For this is what the LORD has told me: “I will quietly look on from My dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
4. But thus said Jehovah unto me. After having threatened a slaughter of the Ethiopians or their neighbors, and at the same time shewn that comfort will arise from it to the Jews, or ironically reproved the foolish confidence with which the Jews had been deceived, he now adds that God will regulate these confused changes in such a manner as to gather to him at length his chosen people.
Interpreters are very much at a loss where to find this land that lies beyond the rivers of Cush. Some take it to be Egypt, a maritime country, and full of rivers, and which courted Israel to depend upon them, but proved broken reeds; but against this it is strongly objected that the next chapter is distinguished from this by the title of the burden of Egypt.
Commenting on Isaiah 18:1-7
For so the Lord said unto me,.... The prophet Isaiah, both what goes before, and follows after: I will take my rest; these are not the words of the prophet, as some think, like those of Habakkuk, Hab 2:1 but of the Lord himself, signifying that he would, as he always did, enjoy himself, amidst all the commotions that were in the world; or that...