Verse 1

Woe to the a land shadowing with wings, which [is] beyond the rivers of Cush:

(a) He means that part of Ethiopia which lies toward the sea, which was so full of ships that the sails (which he compares to wings) seemed to shadow the sea.

Verse 2

That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of b bulrushes upon the waters, [saying], c Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and stripped, to a d people terrible from their beginning to this time; a nation measured by line and trodden down, whose land the e rivers have laid waste!

(b) Which is those countries were great, so much so that they made ships from them for swiftness.

(c) This may be taken that they sent others to comfort the Jews and to promise them help against their enemies, and so the Lord threatened to take away their strength, that the Jews should not trust in it: or that they solicited the Egyptians and promised them aid to go against Judah.

(d) That is, the Jews who because of God's plague made all other nations afraid of the same, as God threatened in (Deuteronomy 28:37).

(e) Meaning the Assyrians, (Isaiah 8:7).

Verse 3

All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when f he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.

(f) When the Lord prepared to fight against the Ethiopians.

Verse 4

For so the LORD said to me, I will take my g rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a h clear heat upon herbs, [and] like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.

(g) I will stay a while from punishing the wicked.

(h) Which two seasons are profitable for the ripening of fruit, by which he means that he will seem to favour them and give them abundance for a time, but he will suddenly cut them off.

Verse 6

They shall be left together to the fowls of the mountains, and to the i beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.

(i) Not only men will contemn them, but the brute beast.

Verse 7

In that time shall the k present be brought to the LORD of hosts of a people scattered and stripped, and from a people terrible from their beginning to this time; a nation measured by line and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the LORD of hosts, the mount Zion.

(k) Meaning that God will pity his Church, and receive that little remnant as an offering to himself.