Isaiah 18
About IsaiahWritten by AI
Isaiah is the first of the major prophets and one of the books the New Testament quotes most often. Isaiah son of Amoz preached in Jerusalem from about 740 to 700 BC, during the reigns of four kings of Judah, while the Assyrian empire threatened the land. Many scholars think chapters 40 to 66 come from later writers in the time of the exile and return. Many Christians hold that Isaiah wrote the whole book, noting that the New Testament quotes both halves under his name.
The book moves from judgment to comfort. Chapters 1 to 39 confront Judah's sin and the proud nations, with the history of King Hezekiah at the center. From chapter 40 the tone changes: “Comfort, comfort My people.” God promises to bring His people home, and the book ends with new heavens and a new earth.
Watch for God's title, the Holy One of Israel, and for the promised King from David's line and the Servant of the LORD who suffers for others. Christians see both fulfilled in Jesus, though some prophecies are read differently among believers.
Before you read Isaiah 18Written by AI
A short message to Cush, the land south of Egypt, a people tall and smooth skinned who send envoys by river. God quietly watches from His dwelling, waiting for the right time to act. The chapter ends with gifts brought from that faraway people to the LORD at Mount Zion.
A Message to Cush
Woe to the land of whirring wings,
along the rivers of Cush,
which sends couriers by sea,
in papyrus vessels on the waters.
Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
to a people widely feared,
to a powerful nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers.
All you people of the world
and dwellers of the earth,
when a banner is raised on the mountains,
you will see it;
when a ram’s horn sounds,
you will hear it.
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.”
For before the harvest, when the blossom is gone
and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
He will cut off the shoots with a pruning knife
and remove and discard the branches.
They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey,
and to the beasts of the land.
The birds will feed on them in summer,
and all the wild animals in winter.
At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD of Hosts—
from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
from a people widely feared,
from a powerful nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers—
to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD of Hosts.