Isaiah 18:6 - Printer Friendly

ESV: They shall all of them be left to the birds of prey of the mountains and to the beasts of the earth. And the birds of prey will summer on them, and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

NIV: They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey and to the wild animals; the birds will feed on them all summer, the wild animals all winter.

NASB: They will be left together for mountain birds of prey, And for the animals of the earth; And the birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them, And all the animals of the earth will spend harvest time on them.

CSB: They will all be left for the birds of prey on the hills and for the wild animals of the land. The birds of prey will spend the summer feeding on them, and all the wild animals the winter.

NLT: Your mighty army will be left dead in the fields for the mountain vultures and wild animals. The vultures will tear at the corpses all summer. The wild animals will gnaw at the bones all winter.

KJV: 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.

NKJV: They will be left together for the mountain birds of prey And for the beasts of the earth; The birds of prey will summer on them, And all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

Isaiah has described the nations of the world waiting for God to act against the relentless Assyrian Empire, which has brought death and suffering to the world. He has described the Lord waiting for the precise moment to "prune" the Assyrians away, and that moment had not yet come (Isaiah 18:3–4).

Here, the metaphor of pruned branches (Isaiah 18:5) transforms into the grisly picture of dead corpses. There will be so many bodies that the birds of prey and predators on the ground will feast on them. The birds will have food all summer long, and the beasts will not go hungry that winter. The prophet assures all who hear him that this moment will come. When the Lord is finished using the Assyrians to bring judgment on His people Israel and other nations, He will turn and end their reign of terror on earth (Isaiah 10:12, 25).

The scene Isaiah pictures here—endless piles of bodies feeding wild animals—likely points forward to a specific moment in time. Lead by the fearsome Sennacherib, the Assyrians will lay siege to Jerusalem. The people in the city will have little hope of survival. That's when the time will be right for the Lord's judgement on Assyria. The angel of the Lord will kill thousands upon thousands of their soldiers in one night. This signals the beginning of the end for their dominance in the region (Isaiah 37:36–38).

Isaiah 18:1–7 begins with Isaiah's calls to a land beyond the rivers of Cush. This may refer to ancient Ethiopia—different from modern Ethiopia—south of Egypt. He calls for messengers to be sent to a faraway nation. Then he calls for all the people of the earth to look for the signal of the Lord. The Lord will prune away the Assyrian threat when the time is right, but not before then. When He does so, the bodies of Assyrian soldiers will feed wild animals for months. Then the nations will bring tribute to the Lord at Mount Zion.

This short chapter begins with a call from Isaiah to a people beyond the land of Cush. They send ambassadors to a nation of people quite different from those normally seen in Israel. All the people of the world are concerned about the threat of the Assyrian war machine. Isaiah calls for all to wait for the Lord's signal. He will prune away the Assyrians when the time is exactly right, ending their reign of terror on the earth. Then the nations of the earth will send tribute to the Lord at Mount Zion, where His name resides.

Prior passages were targeted messages in the form of predictions about certain nations. This passage is also an oracle, but one more about reassurance that the Lord is in control and prepared to act accordingly. Every nation is concerned about the cruel Assyrian conquerors who leave death and devastation in their wake. Isaiah calls the world to watch for the Lord's signal. He is waiting for just the right moment to prune the Assyrians away and end their time of terror. Following chapters return to the typical pattern of Isaiah.

Isaiah is among the most important prophetic books in the entire Bible. The first segment details God's impending judgment against ancient peoples for sin and idolatry (Isaiah 1—35). The second part of Isaiah briefly explains a failed assault on Jerusalem during the rule of Hezekiah (Isaiah 36—39). The final chapters predict Israel's rescue from Babylonian captivity (Isaiah 40—48), the promised Messiah (Isaiah 49—57), and the final glory of Jerusalem and God's people (Isaiah 58—66).