Isaiah 18: Oracle Against Ethiopia: Chapter 21: The Cushites of Ethiopia

Isaiah 18 gives us the oracle against Ethiopia. Isaiah prophesies the “pruning” of Ethiopia (or Cush), resulting in its salvation through conversion to the true God.

The Land of Whirring Wings

Isaiah 18:1, 2 begins,

¹ Alas, oh land of whirring wings which lies beyond the rivers of Cush, ² which sends envoys by the sea, even in papyrus vessels on the surface of the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people feared far and wide, a powerful and oppressive nation whose land the rivers divide.

The “land of whirring wings” (tselatsal) is a reference to the many swarms of locusts that often plagued that land, devouring every green leaf in sight. There are many Hebrew words translated locusts, each depicting a particular characteristic of these insects. In this case, tselatsal refers to the whirring or buzzing sound of their wings.

In the laws of tribulation, Deut. 28:42 (KJV) uses the Hebrew term tselatsal for “locusts.” It says,

⁴² All thy trees and fruit of thy land shall the locust [tselatsal] consume.

For some reason, the NASB renders the word “crickets,” but it is not likely that crickets were a memorable feature of Ethiopia that would catch the attention of the prophet.

Divine Judgment and Locusts

Locusts, as we see, are associated with divine judgment. If (or when) Israel persisted in violating their covenant with God, they were to be judged with swarms of locusts, among other things.

In Rev. 9:3 John gives us a prophecy of the rise of Islam, depicting them as “locusts” that were called to bring judgment upon the corrupt church. (See The Revelation, Book 3, chapter 17.) Islam originated in 609 A.D. when the Prophet Mohammad received his revelation. This was just three years after Pope Boniface III had claimed exclusive right to the title, “Universal Bishop” in 606 A.D. In 612 A.D., the Islamic prophet Mohammed preaching the doctrines of his new religion.

This was to be the first of three “woes,” and John depicts this as smoke from the abyss out of which came “locusts” having long hair (in those days), wearing turbans, riding horses to conquer militarily, wearing iron breastplates, and having the faces of men (Rev. 9:7-9). And, of course, they reverenced the color green (Rev. 9:4), even as natural locusts do in their search for food. Green is sacred to Islam.

Cush is Ethiopia

The biblical word for Ethiopia is Cush, named for the son of Ham, Noah’s youngest son (Gen. 10:6). His original territorial home became known as the “land of Cush” (Gen. 2:13), located in the vicinity of the four rivers flowing out of Eden, one of which was called Havilah, named for one of Cush’s sons (Gen. 10:11).

Hence, the land of Cush was originally in the Mideast, not in Africa. By the time of Moses, the land of Cush was in northern Arabia, and it included the land of Midian. That is where Moses met and married Zipporah (Exodus 2:21), the oldest daughter of Jethro, the priest of Midian (Exodus 2:16). Later, she was called a Cushite, or “Ethiopian” (Num. 12:1) in the story of Miriam’s objection to Moses’ marriage to a non-Israelite.

Zipporah was a Midianite by genealogy, a descendant of Abraham through his later wife, Keturah (Gen. 25:1, 2). After Abraham sent her sons away, they went east (Gen. 25:6). Midian settled in northern Arabia on the west end of the land of Cush. Hence, Zipporah, the Midianite, was called a Cushite, or Ethiopian.

Still later, a group of Cushites immigrated to the land south of Egypt, giving their name to the country in Africa. They intermarried with the local Africans and soon lost their original racial characteristics. Interestingly, Cush means “black.” The name Ethiopia was derived from the Greek word Aethiops, “burned-look.” Hence, Ethiopia was Greek for Cush.

Isaiah’s prophecy specifically mentions the Nile River—more specifically, “the rivers of Cush.” The Nile River is formed by the convergence of two rivers, the Blue Nile and the White Nile. The Blue Nile originates in modern Ethiopia at Lake Tana. The White Nile flows out of Lake Victoria in present-day Uganda. The two rivers converge near Khartoum in present-day Sudan, and from there the Nile flows north through Upper and Lower Egypt to the Mediterranean Sea.

Isaiah 18:2 tells us that the Nile River was the main trade route between Ethiopia and Egypt and that they traveled “in papyrus vessels” (NASB). The KJV translates it “in vessels of bulrushes.” Dr. Bullinger tells us:

Bulrushes. Not the papyrus, but its companion reed, the ambach, which reaches a height of fifteen feet and has yellow flowers.

A Nation Tall and Smooth

In Isaiah 18:2 the prophet appears to send messengers to the land of Cush, carrying the words of this prophecy. Whether or not he literally did this is hard to say. He says, “Go, swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth.” The term “smooth” does not refer to the quality of their skin but to the fact that they were smooth-faced, i.e., having no beards.

This should probably be connected to the prophecy itself in Isaiah 18:5, where the prophet says, “God will cut off the sprigs with pruning knives.” The same word is rendered “pruning hooks” in Isaiah 2:4. Isaiah thus compares pruning a tree with shaving, and this connects the laws of judgment with the laws of harvest. We will explain more about this later when we study verse 5 in the next chapter.

Divine judgment was to come upon the land of Cush, because they were “a powerful and oppressive nation.” Isaiah does not tell us specifically who they were oppressing, but a study of history shows that the Ethiopians were oppressing the Egyptians.

The Wycliff Bible Commentary tells us,

Under Piankhi the Ethiopians had established the Twenty-fifth Dynasty in Egypt, and Piankhi’s son Shabaka (called “So” in 2 Kings 17:4) had encouraged Hoshea of Israel in the last unsuccessful revolt against Assyria. Shabaka also leagued with Merodach-baladan of Babylon and was later an encouragement to Hezekiah to rebel against Sennacherib, who finally crushed the Ethiopian-Egyptian forces at Eltekeh in 701. So’s nephew, Tirhakah, led a new Egyptian effort, but was finally crushed by Ashurbanipal in 667.

Hence, an Ethiopian dynasty (760-656 B.C.) was ruling Egypt in Isaiah’s day, ending finally when the Assyrians defeated them in a series of battles. So “Egypt” in Isaiah’s day could not be fully separated from Ethiopia, and since Isaiah was very familiar with Egypt, he was also familiar with Ethiopia. Isaiah was probably born about the time of the Ethiopian invasion of Egypt in 760 B.C.

In fact, the prophecy about Ethiopia in Isaiah 18 should be viewed in this light and should then be connected to the prophecy about Egypt in Isaiah 19, as we will see later.