Reflections on Isaiah 18

Isaiah 18 (Contemporary English Version)
1. Downstream from Ethiopia lies the country of Egypt, swarming with insects.
   
2. Egypt sends messengers up the Nile River on ships made of reeds. Send them fast to Ethiopia, whose people are tall and have smooth skin. Their land is divided by rivers; they are strong and brutal, feared all over the world.
   
3. Everyone on this earth, listen with care! A signal will be given on the mountains, and you will hear a trumpet.
   
4. The LORD said to me, "I will calmly look down from my home above-- as calmly as the sun at noon or clouds in the heat of harvest season."
   
5. Before the blossoms can turn into grapes, God will cut off the sprouts and hack off the branches.
   
6. Ethiopians will be food for mountain buzzards during the summer and for wild animals during the winter.
   
7. Those Ethiopians are tall and their skin is smooth. They are feared all over the world, because they are strong and brutal. But at that time they will come from their land divided by rivers, and they will bring gifts to the LORD All-Powerful, who is worshiped on Mount Zion.

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This is one of the more obscure passages in scripture, but it appears that the nation of Cush sent envoys to Israel apparently to form an alliance against their common enemy, the Assyrians. But then it seems that God dispatched "swift messengers" to these people, either before they sent their envoys or while they were en-route, with the message that they should watch for God's signal. "When a banner is raised on the mountains, look! When a trumpet sounds, listen!" (18:3) The meaning would seem to be that it is useless to make plans against the Assyrians for the Lord has His own plans. When the time is right He will raise a banner and sound a trumpet.

Verses 4-6 give a hint of God's plans against the Assyrians. When they began to ripen like grapes and to extend their empire, God would " cut off the shoots with a pruning knife, and tear away and remove the branches." (18:5) They would be "left for the birds of prey on the hills and for the wild animals of the land." (18:6) Once the Assyrians completed the assignment God had for them to punish the Israelites and take them captive, then God's plan against the Assyrians would go into action.

Once God initiated His plan against the Assyrians, the people of Cush would take a gift to Mount Zion, to Jerusalem, to present to the Lord. They would recognize God's hand of deliverance and give Him thanks. Do we recognize God's hand in the events of our lives beyond the impulse to blame Him when things in life do not go well? As with the Cushites, our plans will not accomplish what we would hope. We are not in control of the events of life as much as we would like to think. But we can position ourselves to benefit from God's plans. Had the Cushites launched plans against the Assyrians they would have been defeated. But by waiting for the Lord to carry out His plans in His timing, they avoided such a defeat and benefitted by waiting upon the Lord.

We cannot see the future, nor do we need to see the future. We simply need to give ourselves into God's hands and allow ourselves to be led by Him and to benefit from His plans.