Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter 18
He foretells the impending defeat of the Ethiopians by Sennacherib, and that which is to come by Nabuchodonosor: for what Sennacherib began, Nabuchodonosor completed. Then he foretells that they shall be converted to the Lord.
1. Woe to the land, winged with the clashing of cymbals, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, 2. That sendeth ambassadors by sea, and in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters. Go, ye swift angels, to a nation rent and torn in pieces, to a terrible people, after which there is no other: to a nation expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled. 3. All ye inhabitants of the world, who dwell on the earth, when the sign shall be lifted up on the mountains, you shall see, and you shall hear the sound of the trumpet. 4. For the Lord saith thus to me: I will take my rest, and consider in my place, as the noonday light is clear, and as a cloud of dew in the day of harvest. 5. For before the harvest it was all flourishing, and the buds shall be perfect, and shall ripen without a ripe fruit: and the sprigs shall be cut off with pruning hooks, and what is left shall be cut down and shaken out. 6. And they shall be left together to the birds of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall be upon it all the summer, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon it. 7. In that time shall a gift be brought to the Lord of hosts from a people rent and torn in pieces, from a terrible people, after which there was no other: from a nation expecting, expecting and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, to mount Sion.
1. WOE TO THE LAND WINGED WITH THE CLASHING OF CYMBALS.—First, Ludovicus Legionensis and Montanus, on Abdias, think that here, as in Abdias at the end, there is a prophecy concerning the Indies and the new world to be subjugated and converted; for in place of “woe” the Hebrew is hoi, which can be translated “Come, ho,” as Forerius translates: as if God here exhorted the Spaniards, furnished with the “cymbal of wings,” that is, with fleets, to go to those torn nations, expecting help for their salvation, and to help them. Hence Vatablus (with whom Forerius also agrees) thus translates and explains: “Ho, land of the shadow of wings, which art beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, that is, thou who abound in ships, who receivest the shadow of the sails of many ships. The calling of the Gentiles is described, and the deliverance from the hands of the world and Satan made by Christ. Ho, he says, land, which art situated beyond Ethiopia, who abound in rivers, that is, land placed at the end of the world; understanding by synecdoche also other farthest regions, into all the earth their sound has gone forth, as if to say: the Gospel shall be preached everywhere. He invites the remotest peoples to Christ.” So far Vatablus. Bozius confirms this, volume 2, On the Marks of the Church, book 20, sign 84: first, because when he says: “Beyond the rivers of Ethiopia, and after which there is no other,” he marks the extreme peoples of the Indies; secondly, because the Indians hollowed boats out of “vessels of papyrus,” that is, out of the cork-oaks and bark of trees, with which they skirted the shores; for they lacked large ships, and the great art of sailing the deep sea; thirdly, because he says: “Whose land the rivers have spoiled,” to show that those peoples were torn away from us and from our continent, or that the land was swallowed up by the intervening Ocean. For Plato in the Timaeus and Critias reports that the very great island Atlantis, which surpassed Europe and Asia in size, once joined to the Spaniards, was submerged by the whirlpools of the Ocean; or on account of the very many floods of waters to which that land was subject, the memory and fame of which still remain in the minds of the Indians, as Francis Gomez writes, History of the Indies, part 2, chapter 124. Thus Arias Montanus, Joseph Acosta, Frederick Lumnius, John Fernandez, whom Delrio cites and follows, adage 723, take the passage as spoken of the Indians.
But it is clear from verses 5 and 6 that this prophecy, like the rest in these chapters, contains a burden, that is, a threatening prophecy against Ethiopia or Egypt, and threatens woe to it.
Secondly, Justin, Against Trypho, Oecumenius in the Prologue to the Epistle to the Romans, and Leo Castrius think that here it is a question of Judea, as if to say: Woe to the land that sends letters everywhere to blaspheme and destroy the name and faith of Christ! This is mystical, not literal, as will appear from what follows.
Such also is that saying of St. Gregory, Morals, book 13, chapter 7 (in the Roman edition, chapter 5): Woe to the land, etc., he says, that is, woe to the proud Antichrist, who sends his heralds throughout the whole world!
Thirdly, St. Jerome, Cyril, Haymo, Procopius, St. Thomas, Lyranus, Adam and Ribera, on Sophonias 3, think that it is a question here of Egypt, which in the shadow of her wings, in ships, promises help to the Jews! For it is known that the Jews, afflicted by the Assyrians and others, were wont to flee to the help of the Egyptians, just as the Israelites fled to the help of the Syrians or Damascenes, as he said in the preceding chapter. So about this time the king of Egypt promised help to Ezechias against Sennacherib, as appears 4 Kings 18. As therefore in the preceding chapter he announces the punishment and defeat of the Syrians, so here that of the Egyptians, which was accomplished by the Chaldeans. For Nabuchodonosor, in the fifth year after the destruction of Jerusalem, laid Egypt waste, as Josephus testifies, book 10 of the Antiquities, chapter 11. Our Carpentarius, following this sense about the Egyptians, learnedly expressed it thus in heroic verse:
Woe to thee, who with rattling sistra dost celebrate the returning Apis, and beating impious cymbals with frequent strokes, land proud of the sacred river, which the Ethiopians send as a noble gift, sprung from unknown fountains,
But I say that here it is not the defeat of Egypt that is treated, but of Ethiopia, which is under Egypt, namely of Abyssinia, where Prester John reigns, who holds an empire beside the Nile, and rules widely as far as the Red Sea. It is proved thus:
First, because in the next chapter the burden of Egypt begins; therefore it is not this.
Secondly, because the Ethiopians are neighbours of the Egyptians; hence, like the Egyptians, they harassed the Jews, as appears of the Ethiopians who conspired against them with Sesac king of Egypt, 2 Paralipomenon 12:2, and of Zara the Ethiopian, who came with innumerable forces against Asa king of Juda, 2 Paralipomenon 14:9; therefore as the Egyptians, Idumeans, Syrians and other enemies of the Jews are here punished by God, and receive their burden, so also do the Ethiopians. Hence Sophonias, chapter 2, verse 12, and Jeremias threaten them with the sword and destruction.
Thirdly, because what is said in this chapter of the Ethiopians is said of the Egyptians in the next chapter; for if he spoke of the Egyptians in both, he would repeat the same thing in vain in the next chapter.
Fourthly, because it is likely that the Ethiopians, like the Egyptians, promised help to the Jews against the Assyrians by ambassadors; for it seems that Tharaca king of the Ethiopians came against Sennacherib for this reason, to drive him away from Judea and Egypt, because he did not wish to have so powerful an enemy as a neighbour.
Fifthly, because Egypt is properly not beyond but within the channels of the Nile; Ethiopia is beyond them. Again, papyrus and ships of papyrus are as much in Ethiopia, where the Nile begins, as in Egypt; hence papyrus ships are called Ethiopian; indeed Ethiopia has almost the Nile alone, and by it descends into Egypt.
Sixthly, because the “cymbal of wings” suits the Ethiopians, that is, bees and flies with their wings, that is, their forces, cymbalizing, that is, raising a din like a cymbal. As therefore he compared the Assyrians to bees and flies, chapter 7, verse 18, so also here he compares the Ethiopians to the same: first, on account of their blackness; secondly, on account of their number, which even now is innumerable; thirdly, on account of their throng and noise; fourthly, on account of their empty glorying in their forces; for they buzzed like bees and flies, which besides buzzing and the sound of their wings have no strength; whence, fifthly, he signifies here that they are unwarlike and weak in arms.
Seventhly, because the following words can be adapted to the Ethiopians with the same fitness as to the Egyptians, indeed some of them with greater, as that “After which there is no other.” So Pineda, Sanchez and Forerius expound this of the Ethiopians. Moreover, Ethiopia, after Egypt, which it adjoins, was laid waste first by Sennacherib, as I shall show in chapter 20, verse 1. Then by Nabuchodonosor, as Sophonias teaches, chapter 2, verse 12, when he says: “You also, O Ethiopians, shall be slain with my sword”; and Megasthenes in Josephus, book 1 Against Apion. That this treats rather of the first devastation will appear in chapter 20. Finally, the Arabic Alexandrian version clearly teaches this, which has thus: Woe to the land whose bounds are shady extremities, by which it is enclosed, in which the march is prolonged, namely the land of Ethiopia, of which the children of Israel supposed that they would be protected by it!