Commentary on Isaiah Volume 1 John Calvin (continued)
COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH
exscindet.
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.
6. Derelinquentur pariter volatili montium et animalibus terræ. Æstivabit super illud volatile, et omnia animalia terræ hyemabunt.
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.
7. Tempore illo adducetur Iehovæ exercituum munus, populus laceratus et expilatus, et de populo terribili, ex quo esse coepit et deinceps; gente undique conculcata, cujus terram flumina diripuerunt, ad locum nominis Iehovæ exercituum, ad montem Sion.
1. Woe to the land. I cannot determine with certainty what is the nation of which Isaiah speaks, though he shews plainly that it bordered on Ethiopia. Some consider it to refer to the whole of Egypt; but this is a mistake, for in the next chapter he treats of Egypt separately, from which it is evident that the people here meant were distinct from the Egyptians. Some think that the Troglodytes are here meant, which does not appear to me to be probable, for they had no intercourse with other nations, because their language, as geographers tell us, was hissing and not speech; 280 but those who are mentioned evidently had intercourse and leagues with other nations.
Still it is uncertain whether they leagued against the Jews or joined with the Egyptians in driving out the Assyrians. If they were avowed enemies to the Jews, Isaiah threatens punishment; but if they deceived them by false promises, he shews that nothing is to be expected from them, because by idle messages they will only protract the time. However that may be, from the neighboring nations to be mentioned in the next chapter, we may in part ascertain where they were situated, that is, not far from Egypt and Ethiopia: yet some may be disposed to view it as a description of that part of Ethiopia which lay on the sea-coast; for we shall afterwards see that the Assyrians were at war with the king of the Ethiopians. (Isaiah 37:9.)
When he says that that land shadows with wings, we learn from it that its sea was well supplied with harbours, so that it had many vessels sailing to it and was wealthy; for small and poor states could not maintain intercourse or traffic with foreign countries. He therefore means that they performed many voyages.
2. Sending ambassadors by the sea. This relates strictly to the state of those times. It would appear that this nation solicited the Egyptians or
280"The Ethiopian Troglodytes," says Herodotus "are the swiftest of foot of all men of whom we have received any accounts. The Troglodytes feed on serpents, and lizards, and reptiles of that sort, and the language which they have adopted has no resemblance to any other, but they screech like bats. — Herod. 4:183.