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An Oracle concerning Ethiopia18 Ah, land of whirring wings beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, 2 sending ambassadors by the Nile in vessels of papyrus on the waters! Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide.
3 All you inhabitants of the world, you who live on the earth, when a signal is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet is blown, listen! 4 For thus the L ord said to me: I will quietly look from my dwelling 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 shoots with pruning hooks, and the spreading branches he will hew away. 6 They shall all be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the animals of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the animals of the earth will winter on them.
7 At that time gifts will be brought to the L ord of hosts from a people tall and smooth, from a people feared near and far, a nation mighty and conquering, whose land the rivers divide, to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the L ord of hosts.
New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by
permission. All rights reserved.
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6. They shall be left together. 2323 {Bogus footnote} He means that they will be cast aside as a thing of no value, as John the Baptist also compares them to chaff, which is thrown on the dunghill. (Matthew 3:12; Luke 3:17.) Thus Isaiah shews that they will be exposed to the wild beasts and to the fowls, so that the fowls will nestle in them in summer, and the wild beasts will make their lairs in them in winter; as if he had said, that not only men, but the wild beasts themselves will disdain them. Such therefore is the end of wicked men, who, situated in a lofty place, and thinking that they are beyond all danger, despise every one but themselves. The fowls and the beasts of prey will make use of them for nests and for food. They will be thrown down, I say, not only beneath all men, but even beneath the beasts themselves, and, being exposed to every kind of insult and dishonor, they will be a proof of the wonderful providence of God. 2424 {Bogus footnote} |