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1. Full of poetic suggestion is the expression "shadowing with wings." The thought is of tender protection, as the mother bird hovers over and shields her young. The Psalmist is never tired of crying out to God, "Hide me under the covering of Thy wings." It was right that Israel and Judah should cry thus to Jehovah for protection, but not that they should look to the shadowing wings of Ethiopia. Just as it was pathetically true that in later times our Lord should say of the Holy City, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not" — so seven hundred years earlier it was true that Judah would not seek refuge under the wings of the Lord, but under the shadowing of Egypt and the covering of Ethiopia.

2. In the Revised Version we have the passage rendered, "Ah, the land of the rustling of wings." Some of the old commentators find in this an allusion to the multitude of bees and the swarms of flies in Ethiopia, so that there the hum of wings was never absent. More picturesque is another suggestion, that the reference is to the ever plashing waters of the rivers, hurrying along with swift current, in rapids and through cataracts until the broad bosom of father Nile was reached. The swish and lapping of the rushing waters seemed to the poet like the noise made by the swift flight of many birds, beating the air with strong pinions, as they sweep on towards the horizon.

3. If we turn to the Septuagint, the Greek Old Testament, we read the text thus: "Woe to you, ye wings of the land of ships." What are the wings of the land of ships but the many sails whereby those ships flit hither and thither? One sees before him a new picture. The graceful dahabiehs with their long yards and triangular sails, dotting the water everywhere, and naturally suggesting great sea birds, with outspread wings, shining in the starlight white and ghostly on the calm surface of the mysterious river which is Egypt's life.

4. Some of the more acute Hebrew scholars point out that it is possible to understand the prophet's language in yet another way: "Woe to the land where the shadow falleth both ways," that is, of course, near the Equator, where sometimes the shadows stretch out to the south and sometimes to the north, according to the time of the year. If we understand our text so, it is natural to see in it an allusion to the fickleness of the Ethiopians, a nation which Judah vainly trusted in, since today it would be found an ally and tomorrow an enemy.

(A. Ritchie.)

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KJV: Woe to the land shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:

WEB: Ah, the land of the rustling of wings, which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia;