18:1  Woe to the land of buzzing wings beyond the rivers of Cush,

18:2  which sends emissaries by sea, in swift craft across the water. They say, Go speedily, you messengers! Go to a people perpetually on the move, a nation dreaded far and wide, a people continually infringing, whose rivers have annexed their lands.

Here there are emissaries sent from Egypt to Assyria, because Assyria is threatening. It’s “a nation dreaded far and wide.” They’re ominous people. They’re militaristic. They infringe upon other nations. They annex their lands. And the river imagery is used here as a metaphor and allegory to describe their kind of takeover of other peoples and their countries. And so when the threat looms, imminent and ominous, they try to forestall it by sending emissaries or consuls, or ambassadors to try to speak peace to these people. The buzzing wings are like those we saw in chapter eight, as the buzzing flies of Egypt. The buzzing wings is not just literally flies, but is a metaphor for all the inhabitants of Egypt. It’s a metaphor to refer to people, airplanes, and literal flies.

18:3  All you who live in the world, you inhabitants of the earth, look to the ensign when it is lifted up in the mountains; heed the trumpet when sounded!

So the Lord has things in control. All this may be happening in the world, the political maneuvers, and nuclear holocaust, or worldwide conquest by the Assyrians, and horrendous destruction such as what Isaiah and other prophets talk about. But there is another side of the coin. What is the Lord doing? How is the Lord orchestrating history and the deliverance of his people through all of this? It’s all part of his design that the wicked be destroyed in that manner, and that the righteous should be delivered out of it, because there’s no deliverance for the righteous until the wicked are destroyed. Because the wicked are the ones who oppress the righteous. And so long as the wicked are left alive they will continue to oppress the righteous, so there’s no real deliverance for the righteous. Since God is just, he will deliver the righteous. Because they are oppressed they appeal to him, since the wicked don’t repent. The wicked have chosen another lifestyle. And this is a worldwide event for all you who live in the world, you inhabitants of the earth. Ensign, in the book of Isaiah, is the Lord’s Servant, himself, in chapter 11, verse ten. He’s the Ensign to the nations, whom the Lord raises up, as in chapter forty-two and forty-nine, the ensign lifted up on the mountains—mountains being a metaphor for nations.
“Hear the trumpet when it is sounded;” he’s also a trumpet. He’s like the angel who sounds his trump, in the book of Revelation. He heralds the day of the Lord, the day, or time, of judgment, and gives warning of its coming. He appeals to people to repent. As an ensign he rallies the righteous of the world, those who do repent, to come from exile, and come to Zion where there is safety, at that time.

18:4  For thus said the Lord to me: I will watch in silence over my dwelling place when the searing heat overtakes the reapers, and when the rainclouds appear amid the fever of reaping.

Now the harvest and the reaping, and so on, is the day of judgment, in the book of Isaiah. Isaiah uses that imagery of the harvest to describe the time of judgment, when the wicked will be reaped and the righteous will also be reaped; they’ll be gleaned. The “searing heat” refers to the fiery Sodom and Gomorrah type of destruction which overtakes the reapers. And the rainclouds appear amid the fever of reaping. You don’t want rain to come when you’re harvesting. Everything goes awry at that time. Rain clouds, and storm imagery is also the day of judgment imagery. Also this gives kind of a time frame of the year when the destruction comes. It will be the time of the early harvest, or the harvest of the winter wheat.

18:5  For before the harvest, when the time of flowering is past and the set blossoms are developing into young fruit, they will cut down the fruit-bearing twigs with knives and remove the new branches by slashing.

When the enemy comes in and invades the land, they will cut down everything. They will try to destroy everything that sustains life, so that the people of the land will not be able to survive. It’s a good reason to have your food storage at that time, isn’t it, because you won’t be able to rely upon a harvest. Of course the elect will have gone on the exodus, so they won’t need their food storage by that time. Again, this gives a time frame: when the set blossoms are developing into young fruit. So again, this shows that the time is before fall, perhaps in the middle of summer when the fruit is beginning to get ripe but is not quite there yet.
And also, this is kind of an allegory of people, here. As we saw earlier, in the allegory of the Lord’s vineyard, in chapter five, the vineyard doesn’t quite mature. It doesn’t bear fruit. The fruit rots before it ripens. The fruit falls off before it matures. Here, it suggests the same idea. That those who are destroyed are like unripe fruit. They never fully fill their potential.

18:6  All shall be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the land: the birds of prey will feed on them all summer and the beasts of the land all winter.

That, again, is a covenant curse. All of these are covenant curses. The land is left desolate, and the animals and birds take over. And, in a sense, this too is a metaphor.
Birds of prey and beasts of the land, wild beasts, are like hordes of vagrants roaming the land, consuming whatever they can find, trying to stay alive, feeding off what’s left of a once prosperous and productive situation.

18:7  At that time shall tribute be brought to the Lord of Hosts from a nation perpetually on the move, from a nation dreaded far and wide, a people continually infringing, whose rivers have annexed their lands, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts: Mount Zion.

So that nation that causes all this destruction, that we’ve just been reading about, that nation, who, in spite of emissaries that were sent to try to forestall or prevent destruction, through diplomatic means—all of that failed. That nation that caused the destruction, now, itself, is subdued and humbled. And those who survive of that nation, as we saw earlier of those who survive of Assyria, are a few, “so few that a child could record their names.” And they were the Ten Tribes, of the House of Israel. That the remnant of that nation that survives shall bring tribute to the Lord of Hosts, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, Mount Zion.
Those who survive of Assyria, of that destructive power in the world that caused a worldwide destruction, the survivors of that nation are a righteous remnant-- the people of the Ten Tribes, in fact, as we saw earlier. And they will come to Zion, to the place Zion, bearing tribute. “The place of the name of the Lord of Hosts” is where the temple is, Mount Zion. Mount Zion, or the nation of Zion is an actual place, as well.