NOTES ON ISAIAH XVIII.

THIS Chapter has for its subject the regathering of forgiven Israel to their own Land, when the day of their evil and of their sorrow shall have passed for ever; and when, standing under the grace of the New Covenant, they shall form, not as individuals merely, but as a nation, the centre of the earth's government in the power of Truth. For this purpose they are to be regathered at the commencement of the millennial day, and in this chapter we find one of the spared Gentile nations summoned in order to aid in the regathering. As the last manifested act of rebellion, in this dispensation, is to be a confederation of certain nations against Israel, saying, “Come, and let us cut them off from being a nation; that the name of Israel may be no more in remembrance" (See Ps. lxxxiii. 4)-so, the first act by which any of the spared nations will prove their allegiance to the God of Israel, will be by aiding in the regathering of His people.

We must not, however, expect to find in prophecies which belong, as this does, to the next dispensation, the same definiteness and specification that is found in prophecies that pertain to the present dispensation. To know where and under what circumstances transgression is "to come to the full "-and to be taught respecting the course, and place, and final form of development of the last great Apostasy, must be necessary for the present practical guidance of our steps but there is not the same necessity for our being taught, circumstantially, concerning a dispensation to which we do not ourelves belong. To know that there will be a nation that shall, in the morning of the future day of the earth's blessing, be summoned to the honoured office of regathering Israel is important, for it throws a bright and cheering ray upon the earth's future, beyond the darkness of the present night of sorrow. But to know where and what that nation will be is not important: for such knowledge could afford no element of present moral guidance. The Land, therefore, to which this work of blessing is assigned, is not designated by name, but is described only in general terms-too general for any to be able to say what Land it is, until the hour of its action shall arrive.

"Ho, Land shadowing with wings."] The first word, should not be translated "Woe," but "Ho"!-a word of summons. It is the same word that is used in Isaiah lv. 1-"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters": and in Zech. ii. 6. "Ho, ho, come forth and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord." This translation of

is given both by Lowth and Horsley in this passage. A similar correction should be made in Is. x. 5, where Antichrist is summoned. to the work of trampling down Israel for the last time. "Ho, to the Assyrian," or "Ho, to Asshur."

The Land thus summoned, is described as a Land "shadowing with wings"-the emblem of cherishing and protective power; a power which, perhaps, previous to the time here spoken of, may have been directed towards the fugitives of Israel during their last great persecution under Antichrist. But however this may be, it is here definitely commissioned to put forth its kindly power in aiding Israel, whilst they yet bear marks of being a people that have been long trampled down and trodden under foot.

The Land thus addressed is further described as being "beyond "+

* Literally, 'shadow of wings'-okia πтeρvywv. Aquila. There seems no reasonable ground of doubt that hy is kindred to by, a shade, a defence, being a reduplicate and intensive form. If the other sense of 'sound' or 'clashing 'strepitus alarum, adopted by Gesenius and others, be taken, the general sense of the passage is the same. In the one case attention is directed to the kindliness of the power in the other, to the rapidity and energy with which it is exercised— the object in either case being Israel.

Horsley observes-"The second principal sense of the root is to shade, to overshade, to shelter, and as a noun, "shade," a shadow," a shelter;" and this

39.66

It is certainly an

is the sense in which it is most frequently used. objection of no great weight against these renderings, that the word by in its reduplicate form, is not to be found in any other text in the sense of "shade," or "overshadowing." According to the principles of the Hebrew language, the reduplication of the letters of a root only gives intensity to the sense, whatever it may be. So that in whatsover sense a word in the simple form is used, in the same it may be used in the reduplicate form, if the occasion requires an intension of the signification-by, late obumbrans alis." Horsley.

+For the meaning of followed by in the sense of "beyond," see the strictly parallel use in Deut. xxx. 13—“ beyond the sea:" and especially Zeph. iii. 10, which I should translate thus: "From beyond the rivers of Cush, my suppliants, the daughter of my dispersed, they (the nations) shall bring-my offering: that is, the nations shall bring forgiven Israel as an offering or present to Jehovah.

E

66

or external to the rivers of Cush. There was an African Cush (Æthiopia) bordering on the Nile, south of Egypt, and also an Asiatic Cush, referred to in Genesis ii. 13, in connexion with the rivers that issued from Eden. "And the name of the second river is Gihon the same is that that compasseth the whole land of Cush." The African Cush, or Ethiopia, is referred to in many places, such as Daniel xi. 43, 2 Kings xix. 9, and elsewhere. The Asiatic Cush is situate near the head of the Persian Gulph, and is therefore related to the Euphrates, just as the African Cush is to the Nile. Accordingly, the Nile and the Euphrates-the one the pride of Egypt, the other of Assyria, are here referred to as the rivers of Cush. They are again mentioned in a subsequent part of this chapter, and are there expressly made to symbolise the power by which the Land of God's people, has been, from generation to generation, spoiled." "Whose Land the Rivers have spoiled." It is very evident from this verse that the Nile and the Euphrates are not, in this chapter, used to denote merely geographical limits, but that they also denote that specific power with which, during "the Times of the Gentiles" (that is, from Nebuchadnezzar until Antichrist), God has invested certain Gentile nations in order that they might trample down Jerusalem. No country therefore can be regarded as "external to the rivers of Cush," that has, in any degree, inherited or shared the power which those rivers symbolise. All the four great empires - Chaldæa, Persia, Greece, and Rome, have successively possessed the power denoted by these Rivers; and in virtue thereof have held the Land of Israel in subjection. Nor is the period of that subjection over: "the Times of the Gentiles" are not yet ended. The last relation of the Roman nations to Israel and the Land of Israel, we have yet to see. Antichrist, or, as he is called in Isaiah, "the Assyrian," will, as the Head of the whole Roman World (πασης της οικουμένης) which will then be divided into

regionibus quæ trans flumina sunt Chusææ, supplices meos, dispersorum filiam, velut munus mihi, adducent Gentes. In the "Critici Sacri" there is the following note of Drusius. "Adductus auctoritate Chaldæi Paraphrastæ libenter pro 'supplices mei filia,' legerim ‘supplices meos filiam'; ut significet munus quod Deo adducetur, fore ipsos Judæos dispersos per loca quæ sunt trans flumina Ethiopia. Ut ut sit, Jonathæ verba clara et perspicua sunt. E transfluvialibus partibus India per miserationes revertentur exsules populi mei, qui deportati fuerant, eosque adducent velut munera.”

Ten Kingdoms federally united, direct, for the last time, the destructive power denoted by these Rivers against Israel, and "will trample them down as the mire in the streets." Isaiah x. 4. No country, therefore, that falls within the limits of the Roman World (ʼn okovμavn-Orbis Terrarum, as the Romans proudly were wont to call it) can be considered as external to these Rivers of Cush, regarded as the symbolic representatives of Gentile power. Nor will any of the Roman Kingdoms over which Antichrist is to rule, be able to exercise kindly or fostering care towards Israel in the day of Israel's forgiveness: for on them will fall the heavy weight of Divine judgment in a manner more terrible than man has ever yet beheld. The pride of their strength and glory will be gathered to Armageddon (See Rev. xvi.)—the valley of Jehoshaphat will be the place where they will confront the manifested power of the Jehovah of Israel. (See Joel iii. 2, Zech. xiv. 4, Rev. xix. 19.) Thus the flower of their strength will perish. But not only so-the symbol used in Daniel to denote the Roman Kingdoms at that time, is a Ten-horned Beast under the dominance of a little horn: and it is said of that Beast that "its body" is to be given to the burning flame. No expression can more distinctly denote the completeness of exterminating judgment that is to fall on the whole "corpus" of the Roman Nations. The Land therefore which is to be called on to aid Israel in the day of their blessing must be a land far removed from these doomed kingdoms which have aforetime found, and will again find, in "the rivers of Cush," elements of mighty and wondrous powerbut a power which they have so used, and will again so use, against God, as to bring themselves at last into direct collision with the power of Heaven. "These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords and King of kings: and they that are with Him are called, and chosen, and faithful." The end of the nineteenth of the Revelation describes their destruction. The voice of the Lord will not summon any of these nations to the work of blessing described in this chapter.

Our own country therefore, as having formed of old one of the chief Provinces of the Empire of Imperial Rome-and as having had and exercised its share of that peculiar "iron-like" power wherewith God has endowed the countries of the Roman World-and as having yet, in time still future, to take its place among those Ten federally united kingdoms that are to form the last subdivision of the Roman World, must, on all these accounts share the responsibility and the

doom of that Beast whose "body" is to be given to "the burning flame." It cannot, therefore, be the country here summoned to show favour to Israel in the day of their blessing.*

The Land addressed is further described as having power to traverse the sea and is commissioned to put forth that power, not for war and destruction-not for purposes of selfish aggrandisement (the reign of Babylon's covetousness will have terminated then) but in sending swift messengers to befriend scattered and peeled Israel. "Ho, Land shadowing with wings which art beyond the rivers of Cush, that sendest by sea ambassadors, even in vessels of reed over the face of the waters, saying, Go ye swift messengers to a nation

*The Roman Empire has its first recognised existence in Scripture when Cæsar Augustus sent out his decree for its being taxed. It was used of God to punish and "tread down" Jerusalem, until Hadrian gave to that city his terrific and crushing blow. Never before was Jerusalem so stricken. "What of the city of Jerusalem had formerly risen from its ashes, was again levelled with the ground. In its room, a heathen city laid out after Grecian models and provided with marketplaces, theatres, and heathen fanes was to be reared. Every possible outrage on Jewish feeling was devised. A statue of Hadrian was placed where the Altar of Jehovah had once stood, and in room of the Temple a fane for the Roman Jupiter was built. Over the Bethlehem gate the figure of a pig's head was wrought in relief. Even the Samaritans who had sided against Israel did not escape unmolested. When their aid was no longer required, as frequently happens in analogous circumstances, their claims were also set aside, and they had to witness the erection of a temple of Jupiter on their holy Mount Gerizim. The very name of Jerusalem was to be forgotten. The new city built on its site was called “Ælia Capitolina." Coins of the reign of Hadrian and of later Emperors bear that name, and on the reverse the names of the various heathen deities, which under one or other of the Emperors were principally worshipped at Jerusalem. Soon afterwards the revulsion was so complete, that when on a certain occasion, a Christian convert, in his examination before a pro-consul, referred to Jerusalem, the latter did not know" Elia Capitolina" by that name. To complete the change and to make it for ever impossible to restore Jerusalem to its former position, all Jews were, on pain of death, forbidden to approach the City, even within such distance as to catch a glimpse of it."-Edersheim's Hist. of the Jewish Nation after the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. P. 23.

Such things as these supply a comment on the words, "whose land the rivers have spoiled." Had Rome not grasped the power denoted by the Nile and the Euphrates, she would not have been able to effect these things. As soon as Hadrian had thus crushed Jerusalem, the Roman Empire began to wane. Every country that was registered as a Province of Rome, between the reigns of Augustus Cæsar and Hadrian, must be regarded as an integral part of the Roman Empire. “Britannia" was so registered.