The Land of Rustling Wings
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.
Envoys arrive from the far south, and God's answer is that he intends to watch quietly.
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!”
The country is Cush, upriver from Egypt and at the edge of the known world, and at this period its dynasty ruled Egypt too. The rustling wings are probably insects; the papyrus boats are the light craft used on the Nile, and the detail says these envoys came fast.
They are described respectfully — a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward Isaiah 18:2 — which is unusual in a chapter of oracles. What they have come for is not stated, though the period makes it obvious: an alliance against Assyria.
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!
The address widens from one embassy to everyone alive, and the instruction is to watch for a signal.
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.”
The reply to the diplomacy, and it is the strangest thing in the chapter. God says he will do nothing and watch — and the two comparisons are both of conditions that ripen a crop. Shimmering heat and night dew in harvest season are not inaction; they are exactly what makes fruit swell in the last weeks before it is cut.
The stillness is therefore not indifference. It is the quiet of the interval in which something is being brought to the point where it can be dealt with.
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.
And the cutting comes early — before the harvest, when the fruit has set but is not ripe. The empire's plans are pruned at the moment they look most promising.
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.
The prunings are left where they fall, through summer and winter, feeding scavengers.
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.
The chapter ends where the second chapter did. The nation that sent ambassadors to negotiate sends a gift to worship, and the description of them is repeated word for word — the same people, arriving for a different reason.
settled What this mark means