Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia,
2 Which sends ambassadors by sea,
Even in vessels of reed on the waters, saying,
“Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin,
To a people terrible from their beginning onward,
A nation powerful and treading down,
Whose land the rivers divide....To the place of the name of the Lord of hosts,
To Mount Zion." vv.1-2,6b
Read chapter 18
A land of buzzing wings sounds scary to me, probably because I'm afraid of birds;) This could also refer to not birds but probably locust, mosquitos and other noisy winged insects. This chapter starts with the arrival of foreign ambassadors from Ethiopia in Jerusalem. Perhaps they're coming to persuade the Israelites to join forces with them in revolt against the Assyrians. Ethiopia, biblical name for Cush, covered a much wider land than the Ethiopia we have today. The description of the Ethiopians suggests Isaiah or someone being an eye witness of them in the land. "The appearance of the tall, gleaming, black Ethiopians elicited comments from many ancient writers. Herodotus, for instance, writing in the fifth century B.C. Greece, describes them as 'the tallest and most beautiful of men'" (Isaiah Volume 1, John F. A. Sawyer). In the last verse of the chapter Isaiah foretells of the present brought to the Lord by the Ethiopians for being them and the Israelites being delivered from the Assyrians by the hand of God. The proud Ethiopians who came to pressurize Judah in verse one now come to Jerusalem with tribute. How do you view Ethiopians today? How can you "fight" for a people not your own for God's glory?
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