Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 18:7 - 18:7

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Isaiah 18:7 - 18:7


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What effect this act of Jehovah would have upon the Ethiopian kingdom, if it should now take place, is described in Isa 18:7 : “At that time will there be offered as a homage to Jehovah of hosts a nation stretched out and polished, and from a terrible people, far away on the other side; a nation of command upon command and treading down, whose land rivers cut through, at the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the mountain of Zion.” עַם (a people), at the commencement, cannot possibly be equivalent to מֵעַם (from a people). If it were taken in this sense, it would be necessary to make the correction accordingly, as Knobel has done; but the important parallels in Isa 66:20 and Zep 3:10 are against this. Consequently ‛am and goi (people and nation) must be rendered as subjects; and the מִן in מֵעַם must be taken as partitive. Ethiopia is offered, i.e., offers itself, as a free-will offering to Jehovah, impelled irresistibly by the force of the impression made by the mighty act of Jehovah, or, as it is expressed in “the Titan among the Psalms” (Psa 68:32, probably a Davidic psalm of the time of Hezekiah), “there come kingdoms of splendour out of Egypt; Cush rapidly stretches out its hands to Elohim.” In order that the greatness of this spiritual conquest might be fully appreciated, the description of this strangely glorious people is repeated here; and with this poetical rounding, the prophecy itself, which was placed as a kind of overture before the following massa Mitzraim when the prophet collected the whole of his prophecies together, is brought to a close.