The Raging of the Nations Stilled by God’s Judgment

Isaiah 17:1–14

The next oracle from Isaiah went out against the ancient city of Damascus, the capital of Syria (also known as Aram), another Gentile enemy of Judah. Damascus is the oldest continuously inhabited city on earth. It was founded more than one thousand years before Rome was settled in 753 BC. Damascus was one of the most strategic cities in the ancient Near East: it stood at the mouth of a natural funnel through which ran the only convenient land route between Mesopotamia and Egypt. It was also the base of operation for many Aramean raids against Judah, and therefore an implacable foe of the people of God. Isaiah 17:14 speaks of the “fate of those who plunder us and the lot of those who ravage us.”

The oracle spoken against Damascus is clear: total devastation. Damascus will be leveled and no longer be a city; where once the city thrived, now flocks will graze with no fear (17:1-2). The Arameans will lose their kingdom entirely as a judgment from God (v. 3). But it is not only Damascus and Aram that will fall under God’s judgment. Ephraim also will fall, treated in some ways as no more than a Gentile transgressor nation. They were allies against Judah, and they share judgment from God. Aram and Ephraim alike will waste away, fading like a diseased, emaciated body (v. 4). The pathetic survivors will be like a few berries left at the top of a fruit tree after harvest (v. 6).

It is so stunning to see descendants of Jacob treated no differently than Gentile sinners, but it is because they thought and behaved no differently. Verses 8 and 10 make clear that God was rejecting Ephraim because of the Asherahs and pagan incense altars they had made for worship. They had forgotten the God of their salvation and failed to remember the rock of their strength but trusted in gods that were no gods at all. So God would bring on them the same “disease and incurable pain” (v. 11) of his holy judgments.

Thus stripped of their false religion, at last the remnant of Israel would turn again to their Maker, casting their eyes of hope on the God of Israel (v. 7). But the language of Isaiah 17:7 is universal—not only an Israelite but “people” (Hebrew is adam, universal language for humanity) will turn away from idolatrous religion and cast their eyes on their Maker, who it turns out is also “the Holy One of Israel.” The “turning of the eyes” to God by sinners all over the world is nothing less than repentance and faith, ultimately in the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Apart from that repentance and faith in the salvation of the Holy One of Israel, the nations rage and roar like a tempestuous sea (vv. 13-14), restlessly seeking something of joy and peace in their rebellious wandering from God. But they never find joy or peace; like Satan (Job 1:7) and demons (Matt 12:43) restlessly roaming the earth, they are tormented. They are driven like chaff before a gale, fleeing before the tempest of the wrath of God—sudden terror in the evening, desolation by morning. This is the fate of the rebellious nations who never come to repentance and faith in Christ.

Isaiah 18:1–7

Whereas Isaiah 13–17 proclaims strong oracles of judgment against Babylon, Assyria, Moab, Aram, and Ephraim, Isaiah 18 glows with a marvelous prophecy about the salvation of the people of Cush—modern-day Ethiopia. One of the surprising elements of this chapter is the evident delight God has in the people of Cush—“a nation tall and smooth-skinned . . . a people feared far and near, a powerful nation with a strange language, whose land is divided by rivers” (v. 2).

We live in a world of astonishing ethnic diversity. The human race is a mosaic of various genetic differences: height, skin color, hair type, eye color, shape of nose, etc. On top of these evident differences are the remarkably varied cultural differences of language, dress, social mores, rituals, etc. From a biblical point of view, these striking differences are all the more amazing when we consider that God made every nation on earth from one man (Acts 17:26). The differences between the ethnicities have come about by the magnificent variety God built into the genetic code of the first man, Adam, a variety in which God delights. But pride between the ethnicities comes from sin. Ethnicity is from God; racism is from man. Racism may be defined as the belief that one ethnicity is inherently superior to another. Closely linked to racism are all sorts of prejudice, oppression, and injustice that one group of people has foisted on another because of ethnic differences. Isaiah 18 stands above this wickedness and shows the delight God has in people from all ethnic backgrounds. Even more delightful is the sovereign grace of God in electing “a vast multitude from every nation, tribe, people, and language, which no one could number” to stand before the heavenly throne of Jesus dressed in white (Rev 7:9). Isaiah 18 gives us a beautiful foretaste of that worldwide harvest of people.

So who were these people who dwelt in the land of Cush? The Nile River valley was formed as its water cut through sandstone and limestone, making cataracts—waterfalls—that interfere with navigation and serve as natural boundaries for the Nile Valley peoples. The region of the Fourth Cataract was settled by the Cushites, descendants of Cush, the oldest son of Ham after the flood of Noah (Gen 10:7).

Isaiah 18 begins with a command for swift messengers to go to a land “of buzzing insect wings beyond the rivers of Cush” (vv. 1-2). This land is more than 1,500 miles away from Judah, and these Cushite people have sent envoys to Jerusalem to discuss an alliance. By lightweight boats the Cushite messengers travel swiftly. They are tall, smooth-skinned, strikingly beautiful. The ancient historian Herodotus said that the Cushites were “the tallest and handsomest men in the whole world” (Histories 3.20.1, 216). The average height of some Ethiopian tribes is 6'4", the tallest in the world. They have skin naturally free from hair, and they are feared far and wide as powerful warriors.

In Isaiah 18:3-6 God gives a message to every people group all over the world, including these Cushites. God usually looks on human history quietly, from his lofty dwelling place, “like shimmering heat in sunshine” (v. 4). But now God is going to unfurl a banner and announce with trumpets something magnificent for the entire human race. The spreading grapevine that is the ravenous Assyrian Empire is about to be pruned so severely that nothing will be left but that which mountain birds of prey can feed on (vv. 5-6). The whole world, which had been trembling at the spreading power of Assyria, will be astonished instead at the power of God through his tiny nation of Judah. This certainly refers to the slaughter of 185,000 Assyrian troops by the angel of the Lord outside the walls of Jerusalem.

As a result of that awesome and shocking victory, gifts will be sent from the ends of the earth, from Cush to Mount Zion, the place of the name of the Lord Almighty (18:7). These gifts were sent to congratulate King Hezekiah at his stunning victory (2 Chr 32:23), but they are a typological picture of the worldwide worship that the ultimate King, Jesus Christ, will receive from every tribe, language, people, and nation. This is a major theme in the book of Isaiah: God’s awesome acts in history centered around Judah and Israel are meant to make his name great among the nations so that all nations will fear him and worship him eternally.

Many prophecies tell of the people of Cush sending gifts of worship to God in Jerusalem: Psalms 68:31 and 87:4 and Zephaniah 3:9-10. This is just a part of God’s saving intention toward people from every nation on earth. In Acts 8 we see the fulfillment of this in the amazing account of the conversion of the Ethiopian eunuch. Based on the prophecies of Isaiah, this Cushite man was led to faith in Jesus Christ by the witness of Philip. He believed and was baptized, and then he returned to Cush to spread the gospel to his fellow countrymen. Church history tells us this was the beginning of the Coptic church. And in the future, “a gift will be brought to the Lord of Armies from a people tall and smooth-skinned.” That gift will be eternal worship at the throne of Christ Jesus!

These chapters depict God’s sovereign power over the nations, his infinitely wise plan and his omnipotent hand (14:26-27). It is vital for us as Christians to trust entirely in the God who thus rules over human history. The nations are restless, full of rage, completely unable to find peace in their wandering rebellion against God. We must not live like that. We must find rest in God alone, trusting in him to give joy and peace, even while we suffer at the hands of such restless empire builders. We must not be faithlessly anxious over the restless churning of current events on earth. But we must learn to weep with compassion over the judgments God brings on sinful people as Isaiah did in 15:5 and 16:9-11. We must also see the futility of the idolatrous world systems of worship. The Jews were allured by the gods of the nations, and we also will be tempted to live for idols. We must continually return to the only true God and do his will while we live. We must see God’s sovereign hand in allowing a remnant of Jews to survive his judgments, such as the few berries at the top of the fruit tree at harvest. Only by the sovereign power of God do the Jews even still exist on earth. And we must delight in God’s purpose to save people from distant lands like the Cushites. We ought to delight in the varied attributes of the ethnicities and know that God delights in any morally neutral distinctives among them. But let us allow biblical truth to destroy the racism that is no more than a form of idolatrous self-worship. From one man all nations of the earth were born, and by one man all the elect from all nations on earth will be redeemed.

Finally, we should seize the opportunity to minister to refugees in the name of the Lord. The ongoing turmoil of nations all over the earth—wars, Islamic terrorist groups, natural disasters—results in a steady stream of refugees who have to flee their countries and seek protection somewhere else. According to a recent United Nations report, the number of refugees worldwide is more than sixty-five million, the highest recorded in history (Yeung, “Refugee Crisis”). The church of Jesus Christ should be there, ministering to these desperate people and allowing them to see in Christ their true Refuge.