waters, [saying], c Go, ye swift
messengers, to a nation scattered and stripped, to a d
people terrible from their beginning to this time; a nation
measured by line and trodden down, whose land the e
rivers have laid waste!
(b) Which is those countries were great, so much so that
they made ships from them for swiftness.
(c) This may be taken that they sent others to comfort the
Jews and to promise them help against their enemies,
and so the Lord threatened to take away their strength,
that the Jews should not trust in it: or that they
solicited the Egyptians and promised them aid to go
against Judah.
(d) That is, the Jews who because of God's plague made all
other nations afraid of the same, as God threatened in
(De 28:37).
(e) Meaning the Assyrians, (Isa 8:7).
18:3 All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth,
see ye, when f he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains;
and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.
(f) When the Lord prepared to fight against the Ethiopians.
18:4 For so the LORD said to me, I will take my g rest, and I
will consider in my dwelling place like a h clear heat
upon herbs, [and] like a cloud of dew in the heat of
harvest.
(g) I will stay a while from punishing the wicked.
(h) Which two seasons are profitable for the ripening of
fruit, by which he means that he will seem to favour
them and give them abundance for a time, but he will
suddenly cut them off.
18:6 They shall be left together to the fowls of the mountains,
and to the i beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall
summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall
winter upon them.
(i) Not only men will contemn them, but the brute beast.
18:7 In that time shall the k present be brought to the LORD
of hosts of a people scattered and stripped, and from a
people terrible from their beginning to this time; a nation
measured by line and trodden under foot, whose land the
rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD
of hosts, the mount Zion.
(k) Meaning that God will pity his Church, and receive that
little remnant as an offering to himself.
