Isaiah 18:4-6

ב) The Deliverance of Ethiopia in the Near Future

Isaiah 18:4-6

4          For so the Lord said unto me, 13I will take my rest,

And I will 14 15consider in my dwelling-place

Like a clear heat 16 17upon herbs,

And like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

5     For afore the harvest, when the 18bud is perfect,

19And the sour grape is ripening in the flower,

20He shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks,

And take away and cut down the branches.

6     They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains,

And to the beasts of the earth,And the fowls shall summer upon them,And all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL

Isaiah 18:4. According to K’thibh אֶשְׁקוֹטָה is to be read; according to K’ri אֶשְׁקֳטָה (comp. אֶשְׁקֽוֹלָה Ezra 8:25. Ewald, § 40 b; 41 c; 68 b). The form written plene with the accent drawn back, is of course not normal. Precisely for this reason the Masorets chose the other. But Hitzig may not be wrong when he says, that the double checking of the voice with twice raising it between depressions fittingly depicts the agreeable re pose in equipoise. שָׁקַט Isaiah 14:7; Isaiah 62:1—מָכוֹן principally used of the divine throne, comp. on Isaiah 4:5; Psalms 33:13.——I take כְּ before חֹם in the sense of comparison, and not in that of coincidence as in Isaiah 18:3; Isaiah 18:5; see under Exegetical. For what “clear heat,” etc., and “a dew-cloud” is for harvest, such is Jehovah’s quiet waiting for the Assyrian.—חֹם is “warmth, heat;” only here in Isaiah.——צַח (comp. Isaiah 32:4) is “bright, clear.” עלי אור is = “by daylight” (comp. Amos 8:9; Habakkuk 3:4, etc.). על is taken here in the cumulative sense, which it often has (Genesis 32:12; Exodus 35:22; 1 Samuel 14:32, etc.). Thus it is properly: “heat added to daylight;” for it can be cold during daylight.——עָב טַל “dew-cloud,” is the light cloud that at night dissolves in dew (comp. עָב טַלְקוֹשׁ Proverbs 16:15, whereas עַב Exodus 19:9 = עֲבִי.)

Isaiah 18:5. &כְּתָם־פֶּרַח כְּ like Isaiah 18:3; ???Isaiah 5:24) is followed by a phrase in which, Hebrew fashion, the discourse relapses into the verb. finit.——בֹּסֶר (only here in Isaiah; comp. Jeremiah 31:29 sq.; Ezekiel 18:2) is the unripe grape.——גָּמַל, which elsewhere means “disaccustom, wean,” (Isaiah 11:8; Isaiah 28:9) is used here in a sense derived from that. The mother, that weans her child, has brought it to a certain degree of maturity. But, beside the present, the word occurs in the sense of “ripeness” only Num. 17:23; it must be noted beside that גָּמַל is to be taken in a transitive sense. For in Num. 17:23 this is undoubtedly the case, and Genesis 40:10 it reads in the same sense הִבְשִׁילוּ אַשְׁכְּלֹתֶיהָ עֲנָבִים, “their grape-stalks cooked grapes;” בּסֶר is accordingly meant for a degree of development of the vine that produces ripe grapes.——It appears as if the Prophet had in mind Genesis 40:10; for both כְּפֹרַחַת and נִצָּה and the words already quoted recall our passage.—נִצָּה “the flower, blossom,” occurs only here in Isaiah; beside this, Job 15:33. נִצָּה, moreover, is subject; thus the predicate is put emphatically in advance.——With וְכָרַת begins the apodosis. Jehovah need not be taken as subject, and therewith the substitution of the Prophet as speaker. The subject is indefinite. We express it by “one” (Isaiah 6:10; Isaiah 10:4; Isaiah 14:32).——זלזלים (ἅπ. λεγ.) are “the branches” of the vine; ינטישׁות “the shoots, sprouts” that develop from it (only here in Isaiah, Jeremiah 5:10; Jeremiah 48:32).——הֵתַז, ἅπ. λεγ.

Isaiah 18:6. עַיִט, beside here, only Isaiah 46:11.——קָץ, “summering,” and יֶֽחֱרַף, “wintering,” are both denominatives from קַיִץ and חֹרֶף, and are ἅπαξ λεγόμενα.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

1. The Prophet has intimated that something great impends (Isaiah 18:3)—he now declares wherein it consists. He can say it because Jehovah revealed it to him. That is the Lord has announced to him, that He would keep altogether quiet as a mere observer. Like warmth and dew ripen the harvest, so, by the favor of His non-intervention, the power of the Assyrians will be brought almost to the greatest prosperity (Isaiah 18:4). Almost! For before this highest point is attained, the Assyrian power shall be destroyed, like one destroys a vine, by cutting off, not merely the grapes, but the grape branches and the sprouts (Isaiah 18:5). So terrible will this overthrow be, that the beasts of prey shall all through summer and winter find abundant to devour on the field of battle (Isaiah 18:6).

2. For so——winter upon them.

Isaiah 18:4-6. The Lord purposely abstains from interfering. He quietly allows matters to take their own course, He waits patiently till His time comes. This quiet, observant waiting the Prophet compares to that weather which is most favorable for maturing the harvest: warm days and dewy nights. The ancients conceived of the dew as originating like the rain. This appears, e.g., from Job 38:28, where the אֶגְלֵי טַל “drops of dew,” are the receptacula roris (Cod. Alex. συνοχαὶ δρόσου. The summer heat, the nightly dew, is an extraordinary benefit to vegetation. Therefore dew is so often used as the figure for blessing: Genesis 27:28; Deuteronomy 33:13; Deuteronomy 33:28; Hosea 14:6; Micah 5:6; Proverbs 19:12. The causal כִּי, “for,” at the beginning of Isaiah 18:5 connects two thoughts that are impliedly contained in Isaiah 18:4-5 : the Lord observes this expectant conduct, because only immediately before maturity of events will He interfere. “Harvest” is evidently to be taken in the wide sense that includes also the wine harvest. By an emphatic asyndeton wherein the second word (התז, “to cut down”) explains the first (הסיר, “to take away”), it is now affirmed that the enemy, that is, Assyria, shall be thoroughly destroyed. For there will not be merely a gleaning of grapes (comp. Isaiah 63:1 sqq.), but from the vine shall be cut off the very branches that yield fruit. The meaning of what has been said, becomes evident from the literal language of Isaiah 18:6. It means a terrible overthrow of the Assyrian army. Its dead bodies lie in such vast numbers that birds I and beasts of prey for a summer and a winter, shall find abundance of food on the field of battle. “Beasts of the earth,” comp. Deuteronomy 28:26, of which passage, moreover, our whole verse serves to remind one.

Footnotes:

[13]I will rest or be quiet.

[14]Or. regard my set dwelling.

[15]look on.

[16]Or, after rain.

[17]by daylight.

[18]the bloom.

[19]And the flower becomes a ripening grape.

[20]One.