Isaiah chapter 18

CHAPTER XVIII. 

"THE LAND SHADOWING WITH WINGS." 

HAVING by the Spirit exhibited the rebuking of the Head of the heathen in the time of eventide trouble, and the dispersion of his hosts, " as the whirling dust before the storm," the prophet turns to a Power that stands in a less obnoxious relation to Israel's King and Rebuker of his enemies. Indeed, it is at once evident that this Power is somewhat of the nature of a Gentile ally. The prophet says :— " Ah ! land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Cush : that sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus upon the waters, (saying) Go ye swift messengers to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning onward ; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled." The quotation as given is selected by choice between the Authorised and Revised Versions and the marginal notes of each. It is perfectly obvious that both King James' translators and those of the Revision of 1885, are in the dark concerning the import of the prophecy; the latter less excusably, because of the 274 years extra development of the " land " and " wings" in question that was before their eyes. As between the Authorised and Revised Versions in this place, it may, indeed, be said that " the old is better." "Shadowing" (v. 1) is better than " rustling," which the R.V. places in the text, relegating " shadowing" to the margin. " A nation tall and smooth" (R.V., v. 2) is nonsense. " A nation scattered and peeled " (A.V.) is intelligible, scriptural, and historically discoverable. It is not without reason that Dr. Thomas indulges in some delicate ironv on some translator's uncertainty between vertical and lateral extension ; as implied in the renderings "tall " and "outspread," and "scattered" or "dragged away"! Or, again, on their extraordinary dilemma between " peeled" and " polished" ! Then again, " a nation . . . trodden" (A.V.) is correct, and " a nation . . . that treadeth " (R.V.) is· manifestly incorrect, as we shall see. But, with the quotation as given above, and the knowledge of " the hope of Israel" derived from the writings of Dr. Thomas, we can easily trace the bearing of the prophecy, and discern that all modern developments in Israel and among the Gentiles attest the truth of his interpretation. First, then, as to the "LAND SHADOWING WITH WINGS." The idea of overshadowing wings is not confined to this place, nor even to lands, but extends to God Himself. Hence David says in Psalm xvii. 8, " Hide me under the shadow of thy wings." And the figure is frequent in the Psalms, standing for the Protectorate of the Almighty. The original root of the word found in Isa. xviii. 1 appears in the name of Bezaleel, the spirit-endowed artificer of the tribe of Judah whom God "called by name" and appointed to help Moses in the construction of the tabernacle in the wilderness. His name literally means, " In the shadow of El" or God. But with reference to Isaiah's use of the expression, " shadowing with wings," we cannot improve on the following from Dr. Thomas :— " ' A land of wings' is a figurative expression, like that of ' wings of the God of Israel.' Isaiah, predicting the invasion of the Holy Land by the King of Assyria, says, * The stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of thy land, 0 Immanuel 1 ' That is, his dominion shall overshadow it from the Mediterranean to the Euphrates. This is a beautiful allusion to the eaglewinged lions of Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian power. A winged lion is used in Daniel as the symbol of Assyria under the Ninevite dynasty. When the sovereignty was transferred from Nineveh to Babylon, the prophet represents the wings as being ' plucked.' Nineveh lost its wings, and could therefore overshadow no more. It was once a City of Wings, and Assyria a land of Wings, so that if the prophet had any message to proclaim to it from afar, he might have exclaimed, * Ho, land of the overshadowing of wings ! ' A city or land of wings, then, is a city or land having dominion ; and if the wings are widespreading, w^hich is indicated by a widely-extended shadow, the dominion is extensive, perhaps very extensive, if an intensive word be used to express the idea of shadowing. But all lands have not wings, because all lands have not dominion. Canada and the AVest Indies, Hungary and Lombardy, have no wings. The wings of the mighty overshadow them all. They have no dominion over their own lands, even; hence none dwell under their shadow. Austria, on the other hand, is a land of overshadowing of wings. So are Russia, Turkey, France, and Britain."* 

"WHICH IS BEYOND THE RIVERS OF CUSH." 

" Ethiopia" in the A.V. or " Cush" in the Hebrew, as the R.V. notes it in the margin. Some remarks upon the term "Cush" have already been made in chapter xi., when speaking of that country in relation to the second exodus described by Isaiah in ch. xi. 11. There the term is rightly applied to Ethiopia, or the country more or less accurately coinciding with the modern Nubia, the Eastern Soudan, and Abyssinia. And Cush plainly denotes this North African country in many places in the Old Testament Scriptures. But the term is not exhausted then. There was an Eastern Cush, whence came the African settlement. But let Dr. Thomas speak again. " Cush is the name of a grandson of Noah, in the line of Ham, and the brother of Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan. These all began their migrations from Ararat. Cush and his brethren journeyed southward, towards the Persian Gulf, Indian Ocean, and Countries of the Nile. Japheth's descendants spread themselves over the north-west; while Shem's branched off towards the east, dish's brother Mizraim settled Egypt; and Canaan, another, a cursed " :

______________________________________

This was written by Dr. Thomas in 1853. Since then the wings of Austria and Turkey have been clipped considerably ; while those of Russia and Britain have been very much extended. The whole development is the subject of prophecy in various parts of the scriptures.—C. C. W.

______________________________________

race, the land afterwards possessed by the Israelites, descended from Shem. The sons of Cush descended the Tigris and the Euphrates, and from thence spread around the waters of the Persian Gulf, to Muscat; and thence to Aden, the region of his sons Sheba and Dedan. They diffused themselves along the south-eastern coast of the lied Sea; while some of them crossed it, and extended their settlement to the regions \ of the Upper Nile,11 " ' Cush begat Nimrod.' Nimrod founded the first kingdom that existed after the Flood. It commenced with four cities in the land of Shinar, the principal of which was Babel, afterwards styled Babylon. * Out of the land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh,' on the Tigris or Hiddekel : ' the same,' says Moses, * is a great city.' The land of Shinar thus became the land of Cush ; whose original stock ruled the countries afterwards styled Mesopotamia and Babylonia. Cushan-Rishathaim was the Cushite Sovereign who first subjected Israel after the death of Joshua. * The tents of Cushan ' thus extended from beyond Nineveh to Midian on the Red Sea; but Cush proper, as pertaining to the Kingdom of Nimrod, is the country between Persia, Arabia, and the Holy Land." The "rivers of Cush," then, as Dr. Thomas points out from Genesis ii., comprise Pison, Gihon, Hiddekel or Tigris, and Euphrates; but he did not go lurther, and dwell upon " the Nile," or " the regions of the Upper Nile " (though he could not help mentioning them), because upon and beyond these 4t rivers of Cush " the " widely shadowing wings" did not spread in 1853. He took note of the Indian wing beyond the rivers of the Eastern Cush; but beyond that he could not go. But over fifty }'ears have passed away, and now, beyond the rivers of the Ethiopian Cush, the overshadowing wings are spread. By the revolt of Arabi in 1882, the British military occupation of Egypt was brought about. By the uprise of Mahdism in the Soudan, the destruction of General Hicks and his army of about 11,000 men in 1883, the siege and falJ of Khartoum and the death of General Gordon in 1885, and subsequent troubles, it became evident that the conquest of the Soudan was a necessity if England was to uphold her prestige in Egypt. Plow it has been accomplished within recent years, and how the victories of the river Atbara, and Khartoum at the junction of the White Kile and Blue Nile (all " rivers of Cush"), have brought the " overshadowing wings " over these regions, notwithstanding the Fashoda incident and French jealousy, all attentive watchers of "the signs of the times" know well. And now, far beyond these Ethiopian "rivers of Cush" (as far beyond as India is from the Euphrates arid Tigris), the shadowing wings are spreading over Cape Colony, Natal, and the newlyannexed South African Colonies of the Orange River and the Transvaal. The eyes of all the earth are upon the phenomenon; but to how few is it given to see in it the fulfilment of what the Lord hath spoken. "Beyond the rivers of Cush," then: beyond the Euphrates and Tigris, and beyond the Atbara and White and Blue Nile, there is in these latter days a notable " land shadowing with wings," whose " rustling " in the countries last indicated is attracting the attention of the whole of the civilized world at the present time. Is that land one "THAT SENDETH AMBASSADORS BY THE SEA?" Dull, indeed, would be the individual who would not, after the events of the year 1900, unhesitatingly answer, YES. What one feature of the outstretching of British wings (that is, the overspreading of British military hosts—compare Isa. viii.) was the nation's boast and the admiration of the world during that year? Just this very feature : the " sending of ambassadors by sea." Within a few months, not only " ambassadors," but an army of over 200,000 men were sent by sea "beyond the rivers of Cush" ; while from the ends of the earth came sea-borne contingents from the other wings to the help of the " land " in question. And there is unquestionably much more to follow. But again it will be very instructive to listen to the voice of Dr. Thomas of over fifty years ago. "The wings of the land, or its dominion, being so widespreading from tip to tip, it is obliged to communicate with its possessions under their shadow, ' by sea/ This character in the text shows that the over-shadowing land is a maritime "power. It is neither Austria, Russia, nor Turkey, because they do not correspond with their possessions by sea; neither is it France nor the United States, because their wings do not stretch beyond the Tigris and Euphrates. It can he no other than the British Power, whose wings stretch from Burmah to the land of Sheba, and West of the Indus; and will advance to Cnshistan from the Persian Gulf, as soon as it perceives it necessary for the protection and promotion of its commercial interests. The movements of the Russo-Assyrian Autocrat in regard to Turkey, will cause Britain to extend the shadow of her wings to the rivers of Cash. These waters are the borders beyond which her wings will spread no further westward. Britain on the Euphrates and the Assyrian as a cloud to cover Israel's land, will bring face to face in the heart of Asia, the friend and foe of God's oppressed, dispersed and captive nation. Policy and interest will identify Britain with the Jews, while many of its people will sympathise with them on religious principles." Now, after the expiration of half-a-century, how does this interpretation stand ? Time, which tries all things, has proved and is proving it to be remarkably correct in every detail. Russian and British rivalry in Persia, and British friendship for the Jews are notorious. And they are, among the other things, at once the assurance that the right understanding of the prophecy has been arrived at, and the earnest of the fulfilment of the whole counsel of God. "VESSELS OF BULRUSHES," A.V., or, " vessels of papyrus," R.V. The words of the Authorised Version are " even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters " ; while the Revised gives an alternative to the particle rendered "even" by saying, "or and" in the margin. Thus it might read " and in vessels," &c, so making this characteristic of the land something additional to " sending ambassadors by sea." This would appear to harmonise better with the other ascertained facts of the case. Obviously " vessels of papyrus " are neither sea-going nor " swift messengers; " so that the clause cannot be supposed to qualify the sending of ambassadors by sea. Dr. Thomas, emphasising this, proposes to render it, " vessels of fleetness." But the common Hebrew word for " fleet '* or " swift" is qal, as in the next line (malahim qallim, " swift messengers"), and not gomeh, as in this place. The word gomeh is rightly enough rendered " bulrushes," or better, " papyrus," as is evident from its few occurrences in the scriptures. Thus in Ex. ii. 3, Moses' mother took for him "an ark of gomeh," or papyrus reed. Bildad asks (Job viii. 11), " Can the rush (gomeh) grow up without mire ?" And Isaiah (xxxv. 7) speaks figuratively of the rush (gomeh) flourishing by reason of the springs of water. The radical idea of the verb from whence the term comes is " to drink in, to swallow," and it is that used in Gen. xxiv. 17, where Abraham's servant says to Rebecca, " Let me drink a little water of thy pitcher." It is applied to reeds and rushes on account of th© bibulous nature of these plants. The idea of " fleetness" is very remotely, if at all, connected with it. It is quite true that Britain's steamers are " vessels of fleetness," and are " drinkers" of large quantities of water for condensing purposes ; as it is also true that they are propelled by " whirling things " (whether paddles or screws), which is Doctor Thomas' translation of the word represented by " ambassadors." But these characteristics, upon mature consideration, do not seem to be the things alluded to in the text. Why then the inspired choice of gomeh, i.e., " bulrushes," or "papyrus" reeds? Is it not to identify the operations of the land in question with the river of which that method of navigation was a notable peculiarity ? The sea-going ambassadors and swift messengers are separately alluded to. Is not this an intimation that the land shadowing with wings would have something to do with the river as well ? It would certainly seem so. At any rate one of the "eventide" features of the situation on the Nile, upon which Moses floated in a " vessel of bulrushes" over 3,000 years ago, has been the boat expeditions of the " land shadowing with wings." Light and shallow vessels have accomplished wonders of transport of troops and supplies. So the shadowing wings do not only spread " beyond the rivers of Cush," but over the rivers themselves, as the last twenty years upon the Upper Nile and the Atbara have shewn. " Go, YE SWIFT MESSENGERS." Both the Authorised and Revised Versions interpolate the word " saying " before these words, with the effect of making the command come from the land shadowing with wings, instead of from God by the prophet. There is no such word in the original, as the italics indicate ; and its omission reveals the divine authorship of the command. In another place, where the same matter of the restoration of Israel is in question, the work of the "swift messengers" is thus alluded to: " Surely the isles shall wait for me, and the ships of Tarshish first, to bring thy sons (0 Zion) from far, their silver and their gold with them, unto the name of the Lord thy God, and to the Holy One of Israel, because he hath glorified thee" (Isa. lx. 9). These ships of Tarshish, whose development is so notable a feature of the nineteenth century, are the " swift messengers " at God's command to bring Zion's sons again to their land. As Dr. Thomas beautifully puts it: " What Hiram was to Solomon, Britain will be to Him who is greater than he. The steam marine of the latter-day Tyrians trading to Tarshish, is the navy prepared of Jehovah for his King. The twelve tribes are his land forces ; the ships of Tarshish His marine." 

"To A NATION SCATTERED AND PEELED, to a people terrible from their beginning onward, a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled." Whatever doubts and difficulties translators may feel about this—and they are many, as the Revised Version in text and margin bears witness—there is one nation that fits the entire description easily and obviously, and only one nation. Ask the question : " What nation does the Lord of Hosts propose to bring at ' eventide ' to the place of His Name, ' the Mount Zion ?' " (verse 7). The answer is contained in a thousand prophecies, and even voiced in audible cry among the Gentiles of these latter days—"ISRAEL, A NATION!" This nation is " scattered and peeled." The scattering is notorious. As to " peeled," the sense of the term is illustrated in the inspired account of Nebuchadnezzar's military operations against Tyre. " Every head was made bald," said the prophet, " and every shoulder was peeled" (Ezek. xxix. 18). The same king peeled the shoulder of Israel, as did the Assyrian before him, and the Greek and Roman after him. Israel is truly " scattered and peeled." 

"Terrible from their beginning onward," is true of Israel for centuries ; but their past terribleness is nothing by comparison with what is to come. Dr. Thomas' translation, " terrible from this and onward," emphasises this fact. Lions among sheep, a hearth of fire among wood, a torch of fire among sheaves, Yahweh's battle axe and weapons of war, His new sharp threshing instrument having teeth : these are some of the figures by which the relation of Israel to the Gentiles hereafter is divinely specified. " Meted out and trodden down," is applicable to Israel as to no other nation. The " line, line," of the Hebrew in marginal reference is God's measuring line of judgment and overthrow (2 Kings xxi. 13; Isa. xxviii. 17). " Whose land the rivers have spoiled," is true of Israel's as of no other land. Isaiah himself supplies the exposition of this clause in chapter viii., where he foretells the overflowing of Immanuel's land by " the waters of the river strong and many, even the King of Assyria and all his glory." And this overflowing of the river of Babylon was only one of many. Nebuchadnezzar's invasion may be considered another. And the Roman invasion is alluded to by Daniel in these terms: "The end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined" (Dan. ix. 26). After the Roman, the Saracen, the Turk, and the Orusaders " spoiled" the land. And there yet remains the "overflowing and passing over" of the King of the North, when, in " the time of the end," he enters into " the glorious land" (Dan. xi. 40). Surely Israel is the nation whose "land the rivers have spoiled.

A PROCLAMATION TO ALL THE EARTH CONCERNING THE ENSIGN. 

After speaking of the swift vessels of " the land shadowing with wings," and publishing the divine command concerning the restoration of the " scattered and peeled " nation of Jehovah, the Prophet by the Spirit makes a proclamation to all the inhabitants of the world. "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye when He lifteth up an ensign on the mountains, and when He bloweth the trumpet, hear ye." What ensign is to be lifted up on the mountains ? and what trumpet is to be blown in connection with the restoration of Israel and His avengement on all His enemies? There is but one answer in harmony with Isaiah's other words and all the Scriptures. The Lord Jesus is the ensign, and the trumpet is the great trumpet of jubilee, when Israel, long dispersed and oppressed, shall return to his possessions. In chapter xi., where Isaiah speaks of the coming forth of the Rod out of the stem of Jesse, and of the second exodus from Egypt and the other lands now under the dominion of " the land shadowing with wings," he says, " In that day there shall be a root of Jesse which shall stand for an ensign of the people: to it shall the Gentiles seek, and His rest shall be glorious." The initial circumstances under which the Gentiles shall thus "seek" are recounted in this 18th chapter, and comprise the bringing back of Israel in British ships, and the destruction of the "rushing nations" upon the mountains of Israel. The blowing of the trumpet is the subject of Isaiah's farther allusion in this connection in chap, xxvii., which speaks of " the time of the dead," and of the song of triumph that shall be sung in the land of Judah by " the righteous nation which keepeth the truth." It says, " It shall come to pass in that day that the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, Ο ye children of Israel; and it shall come to pass in that day " that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish, in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem. Jesus himself alludes to this time. He speaks of the appearance of the sign of the Son of Man in heaven, and says, " Then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming in the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory; and he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from one end of heaven to the other " (Matt. xxiv. 30-31). In the Revelation the figure is reproduced, for we read (chap. xi. 15), " The seventh angel sounded, and there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever." In all these allusions to this great crisis, the avengement and salvation of the saints is intertwined with that of the nation of Israel. The Gospel is the " Hope of Israel," and a true and correct reception of it makes place for an intelligent apprehension of the striking international developments which are associated with the time of the end, and of which the prophets spoke so wondrously beforehand. Isaiah continues (verse 4) accounting, as it were, for the command just given, saying, "For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, I will consider in my dwelling-place, like a clear heat upon herbs and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest." This explains the arrestment of the attention of all the earth. The Lord's " rest " and His " dwelling-place " are alluded to in the 7th verse as " the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion." Popular theology has obscured all this. It has left the Lord no " rest" upon the earth, no " dwelling places upon Mount Zion " ; but its high ones, having appropriated as much of the inheritance as possible to themselves, have relegated His dominion to "heaven beyond the skies," a shadowy realm remote from human rivalries. But this is all pagan fable ; Messiah is to " rule in the midst of His enemies " in Immanuel's Land. God covenanted with Abraham to give him the land for an everlasting possession, and Christ is the heir under the covenant, with whom Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets, will gloriously inherit the land for ever. The prophecy before us represents Messiah in possession of the city where He was crucified, and which He declared should be " trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles should be· fulfilled." Isaiah, who was a man of sign, and, with his children, represented Christ and His people (ch. viii. 17), in this place also stands as a type, and will, when these things transpire, enter into that glorious rest of which he thus spoke in the days of his flesh. Commenting on verse 4, Dr. Thomas remarks:—" This is the quiescence of Jehovah's Name-bearer after beating down the· Assyrian at eventide, by which he obtains forcible possession of Jerusalem. It is absolute quietude or cessation from all hostilities, an armistice as it were, obtaining from the descent to the Mount of Olives, and the commencement of the war between the King of Israel and the Papal powers of the Roman West. The words, * yet in my dwelling-place I will be without fear,' are parenthetic, and descriptive of the Great King's perfect security and fearlessness in the midst of fierce and warlike nations, among whom he has introduced himself ' as a thief' with the intention of spoiling their governments of all their glory, honour, dominion, and wealth. As if he had said, ' Though I forbear immediately to follow up the victory I have gained in delivering Jerusalem from the Russo-Assyrian Gog, the enemy will be too confounded to rally his forces and lay siege to the city for its recovery of my hand. I shall be in it, and hold it without any ground of fear from a threatened renewal of the siege.' " And further, after emphasising the fact that Zion is the place of God's " rest," a fact even less widely discerned in 1853 than at the present day, Dr. Thomas adds : — " Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews, at Zion, ' still as dry heat impending lightning, as a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest,' is represented in the Apocalypse as ' one like the Son of Man sitting upon a white cloud, having on his head a golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle/ or pruning hook (Rev. xiv. 14). In this cloud-scene he has but one crown. It pertains, therefore, to a time anterior to that in which, in chapter xix., he is seen with ' many crowns' upon his head. The one crown is David's, which he wears by inheritance; the * many' are those he wins from the beast and kings of the earth whom he overcomes in battle, when he * gathers the clusters of the vine of the earth/ and casts its grapes, fully ripe, ' into the great wine-press of the wrath of God.' Jesus, the redeemer, comes to Zion at that crisis, ' reaps the earth,' in the overthrow of Gog : there, as a dew-cloud, he rests in Zion, awaiting the full ripening of the vine-clusters in the Roman West. This perfecting of the fruit is accomplished when the acceptance or rejection of the trumpetproclamation to the Land of o'ershadowing wings, and to other lands, has divided them into adverse and friendly nations. As hostile they are ' the Goats,' as friendly they are ' the Sheep,' of the Imperial Fold. This division effected, then the Royal Reaper, no longer still as dry heat and as a cloud of dew, thrusts in his pruning hook again, and having reaped the grape-clusters, treads them in the wine-press without the city, that is, beyond the limits of the land." Isaiah continues (verses 5-6): " For before the harvest, when the bud is perfect and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches. 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 t'nem." The harvest is the "harvest of the earth " of Apocalyptic phrase (Rev. xiv. 15), and the similarit}7 of language and the identity of the crises revealed in both Isaiah and the Revelation must strike any attentive reader. The things represented by the " sour grape," the " sprigs," and " branches," are sufficiently obvious from the context (v. 6), " They shall be left, &c." The confederate hosts of the Northern invader (Ezek. xxxviii.-xxxix.) are those whose lot it is to be given to the fowls of the air and the beasts of the earth, in the day when God is made known by judgment in the eyes of many nations (Ezek. xxxix. 17-22). Dr. Thomas, speaking of this " flower," or " blossom," as he prefers to call it, says :— " This blossom is Gog, who aims at establishing a permanent dominion over the East and West. He obtains preadventual possession of Jerusalem, but is unable to retain it in subjection. His ambition blossoms forth with great promise, but he proves eventually unable to bring his schemes of conquest and dominion to perfection. Though * laden with thick clay/ his blossom will not even become a sour grape, for scarcely doth he appear as a flower in Jehovah's vineyard, but he is cut off and blown away like chaff before the wind. The ten-horn kingdoms are not so. They continue to flourish on the earth's vine, first as blossoms, then as sour grapes, and lastly as grapes fully ripe, and fit for the wine-press without the city. They are trodden at vintage time ; but the pre-eminent blossom is cut off ' before harvest,' as vine shoots by pruning hooks, and luxuriant twigs are lopped away." Isaiah xviii. concludes thus : " In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of Hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people (or ' even of a people,' &c: Young), terrible from their beginning and hitherto, a nation meted out and trodden underfoot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of Hosts, the Mount Zion." The following is Dr. Thomas' comment of over fifty years ago :— " At that time"—at evening time, and subsequently to the King of Israel's victory over Gog and over the " beast, false prophet, kings of the earth and their armies." The nations in arms, being subdued under Israel (Psa. xlvii. 3), their hosts will no longer need to be detained in foreign parts. The time will have therefore come to give them rest from war, and to transport their victorious armies into their native land, that they may be disbanded there, and ** settled after their old estates" (Ezek. xxxvi. 2). The steamships of the " land of overshadowing wings" will be in great request for this service, which will be willingly and joyfully rendered. Hence Israel's eventide return to their fatherland by this agency is termed a diligent conveyance of "a present to Jehovah of armies." Those of the scattered nation that are inaccessible to ships will be brought home by the usual means of transportation by land. This present, brought by sea and land to Mount Zion, is termed by the prophet " an offering unto Jehovah out of all nations." His words are: " They shall bring all your brethren an offering unto Jehovah out of all nations, on horses and chariots and litter vehicles, and upon mules and dromedaries, to my holy mountain Jerusalem, as the children of Israel bring the offering in a clean vessel to the house of Jehovah." This " present" is not brought before the return of Jesus, the bearer of Jehovah's Name, from the right hand of Power. It cannot be brought until He becomes " Jehovah of Armies," and is enthroned in Zion, for it is brought by strong nations as an offering to Him dwelling in Zion. Were all Israel now sent back to Palestine by existing powers, their restoration would be no offered present to the Jehovah Name, because Zion is not yet the actual abode of Jehovah Jesus. The " present" will be freely offered, because the offerers will have come to the recognition of the true nature of things. Jesus, whose prophetic name is JEHOVAH, OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS (Jer. xxxiii. 6), will have convinced them of his power and right to the world's allegiance by his skill and prowess in arms. The South will no longer " keep back," nor the North refuse to " give up," for the Dragon and the Beast and the Kings, with all the armies that now give effect to their wickedness, will have been destroyed, and all obstacles to the full return of Israel 'from the four winds of heaven,' completely removed. ' They shall bring my sons from far,' saith God, ' and my daughters from the ends of the earth, every one that is called by my name, for I have created Israel for my glory ' " (Is. xliii. 1, 6, 7). " But before the freewill offering of this present of Israel unto their King by the nations, no longer hostile; and before Zion is delivered of a man child, Palestine will be occupied by a Jewish population, respectable for numbers, industry and wealth. This is evident from the following testimony: ' In the latter years, Ο Gog, thou shalt come into the land brought back from the sword, and gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which were for desolation continually; but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they dwell safely, all of them. Thou shalt come up against my people of Israel as a cloud to cover the land. It shall be in the latter days, and I will bring thee against my land, that the nations may know me, when I shall be glorified in thee, Ο Gog, before their eyes.' This proves a partial return befcre Gog's invasion. The following text shows their prosperity in their land before he disturbs their peace. Jehovah, addressing Himself to Gog, says, ' Thou shalt think an evil thought, and shalt say, I will go up to the land of unwalled villages. I will go to them that are at rest, that dwell safely, all of them, dwelling without walls, and having neither bars nor gates, to take a spoil, and to take a prey, to turn thine hand upon the desolate places, now inhabited, and upon the people gathered out of the nations who have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.' He accordingly invades Palestine with a mighty army, and that this invasion precedes the appearing of Jesus in Zion is clear from the consideration that the invasion of God's unoffending people is made the occasion of that appearing, as it is written, 4 And it shall be at the same time when Gog shall come against the land of Israel, saith the Lord God, that my fury shall come up in my face . . . and there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel . . . and all the men that are upon the face of the land shall shake at my presence, and the mountains shall be hurled over, and the towers shall fall. . . . And I will call for a sword against him throughout all my mountains, and I will plead against him with pestilence and with blood, and I will rain upon him, and upon his bands, and upon the many peoples that are with him, an overflowing rain, and great hailstones, fire and brimstone. Thus will I magnify myself, and sanctify myself ; and I will be known in the eyes of many nations, and they shall know that I, Jehovah, am Jesus, bearing the Name. And I will turn thee back . . . and thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel, and upon the open field ; and I will give thee to the ravenous birds of every sort, and to the beasts of the field to be devoured '—* the great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that they may eat flesh, and drink blood' (Ez. xxxviii. - xxxix.). " Thus falls the blossom from the vine. Sudden destruction at eventide descends, in storm and tempest, and sweeps him as mountain chaff or stubble before the blast. Thus Zion is redeemed with judgment. Prostrate under the heel of the Autocrat, and none of all her children to draw sword for her deliverance, her voice is stifled by the throatgrip of the destroyer. She hath no strength to give birth to a deliverer, and nought seems to impend but the final extinction of all her hopes. Bat what doth the prophet hear at this crisis of her fate ? ' A voice o£ noise from the city, a voice from the Temple, a voice of Jehovah, that rendereth recompense to his enemies.' ' Jehovah roaring out of Zion and uttering His voice from Jerusalem, and the heavens and the earth shall shake, but He will be the hope of His people, and the strength of the children of Israel. So shall ye know that I, Jehovah, your God, am dwelling in Zion, my holy mountain. Then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more' (Joel iii. 16-17). Thus, ' before Zion travailed, she brought forth, before her pain came she produced a male,' even a Man of Renown." ThutS far Dr. Thomas, over fifty years ago. How does the subsequent half-century confirm or stultify his interpretation? The answer is known to all who have studied the history of the time with knowledge of the first principles of the truth, and in comparison with the Scriptures of the prophets. Most emphatically did the Doctor testify that the coming years would not be years of peace, and now after the lapse of over fifty years, we stand amidst a world of angry armed nations in the eventide of the Gentile times; in which all their schemes and rivalries unconsciously focalize towards that " rushing" against Jerusalem which the prophet foresaw more than seven hundred years before Christ. We do not need to argue concerning the preparedness of the world for this great crisis. It is notorious to all qualified observers. Hopes ran high for peace when in 1899 the Conference of the Powers convened at the Hague by Russia, sat to consider means of securing it. They had scarce risen when war ensued, which plunged the "land shadowing with wings" into the greatest war it had ever been engaged in, that is so far as numbers were concerned, on its side, and which involved the forces of the " wings " to their utmost extremities in all directions.

The next year saw the other Power spoken of by the prophet, involved with all the powers of the West in a struggle with the Chinese Empire of the Far East. Then followed the tremendous struggle between Russia and Japan, which has crippled, but not fatally wounded the great " King of the North." From the time in which Dr. Thomas wrote up to the present, the Russian empire has steadily been advancing to the place assigned to it by the prophets. In the Holy Land, as in other countries, this is so. Beside us is the ordnance-map of Jerusalem. On the north, commanding the city, is a kind of Russian colony, with buildings of great strength, by many competent observers suspected to have been designed with reference to military projects of the future. On the East, on the Mount of Olives, also easily commanding the city by the power of modern artillery, is the Russian Convent. At Jericho, also, the Russians are said to have a settlement, and the constant stream of Russian pilgrims familiarises the people with the country which the Northern hosts are destined to overrun. As to the "land shadowing with wings," the wings have stretched far and wide during the last half-century. The ships of Tarshish fifty years ago represented but a small fraction of the immense naval and mercantile marine of the present day, while conspicuous among a world of enemies to the Jews, the land is recognized by the oppressed as the one spot of security and friendship that is left for the Jew in all the earth. As to " the nation scattered and peeled," the noise of its political resurrection is in the air, and the colonies that represent the " unwalled villages" of Ezekiel's prophecy are already taking root upon the mountains of Israel. Fifty years ago these things were non-existent, and were discerned entirely by faith in the written word. Now they are, in some degree at any rate, matters of fact. The Zionist movement in Israel, brought about by the Anti-Semitic outbreaks of the past half-century, is the earnest of the fulfilment of all that the prophets have spoken. We live in a sublimely interesting time, for we are approaching the day of vengeance of our God, and the year of His redeemed.