The In-Dept Study of the Bible
Isaiah 18
1 Ah, the land of the rustling of wings,
which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;
2 that sends ambassadors by the sea,
even in vessels of papyrus on the waters,
saying, “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome
from their beginning onward, a nation
that measures out and treads down, whose
land the rivers divide!”
3 All you inhabitants of the world, and
you dwellers on the earth, when a banner
is lifted up on the mountains, look! When
the trumpet is blown, listen!
4 For Yahweh said to me, “I will be still,
and I will see in my dwelling place, like
clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew
in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a
ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs
with pruning hooks, and he will cut down
and take away the spreading branches.
6 They will be left together for the
ravenous birds of the mountains, and for
the animals of the earth. The ravenous
birds will eat them in the summer, and all
the animals of the earth will eat them in
the winter.
7 In that time, a present will be brought
to Yahweh of Armies from a people tall
and smooth, even from a people awesome
from their beginning onward, a nation
that measures out and treads down, whose
land the rivers divide, to the place of the
name of Yahweh of Armies, Mount Zion.