Isaiah on Tuesday - Woe to the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush

I'm back after a one week hiatus and Isaiah starts us off with another of his targeted prophecies - "Woe to the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush."

The prophecy of Isaiah 18 follows the themes of the last one against Damascus - a people will face pruning before they are able to fruit:

5 For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone
and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives,
and cut down and take away the spreading branches.

6 They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey
and to the wild animals;
the birds will feed on them all summer,
the wild animals all winter.

The themes are so close, in fact, that instead of looking at the content of this chapter, I'm going to look at the style.

Here the poetry of Isaiah is revealed. Though the theme follows Isaiah's typical paring of judgement and promise, it does so in a form that is beautiful to me (at least in translation.) The opening paragraph speaks of judgement, but the closing of promise. Both however use the poetic device of repetition:

1 Woe to the land of whirring wings ^[a]
along the rivers of Cush, ^[b]

2 which sends envoys by sea
in papyrus boats over the water.
Go, swift messengers,
to a people tall and smooth-skinned,
to a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers.

...

7 At that time gifts will be brought to the LORD Almighty

from a people tall and smooth-skinned,
from a people feared far and wide,
an aggressive nation of strange speech,
whose land is divided by rivers—
the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the LORD Almighty.

Woe gives way to worship as Isaiah wraps the opening paragraph with words of what I would consider hope. I love the description of Cush - it is so evocative and displays not just the truth and wisdom of Isaiah, but the beauty as well.

One thing that I often look over is the literary forms in scripture. But when we view scripture as literature a deeper level can emerge, bringing alive not simply historic facts or dry prescriptions, but the beauty of words as well. The Bible is a book that continues to delight and intrigue me and this scipture surprised me simply by using language in a creative way.