What does Isaias Chapter 18 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

Bulrush ambassadors address a rent and trodden people. Rest, dew and pruning preserve the oracle’s imagery. The present at Sion is distinguished from the edition’s conversion interpretation.

Chapter breakdown

Isaias 18 addresses a land described as the winged cymbal beyond Ethiopia's rivers, sending ambassadors by sea in bulrush vessels. Swift angels, explained by the edition as messengers, are sent to a rent, torn, terrible, expectant and trodden people whose land rivers have spoiled. The admitted description is not replaced with tall stature or smooth skin. All earth's inhabitants are told to see the mountain sign and hear the trumpet.

The Lord says he will rest and consider in his place, likened to clear noon light and a harvest cloud of dew. Before perfect ripeness, sprigs are cut with pruning hooks and remaining growth cut away and shaken out. What is left lies with mountain birds through summer and beasts through winter. These images do not themselves specify military alliances, frantic diplomats, the upper Nile or the precise identity of a fallen army.

A present then comes to the Lord of hosts at Sion from a people described again as torn, terrible, expectant and trodden, their land spoiled by rivers. The edition heading interprets the oracle as concerning Ethiopians and their future conversion. That reading remains distinguishable from the prophetic imagery and is not expanded into a demonstrated global political outcome.

The story inside

Opening: Bulrush ambassadors address a rent and trodden people. Development: Rest, dew and pruning preserve the oracle’s imagery. Conclusion: The present at Sion is distinguished from the edition’s conversion interpretation.

Lessons worth keeping

1
Bulrush ambassadors address a rent and trodden people.
2
Rest, dew and pruning preserve the oracle’s imagery.
3
The present at Sion is distinguished from the edition’s conversion interpretation.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 79943–79944
18:1. Woe to the land, the winged cymbal, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
Lines 79946–79950
18:2. That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces: to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled.
Lines 79958–79960
18:4. For thus saith the Lord to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noon light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest.
Lines 79962–79964
18:5. For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and it shall bud without perfect ripeness, and the sprigs thereof shall be cut off with pruning hooks: and what is left shall be cut away and shaken out.
Lines 79966–79968
18:6. And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon them all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.
Lines 79970–79974
18:7. At that time shall a present be brought to the Lord of hosts, from a people rent and torn in pieces: from a terrible people, after which there hath been no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion.