That sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth of skin, to a people feared from their beginning until now; a nation powerful and treading down, whose land the rivers divide!
Read Chapter 18
Cyril of Alexandria
AD 444
Someone might wonder and say to himself, “Why does the prophetic oracle addressed to Damascus now mention the land that is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia?” At certain times the Israelites foolishly abandoned God the Savior of all and fell into the error of worshiping many gods. Paying no heed whatsoever to the law given by Moses, they were chastised by God, at times through foes who rose up against them and at times by other catastrophes. Although they should have repented and been healed, ceased their wicked way, walked in the commandments and sought help from God, they made alliances with their neighbors, first with the kings in Damascus, then with those in Egypt. Not only this. They also embraced the gods of the nations that had come to their aid and wasted no time in emulating their ways. Hence the prophet now turns his attention to the Egyptians.
The Israelites, in particular those living in Jerusalem, had approached the Egyptians and pleaded with them to become allies. They needed...
Ambassadors. Hebrew, "images "(Bo chart) in honour of Adonis; (St. Cyril) or rather Ezechias, or Tharaca send to demand troops. (Calmet)
Bulrushes. Literally, "paper. "(Haydock)
Formed of rushes which grow on the banks of the Nile. (Pliny, vii. 56., and xiii. 11.)
Angels. Or messengers.
Pieces. With factions after the death of Sabacon, or by the inroads of Sennacherib.
Other. He derides the vanity of the Egyptians. (Calmet)
Expecting the overflowing of the Nile. (Haydock)
Hebrew, "of line "(Calmet) with which they marked out each person's property, after the waters had subsided. (Strabo 17.)
Foot. They worked their dough with their feet, and sent swine to trample on the seed, which required no more cultivation. (Herodotus ii. 14., and 36.)
Spoiled. The Nile made considerable alterations.
The word of Isaiah: “Woe to the wings of the vessels of the land, beyond the rivers of Ethiopia: (woe to him) who sends sureties by the sea, and letters of papyrus [on the water; for nimble messengers will go] to a nation anxious and expectant, and a people strange and bitter against them; a nation hopeless and trodden down.”
But we who hope for the Son of God are persecuted and trodden down by those unbelievers. For the “wings of the vessels” are the churches; and the sea is the world, in which the church is set like a ship tossed in the deep but not destroyed. For she has with her the skilled pilot, Christ. And she bears in her midst also the trophy over death, for she carries with her the cross of the Lord. For her prow is the east, and her stern is the west, and her hold is the south, and her tillers are the two Testaments. And the ropes that stretch around her are the love of Christ, which binds the church. And the net which she bears with her is the layer of the regeneration whic...
