Isaiah 18 · a question people ask
"a nation tall and smooth" (18:2). Who is it?
The chapter doesn't give the nation a name. It says only what its verses say: "the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia" (18:1), "that sends ambassadors by the sea" (18:2), and then, "Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth" (18:2). The verses don't say whether the nation the messengers go to is the land of 18:1 or another. In Hebrew Ethiopia is Kush, and the WEB gives the same name as Cush in "from Cush" (11:11). Isaiah names Ethiopia again in chapter 20 (20:3-5) and later in the book, and those verses are taken up in their own chapters. No verse in this chapter names a king. The people are described here only in the chapter's own words, and the chapter is applied to no people or nation today.
The verses
“Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia; that sends ambassadors by the sea, even in vessels of papyrus on the waters, saying, “Go, you swift messengers, to a nation tall and smooth, to a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide!””
“In that time, a present will be brought to the LORD of Armies from a people tall and smooth, even from a people awesome from their beginning onward, a nation that measures out and treads down, whose land the rivers divide, to the place of the name of the LORD of Armies, Mount Zion.”
“It will happen in that day that the Lord will set his hand again the second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the islands of the sea.”
“The LORD said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder concerning Egypt and concerning Ethiopia, so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot, and with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. They will be dismayed and confounded, because of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.”