Commentaries:
Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown
present . . . people scattered and peeled—For the right rendering, see on Isaiah 18:2. The repetition of epithets enhances the honor paid to Jehovah by so mighty a nation. The Ethiopians, wonder-struck at such an interposition of Jehovah in behalf of His people, shall send gifts to Jerusalem in His honor (Isaiah 16:1; Psalms 68:31; Psalms 72:10). Thus translate: "a present . . . from a people." Or translate, as English Version; "the present" will mean "the people" of Ethiopia converted to God (Romans 15:16). HORSLEY takes the people converted to Jehovah, as the Jews in the latter days.
place of the name—where Jehovah peculiarly manifests His glory; Acts 2:10 and Acts 8:27 show how worshippers came up to Jerusalem from Egypt" and "Ethiopia." Frumentius, an Egyptian, in the fourth century, converted Abyssinia to Christianity; and a Christian church, under an abuna or bishop, still flourishes there. The full accomplishment is probably still future.
The nineteenth and twentieth chapters are connected, but with an interval between. Egypt had been held by an Ethiopian dynasty, Sabacho, Sevechus, or Sabacho II, and Tirhakah, for forty or fifty years. Sevechus (called So, the ally of Hoshea, II Kings 17:4), retired from Lower Egypt on account of the resistance of the priests; and perhaps also, as the Assyrians threatened Lower Egypt. On his withdrawal, Sethos, one of the priestly caste, became supreme, having Tanis ("Zoan") or else Memphis as his capital, 718 BC; while the Ethiopians retained Upper Egypt, with Thebes as its capital, under Tirhakah. A third native dynasty was at Sais, in the west of Lower Egypt; to this at a later period belonged Psammetichus, the first who admitted Greeks into Egypt and its armies; he was one of the dodecarchy, a number of petty kings between whom Egypt was divided, and by aid of foreign auxiliaries overcame the rest, 670 BC To the divisions at this last time, GESENIUS refers Isaiah 19:2; and Psammetichus, Isaiah 19:4, "a cruel lord." The dissensions of the ruling castes are certainly referred to. But the time referred to is much earlier than that of Psammetichus. In Isaiah 19:1, the invasion of Egypt is represented as caused by "the Lord"; and in Isaiah 19:17, "Judah" is spoken of as "a terror to Egypt," which it could hardly have been by itself. Probably, therefore, the Assyrian invasion of Egypt under Sargon, when Judah was the ally of Assyria, and Hezekiah had not yet refused tribute as he did in the beginning of Sennacherib's reign, is meant. That Assyria was in Isaiah's mind appears from the way in which it is joined with Israel and Egypt in the worship of Jehovah (Isaiah 19:24-25). Thus the dissensions referred to (Isaiah 19:2) allude to the time of the withdrawal of the Ethiopians from Lower Egypt, probably not without a struggle, especially with the priestly caste; also to the time when Sethos usurped the throne and entered on the contest with the military caste, by the aid of the town populations: when the Saitic dynasty was another cause of division. Sargon's reign was between 722-715 BC answering to 718 BC, when Sethos usurped his throne [G. V. SMITH].
Other Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown entries containing Isaiah 18:7:
Psalms 2:6
Isaiah 17:14
Isaiah 18:1
Isaiah 19:18-22
Isaiah 19:25
Isaiah 23:18
Zephaniah 3:10
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