Isaiah 18

Someone might wonder and say to himself, "Why does the prophetic oracle addressed to Damascus now mention the land that is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia?" At certain times the Israelites foolishly abandoned God the Savior of all and fell into the error of worshiping many gods. Paying no heed whatsoever to the law given by Moses, they were chastised by God, at times through foes who rose up against them and at times by other catastrophes. Although they should have repented and been healed, ceased their wicked way, walked in the commandments and sought help from God, they made alliances with their neighbors, first with the kings in Damascus, then with those in Egypt. Not only this. They also embraced the gods of the nations that had come to their aid and wasted no time in emulating their ways. Hence the prophet now turns his attention to the Egyptians.The Israelites, in particular those living in Jerusalem, had approached the Egyptians and pleaded with them to become allies. They needed their support because they were being invaded by the Babylonians. As God says in the words of the prophet, "Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, who trust in horses and chariots." The Egyptians were zealous in their devotion to idols. Therefore he calls them a people desperate and beaten down. Desperate because they did not know the one who is by nature truly God, beaten down because they had allowed their minds to become subject to the deceptions of demons, trodden down under their feet.

The word of Isaiah: "Woe to the wings of the vessels of the land, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: (woe to him) who sends sureties by the sea, and letters of papyrus [on the water; for nimble messengers will go] to a nation anxious and expectant, and a people strange and bitter against them; a nation hopeless and trodden down."But we who hope for the Son of God are persecuted and trodden down by those unbelievers. For the "wings of the vessels" are the churches; and the sea is the world, in which the church is set like a ship tossed in the deep but not destroyed. For she has with her the skilled pilot, Christ. And she bears in her midst also the trophy over death, for she carries with her the cross of the Lord. For her prow is the east, and her stern is the west, and her hold is the south, and her tillers are the two Testaments. And the ropes that stretch around her are the love of Christ, which binds the church. And the net which she bears with her is the layer of the regeneration which renews the believing from which also come these glories. As the wind, the Spirit from heaven is present by whom those who believe are sealed. She has also anchors of iron accompanying her, that is, the holy commandments of Christ himself, which are strong as iron. She also has mariners on the right and on the left, assessors like the holy angels by whom the church is always governed and defended. The ladder in her leading up to the sail-yard is an emblem of the passion of Christ, which brings the faithful to the ascent of heaven. And the topsails aloft on the yard are the company of prophets, martyrs and apostles, who have entered into their rest in the kingdom of Christ.

Woe to the land, the cymbal of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia. The Hebrew word SELSEL (צלצל), which Symmachus interpreted as sound and Theodotion as birds, we have rendered as cymbal. Aquila translated double shadow. But it must be known that a shadow is called SEL (צל), and here the syllable itself is doubled. From this we can understand the saying thus: Woe to the land that promises help in the shadow of its wings. And whereas Scripture says: He who dwells in the help of the Most High will abide in the protection of the God of heaven (Ps 90 [91]:1), for which in the Hebrew is written, He will abide in the shadow of the Almighty, this land, boasting that it has the very likeness of God, promises, though itself set in dangers, to give support to others. And it signifies either No, the city of Egypt which is now called Alexandria, or Egypt, on which Jerusalem always leaned as on a shaken reed, which, when it breaks, pierces the hand of the one who leans on it. And here the order is most beautiful: that just as in the former Vision the prophetic word threatened Damascus, because the ten tribes had help in it, asking God's mercy, so now too devastation is foretold to Egypt, for the sake of whose help the invocation of God was neglected. For this is the land which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that is, beyond the streams of the river Nile, which no one doubts flows from Ethiopia into Egypt. Egypt can be called the cymbal of wings because of the swiftness of its crops: for the swift and rapid flight of birds gives back the sound of a cymbal. Some, from what follows: Who sends envoys by sea, and in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, understand the Roman empire, and refer the whole history to the times of Vespasian and Titus, by whom Jerusalem was overthrown. But it does not accord with our faith that the Lord should threaten the Roman empire for having overthrown an impious nation, and then say that gifts are to be brought to Mount Zion; unless perhaps we take these things too spiritually, of the Church.

Woe to the land, the cymbal of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, which sends ambassadors by the sea, and in vessels of papyrus upon the waters: go, swift Angels, to a nation torn away and rent asunder, to a terrible people, after which there is no other, to a nation waiting, waiting and trodden down, whose land the rivers have plundered. All you inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign has been lifted up on the mountains you shall see, and you shall hear the blast of the trumpet. LXX: Woe to the land of the wings of ships beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, you who send hostages by the sea, and letters of papyrus upon the water. For swift messengers shall go to a lofty nation, and to a foreign and most wicked people, which is beyond it: a nation without hope, and trodden down; now the rivers of the whole earth as a region that is inhabited: their region shall be inhabited, as if a sign were lifted up from the mountain, and the voice of the trumpet were heard. I have set down both editions in a most obscure prophecy, so that nothing may seem to be lacking to those who wish to understand what is written. And at the same time I greatly marvel at those who think that our faith and Christian hope are content with simplicity, because it is written: The commandment of God is clear, enlightening the eyes (Ps 18 [19]:9), and that we ought to seek nothing more than that what is commanded be done; whereas the whole of Scripture, and the Prophets especially, are wrapped in the mysteries of things to come precisely in order to rouse us to understanding, and to what is said in the Gospel: Ask, and you shall receive; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you. Since, then, I have expounded it in the fifth book according to the history and what is contained in the Hebrew, I shall now set out what seems to me according to the anagogy. A prudent reader may perhaps ask what is meant, in the Vision or Burden of Damascus, by the cymbal of wings and the other things that follow. After it had been said of the calling of the nations, of the casting off of the Jews, and of the election of those who believed through the Apostles, and afterwards of the multitude of the nations and the persecutors, who were compared to the waves of the sea, it followed that the prophetic word should also announce the heresies which have troubled the Church and lay it waste to this day, which, while the householder slept, oversowed tares in the field of the Church (Matt 13). And they are called a cymbal, as not having the love of God, according to that saying of the Apostle: If I speak with the tongues of men and of Angels, but have not love, I have become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal (1 Cor 13:1). And they are called not only a cymbal clashing with a harsh sound, but, because of the lightness of heretical speech running off in different directions, a cymbal of wings, or according to the Seventy, wings of ships, since, promising great merchandise, they sail on the waves of this world. By the wings of ships understand the sails by which they are lifted and drawn along. And he fittingly said wings of ships, for every heretic promises lofty things, and though he boasts that he has wings, he nevertheless sticks fast in the salt waves, and does not go far from land, and in mid-course suddenly suffers shipwreck. Hence Aquila translated, instead of cymbal, shadow of wings, for they do not have wings, but a likeness of wings. And what he adds, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, signifies that the heretics surpass all in their impiety. For example: Epicurus says that there is no providence, and that pleasure is the highest good. In comparison with him Marcion is more wicked, and all the heretics who tear the Old Testament to pieces. For while they admit providence, they accuse the Creator, and assert that he erred in very many of his works and did not make them as he ought to have made them: for to what benefit of men, they ask, do serpents, scorpions, crocodiles, and fleas, bugs and gnats belong?

But according to the Seventy the wings of the heretics are bewailed, which flit like ships over the sea of this world and surpass the impiety of the heathen, whom the Scripture now calls Ethiopians; and it is said to their teaching and speech: You who send books on the sea of this world, the hostages of your perversity, and letters to deceive those who will read them. Swift messengers go to a lofty nation, and to a foreign and most wicked people. For none of the churchmen has as much zeal for good as the heretics have for evil, and they think they gain a profit if they deceive others, and, being lost themselves, destroy the rest. Now the nation is called lofty on account of its pride, and foreign and most wicked because it is estranged from God. Truly a nation without hope, and trodden down, whose rivers throughout the whole earth imitate the dwelling of the Church, so that they may find themselves a lodging and a region in which to lift up the sign of their teaching, in which to sound the trumpet of the Scriptures.

Woe to the land, the winged cymbal. Here he threatens against the Egyptians. And first, he threatens their punishment through comparison to what merits the punishment; in the second part, he describes the manner of the punishment: the burden of Egypt (ch. 19); in the third part, he designates the time of the punishment: in the year (ch. 20). Concerning the first, he sets out three things: first, he designates the fault, which merits the punishment; second, he threatens the punishment: all you inhabitants (Isa 18:3); third, he shows the fruit of the punishment: at that time (Isa 18:7).

Concerning the first, he does two things. First, he describes the location of the land which they trusted in proudly, saying, woe, namely, it is near at hand, to the land, Egypt, the winged cymbal, so-called because of the sound of the Nile, whose swiftness is compared to the movement of wings because of their swiftness, or because of the multitude of the peoples, or because of the help of protection, which they resounded to the people of the two tribes; which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that is, beyond the Nile, which comes from Ethiopia: behold, I come against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt, you great dragon that lies in the midst of your rivers (Ezek 29:3). Nevertheless, the Jews explain this as referring to Gog, who lives beyond Ethiopia, against whom the prophet Ezekiel testifies (Ezek 38).

Who sends envoys by sea, and in vessels of papyrus upon the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a nation convulsed and torn apart, to a terrible people, after whom there is no other, to a nation waiting and trampled down, whose land the rivers have plundered. Among the Hebrews Egypt, and the Egyptian, and the Egyptians are all called by one word, MESRAIM (מצרים). Let this be said lest anyone stick at the word when he finds the masculine in place of the feminine, that is, the man in place of the land; for now too it is said: Who sends envoys by sea, that is, Mesraim herself, the Egyptian himself: because from Alexandria, which was then, as we have said, called No, envoys were sent to Jerusalem, and, in vessels of papyrus, that is, in letters, or else in ships, promising them their help, they said: Go swiftly to the Jews' convulsed nation, torn by the attack of the Assyrians: to a people once terrible, which enjoyed the command of God, to whose power no other is to be compared: to a nation which always waited for the help of God, and nevertheless is trampled down by men: whose land the rivers, that is, various kings, have ravaged. Others, however, think that the apostrophe is directed to the Lord, and that the sense is: O God, who send the Prophets into the sea of this world, and, admonishing the people through letters as if by men under sail, command your messengers: Go swiftly to my nation, torn and convulsed, to a most mighty people, which was once a terror to all the nations round about, which always waited for the help of God, and, because of the greatness of its sins, does not deserve to receive what it hopes for: whose land the kings of various nations have laid waste, and the rest that follows. Eusebius of Caesarea, promising a historical interpretation in his title, wanders off into various senses; and when I read his books, I found something very different from what he promised in the heading. For wherever the history fails him, he passes over to allegory, and joins together things so far apart that I marvel at his combining stone and iron into one body by a new architecture of speech. I have given this brief warning lest anyone think that we have borrowed what we say from his springs; for in the present passage too he says that the prophecy is directed against the Jews and Jerusalem, because at the beginning of the Christian faith they sent letters to all the nations that they should not accept the passion of Christ, and sent them as far as Ethiopia and the Western region, and filled the whole world with the spreading of this blasphemy.

These, then, are beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, and they send ambassadors on the sea of this world, that is, their disciples, who, carrying their volumes, are rightly said to carry vessels of papyrus, that is, of paper, upon the waters, which are quickly blotted out. For as books by water and damp are soon dimmed, blotted out and perish, so their speech and teaching, though at the beginning it seemed to possess some strength, passes away and slips by. And so it is said to them ironically: O Angels of the heretics, go swiftly. These the blessed apostle Paul calls false apostles, deceitful workers, who transform themselves into Apostles of Christ (2 Cor 11). And go to a nation torn away and rent asunder: torn away from God and mangled by the bites of the heretics. To a terrible people; for nothing is more terrible than blasphemy, which sets its mouth on high. After which there is no other people: for every sin, compared with blasphemy, is lighter. A nation waiting, waiting and trodden down. For all the heretics promise themselves heavenly things and pledge great things, and yet they are trodden down by demons. Whose land the rivers have plundered, rivers which have their waters not from heaven but from the earth. For what corner is there, what remotest wilderness of the earth, which the turbid speech of the heretics does not reach?

Second, he describes the help which they promised to the two tribes. And first, he describes the manner of announcing, saying: they that, namely, the Egyptian people, sends ambassadors, that is, messengers, to the two tribes, in the sea, that is, through the sea, and upon the waters, of the river or the sea, in vessels of papyrus, a kind of rush, from which they made small boxes for carrying letters, or reeds so large that they made ships from them, as is written in the history of Alexander: the word comes from pyr, which means "fire."

Second, he sets out the command given to the ambassadors, in which he determines two things. First, the manner of announcing, saying: O angels, that is, O my messengers, go, swift, that is, swiftly. Second, the motive: to a nation, namely, the nation of the two tribes, which he shows to be miserable from four things. First, from the magnitude of their affliction: rent, from its proper strength by subjugation, and torn in pieces, by affliction of punishment. Second, from its former dignity: a terrible people, formerly, after which there is no other, to be compared in power, but now, expecting, foreign help, trodden underfoot, as though reduced to baseness. Third, from the power or iniquity of its enemies: whose land the rivers, the kings of Assyria, have spoiled, unjustly. Fourth, from the holiness of the place: to the mountain. And they were punished because they drew them away from the worship of God: they shall be no more a confidence to the house of Israel (Ezek 29:16).

All you inhabitants of the world who dwell on the earth, when the signal has been raised on the mountains, you will see, and you will hear the blast of the trumpet. All you nations round about, he says, when you hear my command like a signal raised on the mountains, and my order like the blast of a trumpet resounding on high, then you will see what I have commanded.

And so all who inhabit and dwell in the world lift up their eyes to the sign of the heretics, which is lifted up as it were on the mountains, and hear the blast of the trumpet, that is, of their teaching. So much according to the Hebrew.

All you inhabitants of the world. Here he threatens the punishment, and concerning this, he does two things. First, he shows the manifestation of the punishment: you shall see, that is, it will be known to you, the sign, the flag of Nabuchodonosor: the nations have heard of your disgrace, and your howling has filled the land (Jer 46:12); or, you shall see the abundance of the enemy, appearing in his army: the strongest of nations, shall be brought to destroy the land (Ezek 3:11).

For thus says the Lord to me: I will rest, and I will consider in my place. What is it that the Lord spoke to the Prophet? What follows: until the things I have commanded come about, I will rest in my seat: as the Jews think, in the Temple; as we think, in the heavens. And I will consider, he says, what end of things is coming.

As the noonday light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest. Just as in the whole day nothing is clearer than noon, when the sun glows from mid-heaven and lights up the whole world alike; and just as in the heat and scorching warmth, when the naked reaper is baked and his panting attests the greatness of his labor, the coolness of the dew is most welcome, if the morning moisture makes the dry stalks easy to cut: so my word, which I will consider in my place, will come welcome to all who believe in me.

For thus says the Lord to me: I will rest, and I will consider in my place, as the noonday light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest. For before the harvest it has all blossomed, and an unripe perfection shall bud, and its twigs shall be cut off with sickles; and what is left shall be cut away and shaken off. And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth, and the birds shall be upon it all summer long, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon it. At that time a gift shall be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people torn away and rent asunder, from a terrible people, after which there was no other, from a nation waiting, waiting and trodden down, whose land the rivers have plundered, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, Mount Zion. God rests and contemplates in his place, or according to Aquila, in his firmament, that is, in the Church, of which the apostle Paul says: The pillar and firmament of truth (1 Tim 3:15). And he contemplates the things that are done in the Church, and as the noonday light is clear, so he surveys all things, according to what is said in the eighteenth Psalm, according to the anagogy, of the sun of righteousness: Nor is there anyone who can hide himself from its heat (Ps 18 [19]:7). And as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest and in the burning summer is most welcome, so the Lord refreshes the dwellers of his Church, and in his presence all things flourish.

Second, he takes away their confidence in divine defense: for thus says the Lord. And first, because he takes away the help of his defense from them: I will take my rest, as though not helping you; and consider, I will see what you can do: I will consider what their last end shall be (Deut 32:20). Second, because he will give help to the enemy in fighting, as to counsel in doubtful things: as the noon light is clear, so clearly will what they should do be shown to them; as to relief in labors, as a cloud: you have set up the right hand of them that oppress him (Ps 88:43[89:42]).

For before the harvest it has wholly blossomed, and an unripe perfection has budded, and its little branches will be cut off with pruning hooks, and what is left will be cut away and shaken off. And they will be left together to the birds of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth, and the birds will be upon it all summer long, and all the beasts of the earth will winter upon it. Because he had spoken of noon, and had mentioned beforehand a cloud of dew in summer and harvest, and had taken his metaphor from husbandry, he keeps it in the rest, describing the pride of Egypt and the devastation of its people, and the corpses throughout the whole province which are to be devoured by birds. For as crops that burst forth before ripeness quickly perish, and, budding before the fullness of their time comes, are useless, so, he says, the peoples of Egypt will be cut off with pruning hooks like useless branches, and all the offshoots will be stripped bare.

And before the time of the consummation comes, since now we know in part and prophesy in part, many will be found perfect, of whom the Apostle says: Let as many of us as are perfect be of this mind (1 Cor 13; Phil 3:15). But the twigs that are useless shall be cut off with sickles, as the Savior says in the Gospel: I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit, he will take it away; and every one that bears fruit he will prune, that it may bear more fruit (John 15:2).

Third, where it says, before the harvest, he describes a metaphor of the punishment, namely through the destruction of fruit in the field, and he sets out three things. First, as to the ruin of the fruit which is ruined in the flower, when it begins to flower too quickly, for before the harvest it was all flourishing; similarly, before Egypt had power, it showed the flower of its glory: concerning which it says below: all the glory thereof as the flower of the field (Isa 40:6). It is also ruined in the bud, when the humor from which the fruit ought to arise is not yet ripe: and it shall bud without perfect ripeness; similarly, Egypt presumed beyond the power which it had. It is also ruined in the fruit, when the branches on which the fruit hangs are cut off: cut off, before the maturation of the fruit: he shall be blasted as a vine when its grapes are in the first flower (Job 15:33); substance got in haste shall be diminished (Prov 13:11); the inheritance gotten hastily in the beginning, in the end shall be without a blessing (Prov 20:21).

Second, he sets out removal of the remaining fruit: what is left finished by the Egyptians, by the Assyrians shall be cut away from its own strength, and shaken out from its place by the Chaldeans, below: as if a few olives, that remain, should be shaken out of the olive tree (Isa 24:13).

Note on the words, it shall bud without perfect ripeness (Isa 18:5), that perfection is manifold: first, the perfection of nature: so the heavens and the earth were finished (Gen 2:1); second, of knowledge: can man be compared with God, even though he were of perfect knowledge? (Job 22:2); third, of grace: perfect charity casts out fear (1 John 4:18); fourth, of glory: but when that which is perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away (1 Cor 13:10).

Note on the words, its bud, that there is first, the bud of depraved authority: woe to you, O land, when your king is a child, and when the princes eat in the morning (Eccl 10:16); second, of teaching of error: but these men blaspheme whatever things they know not (Jude 1:10); third, of presumptuous conjecture: God has divided to every one (Rom 12:3); fourth, of present consolation: remember that you didst receive good things in your lifetime (Luke 16:25).

And lest you should think he speaks of a vine and not of men, he turns the metaphor into the truth of history: And they will be left, he says, together to the birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth. For birds and beasts devour not the cut branches of trees, but corpses. Let us read Ezekiel more fully, where he prophesies against Pharaoh and against Egypt, and we shall find all these things written most plainly (Ezek 29). And when he says: The birds will be upon it all summer long, and all the beasts will winter upon it, he either truly signifies the multitude of the slain, or shows through the same metaphor that it is to be laid waste by all the nations.

And those that have been cut off shall be left to the birds of the mountains and the beasts of the earth: to the birds which ravage what is sown by the wayside, and to the beasts to which the soul that does not confess God is delivered; so that whoever has been cut off and cast away by the Lord, and separated from his body, which is the Church, becomes, in summer as in winter, that is, in prosperity and adversity, the dwelling of birds and beasts.

Third, he places the abandonment of the field itself: and they shall be left, like an uncultivated field, which signifies the slaughter of men, after there were many beasts in the land of Egypt: these things says the Lord God, say to every fowl, and to all the birds, and to all the beasts of the field: assemble yourselves, make haste, come together from every side to my victim, which I slay for you, a great victim upon the mountains of Israel: to eat flesh, and drink blood (Ezek 39:17).

At that time a gift will be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people torn away and torn apart, from a terrible people, after whom there has been no other: from a nation waiting, waiting and trampled down, whose land the rivers have plundered, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, Mount Zion. After the devastation of Egypt and the destruction of its empire, Israel will by no means trust in the vanity of its shadow, but will return to the Lord, and will bring its gifts to Mount Zion, that is, to his temple, entreating him alone, whose protection is true and eternal. And we understand this to have been done under Zerubbabel and Joshua, and Ezra and Nehemiah. The Seventy, for what we have said, waiting, waiting, where in the Hebrew is written hoping, hoping, translated to the contrary ἀνέλπιστον, that is, not hoping. And for this reason they gave Eusebius occasion to think that this is to be understood of the nations, which have neither hope, nor the Testament of God, nor the Prophets, rather than of the Jews: that gifts were afterwards to be sent by them to the Church, which is set upon a watchtower, and spiritual victims offered.

But as those who are useless and unfruitful in the Church are cut off and cast out, lest a little leaven corrupt the whole lump, so on the contrary it may come about that those who had been deceived by heretical error, torn away from the Lord and rent, terrible on account of blasphemy, vainly awaiting lies, trodden down by demons, and scattered by the rivers in various directions, when they remember their God and forsake their most wicked masters, may offer a gift to the Lord of hosts nowhere else but on Mount Zion, and in the watchtower, which is interpreted as the Church. We speak more briefly because we have already said much in the book of the historical explanation.

At that time. Here the fruit of the punishment is set out, namely, that the people of the two tribes shall trust in God and shall call on his help with offerings of presents, above: and it shall come to pass in that day, that the remnant of Israel, and they that shall escape of the house of Jacob, shall lean no more upon him that strikes them: but they shall lean upon the Lord the Holy One of Israel (Isa 10:20).

Note on the words, shall a present be brought, that the present is manifold: first, that of fervent love: a secret present quenches anger (Prov 21:14); second, of devout prayer: let my prayer rise as incense in your sight (Ps 140[141]:2); third, of perfect action: I will not receive a gift of your hand (Mal 1:10); fourth, of due oblation: vow and pay to the Lord your God: all you that are round about him bring presents. To him that is terrible (Ps 75:12[76:11]).