Isaiah 18 · a question people ask
"he will cut off the sprigs" (18:5). Who cuts, and who is cut off?
The verse says only he. The verse before is the LORD's own word, spoken as I: "I will be still, and I will see" (18:4). 18:5 goes on with For and he, and doesn't give a name. What is cut is a picture from a vine: "the blossom", "the flower" that "becomes a ripening grape", "the sprigs" and "the spreading branches" (18:5). The chapter doesn't say whose vine it is or whom the branches stand for, and it doesn't say they are the people of 18:2. It says only that they "will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth" (18:6). These notes don't supply the names the chapter leaves out.
The verses
“For the LORD said to me, “I will be still, and I will see in my dwelling place, like clear heat in sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” For before the harvest, when the blossom is over, and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the sprigs with pruning hooks, and he will cut down and take away the spreading branches. They will be left together for the ravenous birds of the mountains, and for the animals of the earth. The ravenous birds will eat them in the summer, and all the animals of the earth will eat them in the winter.”