This passage is introduced by a strange title, Oracle concerning the beasts of the Negeb, i.e. either the beasts who carry the treasure to Egypt (Isaiah 30:6 b), or the wild creatures that infest the Negeb. Duhm supposes that the oracle began In the wastes of the South, and that the title should be, Oracle. In the wastes of the South. the title being taken from the opening words, which have fallen out of the text through haplography. With great trouble and expense the ambassadors go through the difficult and dangerous desert to negotiate a useless alliance with Egypt, an insolent and indolent people. The prophet is bidden write his oracle on a tablet (Isaiah 8:1) and inscribe it in a book, that it may be a witness (mg.) for ever (Isaiah 8:16), to prove the accuracy of his foresight when history has vindicated it. For the people is disobedient to the teaching (mg.) of Yahweh. They will not tolerate harsh realities from the prophets, but bid them turn aside to a smoother message and a more congenial presentation of God. But this scorn of the warning word, this trust in crooked policy, will prove their ruin, sudden and complete, like a crack in a wall, small at first, but spreading till the wall comes crashing down. For the State will be smashed like an earthenware vessel into tiny fragments. For their salvation lay in renunciation of a spirited foreign policy and confidence in God, but they had refused to listen. They had relied on horses (Isaiah 31:3) for battle, but they will serve them only for flight. A thousand will be pursued by one, till they will be left lonely as a flag-staff on the summit of a hill.
Isaiah 30:6. bunches: humps.
Isaiah 30:7. Rahab that sitteth still: Rahab was properly the chaos monster subdued by God (Job 9:13; * Job 26:12; Isaiah 51:9 *). Here it is applied to Egypt, as in Psalms 87:4. If the text here is correct, the suggestion in the name Rahab may be the etymological one of arrogance. Egypt's stormy bluster, however, amounts to nothing. When the crisis comes she sits still (Isaiah 36:6). This is, however, very uncertain, and the text is probably corrupt. Gunkel reads, Rahab the subdued.