Isaiah 18:2 - Bullinger's Companion Bible Notes

Bible Comments

the sea. the Nile. So called by the inhabitants of the Sudan to-day.

bulrushes. reeds. Not the papyrus, but its companion reed, the ambach, which reaches. height of fifteen feet and has yellow flowers.

scattered and peeled. "tall and smooth-faced".

terrible. They formed the armies of "So" or Sha-baka, and are the backbone of the Anglo-Egyptian army.

whose land the rivers have spoiled: i.e. the "sudd" or swamps (hence Sudan). The Dinka and Shilluk negroes live on the floating cakes of sudd.

Isaiah 18:2

2 That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation scattereda and peeled, to a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!