buke them, and they shall flee far off, and shall be chased as the chaff of the mountains before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind. 14. And, behold, at evening-tide trouble; and before the morning he is not. This is the portion of them that spoil us, and the lot of them that rob us.
These verses read the doom of those that spoil and rob the people of God; if the Assyrians and Israelites invade and plunder Judah—if the Assyrian army take God's people captive, and lay their country waste, let them know that ruin will be their lot and portion.
They are here brought in,
1. Triumphing over the people of God. They rely upon their numbers; the Assyrian army was made up out of divers nations, it is the multitude of many people, (v. 12.) by which weight they hope to carry the cause; they are very noisy, like the roaring of the seas; they talk big, hector and threaten, to frighten God's people from resisting them, and all their allies from sending in to their aid. Sennacherib and Rabshakeh, in their speeches and letters, made a mighty noise, to strike a terror upon Hezekiah and his people; the nations that followed them, made a rushing like the rushing of many waters, and those mighty ones, that threaten to bear down all before them, and carry away every thing that stands in their way: the floods have lifted up their voice, have lifted up their waves; such is the tumult of the people, and the heathen, when they rage, Ps. ii. 1.—xciii. 3.
2. Triumphed over by the judgments of God. They think to carry their point by dint of noise; but wo to them, (v. 12.) for he shall rebuke them; God shall, one whom they little think of, have no regard to, stand in no awe of; he shall give them a check with an invisible hand, and then they shall flee afar off. Sennacherib and Rabshakeh, and the remains of their forces, shall run away in a fright, and shall be chased by their own terrors, as the chaff of the mountains which stand bleak before the wind, and like a rolling thing before the whirlwind, like thistle-down; so the margin; they make themselves as chaff before the wind, (Ps. xxxv. 5.) and then the angel of the Lord, (as it follows there,) the same angel that slew many of them, shall chase the rest. God will make them like a wheel, or rolling thing, and then persecute them with his tempest, and make them afraid with his storm, Ps. lxxxiii. 13, 15. Note, God can dispirit the enemies of his church when they are most courageous and confident, and dissipate them when they seem most closely consolidated. This shall be done suddenly; (v. 14.) At evening-tide they are very troublesome, and threaten trouble to the people of God; but before the morning he is not, at sleeping time they are cast into a deep sleep, Ps. lxxvi. 5, 6. It was in the night that the angel routed the Assyrian army. God can in a moment break the power of his church's enemies, then when it appears most formidable; and this is written for the encouragement of the people of God in all ages, when they find themselves an unequal match for their enemies; for this is the portion of them that spoil us, they shall themselves be spoiled. God will plead his church's cause; and they that meddle, do it to their own hurt.
CHAP. XVIII.
Whatever country it is that is meant here by the land shadowing with wings, here is a wo denounced against it, for God has, upon his people's account, a quarrel with it. I. They threaten God's people, v. 1, 2. II. All the neighbours are hereupon called to take notice what will be the issue, v. 3. III. Though God seem unconcerned in the distress of his people for a time, he will at length appear against their enemies, and will remarkably cut them off, v. 4..6. IV. This shall redound very much to the glory of God, v. 7.
1.WO to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: 2. That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled! 3. All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye. 4. For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling-place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest. 5. For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning-hooks, and take away and cut down the branches. 6. They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them. 7. In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the mount Zion.
Interpreters are very much at a loss where to find this land that lies beyond the rivers of Cush: some take it to be Egypt, a maritime country, and full of rivers, and which courted Israel to depend upon them, but proved broken reeds; but against this it is strongly objected, that the next chapter is distinguished from this by the title of the burthen of Egypt. Others take it to be Ethiopia, and read it, which lies near, or about, the rivers of Ethiopia, not that in Africa, which lay in the south of Egypt, but that which we call Arabia, which lay east of Canaan, which Tirhakah was now king of. He thought to protect the Jews, as it were, under the shadow of his wings, by giving a powerful diversion to the king of Assyria, when he made a descent upon his country, at the time that he was attacking Jerusalem, 2 Kings xix. 9. But, though by his ambassadors he bid defiance to the king of Assyria, and encouraged the Jews to depend upon him, God, by the prophet, slights him, and will not go forth with him; he may take his own course, but God will take another course to protect Jerusalem, while he suffers the attempt of Tirhakah to miscarry, and his Arabian army to be ruined; for the Assyrian shall become a present or sacrifice to the Lord of hosts, and to the place of his name, by the hand of an angel, not by the hand of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, v. 7. This is a very probable exposition of this chapter.
But from a hint of Dr. Lightfoot's in his Harmony of the Old Testament, I incline to understand this
Vol. iv.—M
