to fly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine plural
cloud
כָּעָ֣בka.'Av
H5645
properly · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
doves
וְכַיּוֹנִ֖יםve.khai.yo.Nim
H3123
a dove (apparently from the warmth of their mating) · conjunction + preposition with the article + noun, common masculine plural absolute
windows
אֲרֻבֹּתֵיהֶֽם'a.ru.bo.tei.Hem
H699
a lattice · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Revelation 7:9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood bef…
Luke 13:29 And they shall come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and shall sit down in the kingdom of God.
Isaiah 49:21 Then shalt thou say in thine heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have lost my children, and am desolate, a captive, and removing to…
Isaiah 60:4 Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daugh…
Hebrews 12:1 Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so ea…
Genesis 8:8-11 Also he sent forth a dove from him, to see if the waters were abated from off the face of the ground;
Isaiah 45:22 Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 60:1-8
It is here promised that the gospel temple shall be very lightsome and very large.
I. It shall be very lightsome: Thy light has come. When the Jews returned out of captivity they had light and gladness, and joy and honour; they then were made to know the Lord and to rejoice in his great goodness; and upon both accounts their light came. When the Redeemer came to Zion he brought light with him, he himself came to be a light. Now observe, 1. What this light is, and whence it springs: The Lord shall arise upon thee (Isa 60:2), the glory of the Lord (Isa 60:1) shall be seen upon thee. God is the father and fountain of lights, and it is in his light that we shall see light. As far as we have the…
The prophet, seeing in vision new hosts approaching quickly like a cloud of doves, asks who they are.
Adam Clarke on Isaiah 60:8
And as the doves to their windows "And like doves upon the wing?" - Instead of אל el, to, forty-two MSS. of Kennicott's, and one of mine, have by על, upon. For ארבתיהם arubboteyhem, their windows, read אברתיהם ebrotheyhem, their wings, transposing a letter. - Houbigant. The Septuagint render it συν νεοσσοις, "with their young;" they read אפרחיהם ephrocheyhem, nearer to the latter than to the present reading. - L.
John Gill on Isaiah 60:8
Who are these that fly as a cloud,.... Referring to the vast number of converts before mentioned, who are compared to a "cloud" for the number of them, covering Judea as the clouds do the heavens; and for their elevation and situation, being raised from an earthly to a heavenly state; called with a high calling, and made partakers of an heavenly one; and for their being filled with the grace of God, as clouds with water; and for their unanimity, their coming together in a body, making as it were one cloud, and that openly and publicly, professing Christ, and joining themselves to his church, in the face of the world; and so the Targum,
"who are these that come publicly as the swift clouds?'…
The Church Fathers
"Like doves to their windows." With these words he speaks of the return. As the doves, he says, know their nests, so the people hasten to Jerusalem and to their prosperity.
For the soul has flights, as has been said, "Who are these that fly like clouds and like doves with their young?" You see, the soul has spiritual flights that, in a brief moment, circle the whole globe. For the thoughts of wise people are free and, insofar as they rise up from lower to higher shadows, so much and more they fly without the hindrance of any earthly weight, and they are the more carried along by the beating of spiritual wings onto that ethereal and rarefied place; [the soul] despises all worldly things. It soars above the world in its regard for eternal virtues; for justice is above the world, goodness is above the world, wisdom is above the world, even when it is found in the world, it is above the world nevertheless.
Thus, typically, under the leadership of the Law (for Moses was a type of the Law that was coming) Israel passes unwetted over that sea, while the Egyptian who crosses in her track is overwhelmed. Each fares according to the disposition which he carries with him; one walks lightly enough, the other is dragged into the deep water. For virtue is a light and buoyant thing, and all who live in her way "fly like clouds," as Isaiah says, "and as doves with their young ones"; but sin is a heavy affair, "sitting," as another of the prophets says, "upon a talent of lead." If, however, this reading of the history appears to any forced and inapplicable, and the miracle at the Red Sea does not present itself to him as written for our profit, let him listen to the Apostle: "Now all these things happened unto them for types, and they are written for our admonition."
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Church — Derived probably from the Greek kuriakon (i.e., “the Lord’s house”), which was used by ancient authors for the place of worship. In the New Testament it is the translation of the Greek word ecclesia,…
Dove — In their wild state doves generally build their nests in the clefts of rocks, but when domesticated “dove-cots” are prepared for them (Cant. 2:14; Jer. 48:28; Isa. 60:8). The dove was placed on the…
Clouds · Illustrative: Of multitudes of persons — Illustrative: Of multitudes of persons
Dove, The · Illustrative: Of converts to the church — Illustrative: Of converts to the church
Dove, Turtle · Domesti — Domesti
Excellency And Glory Of The Church, The · Augmented by increase of its members — Augmented by increase of its members
Gentiles · PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF — PROPHECIES OF THE CONVERSION OF
Heathen, The · Salvation of, foretold — Salvation of, foretold
Righteous · .Doves — .Doves
Saints, Compared To · Doves — Doves
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Who are those? As the Prophet cannot satisfy himself in describing this gift of God, he breaks out into admiration, and exclaims, "Who are those?" This is far more forcible than if he had simply said that an inconceivable multitude was flying, and had even made use of the same metaphors. He intended, therefore, to describe how splendid this multiplication would be, when he could not find words sufficient to express it.
That fly as a cloud. [154] It is generally thought that this denotes the Apostles, who, with incredible swiftness, made their way to the farthest boundaries of the world; and there is some plausibility in that interpretation. (Mark 16:15) But the Prophet speaks of a universal…
From the mainland, over which caravans and flocks are coming, the prophet now turns his eyes to the sea. "Who are these who fly hither as a cloud, and like the doves to their windows? Yea, the islands wait for me; and the ships of Tarshish come first, to bring thy children from far, their silver and gold with them, to the name of thy God, and to the holy One of Israel, because He hath ornamented thee." Upon the sea there appear first of all enigmatical shapes, driving along as swiftly as if they were light clouds flying before the wind (Isa 19:1; Isa 45:22), or like doves flying to their dovecots (celeres cavis se turribus abdunt, as Ovid says), i.e., to the round towers with their numerous…
Kedar was a tribe in Arabia (21:16-17). • Nebaioth was an Ishmaelite tribe. • I will make my Temple glorious: The glory of God will be even more evident than it was in Solomon’s Temple (see 6:1-5; Hag 2:9; Rev 21:11, 22).
Rashi on Isaiah 60:7
the rams of Nebaioth Heb. אֵילֵי, rams of Nebaioth [after Jonathan].
