Isaiah 7:18 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Isaiah 7:18
And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria.
a day (as the warm hours) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָה֙Yah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
hiss
יִשְׁרֹ֤קyish.Rok
H8319
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
fly
לַזְּב֔וּבla.ze.Vuv
H2070
a fly (especially one of a stinging nature) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
part
בִּקְצֵ֖הbik.Tzeh
H7097
an extremity · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct
rivers
יְאֹרֵ֣יye.'o.Rei
H2975
a channel · noun, common masculine plural construct
Egypt
מִצְרָ֑יִםmitz.Ra.yim
H4714
Mitsrajim · proper noun, a place name
bee
וְלַ֨דְּבוֹרָ֔הve.La.de.vo.Rah
H1682
the bee (from its systematic instincts) · conjunction + preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
land
בְּאֶ֥רֶץbe.'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · preposition + noun, common feminine singular construct
Assyria
אַשּֽׁוּר'a.Shur
H804
Ashshur · proper noun, a place name
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
Isaiah 5:26 And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far, and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth: and, behold, they shall come with…
Deuteronomy 1:44 And the Amorites, which dwelt in that mountain, came out against you, and chased you, as bees do, and destroyed you in Seir, even unto Horma…
Deuteronomy 7:20 Moreover the LORD thy God will send the hornet among them, until they that are left, and hide themselves from thee, be destroyed.
Joshua 24:12 And I sent the hornet before you, which drave them out from before you, even the two kings of the Amorites; but not with thy sword, nor with…
Isaiah 31:1 Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help; and stay on horses, and trust in chariots, because they are many; and in horsemen, because they…
Exodus 8:21 Else, if thou wilt not let my people go, behold, I will send swarms of flies upon thee, and upon thy servants, and upon thy people, and into…
Exodus 8:24 And the LORD did so; and there came a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh, and into his servants’ houses, and into all the lan…
2 Kings 23:33-34 And Pharaoh-nechoh put him in bands at Riblah in the land of Hamath, that he might not reign in Jerusalem; and put the land to a tribute of…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Isaiah 7:17–end
After the comfortable promises made to Ahaz as a branch of the house of David, here follow terrible threatenings against him, as a degenerate branch of that house; for though the loving-kindness of God shall not be utterly taken away, for the sake of David and the covenant made with him, yet his iniquity shall be chastened with the rod, and his sin with stripes. Let those that will not mix faith with the promises of God expect to hear the alarms of his threatenings.
I. The judgment threatened is very great, Isa 7:17. It is very great, for it is general; it shall be brought upon the prince himself (high as he is, he shall not be out of the reach of it), and upon the people, the whole body of…
FATAL CONSEQUENCES OF AHAZ' ASSYRIAN POLICY. (Isa 7:17-25)
hiss--whistle, to bring bees to settle (see on Isa 5:26).
fly--found in numbers about the arms of the Nile and the canals from it (Isa 19:5-7; Isa 23:3), here called "rivers." Hence arose the plague of flies (Exo 8:21). Figurative, for numerous and troublesome foes from the remotest parts of Egypt, for example, Pharaoh-nechoh.
bee-- (Deu 1:44; Psa 118:12). As numerous in Assyria as the fly in marshy Egypt. Sennacherib, Esar-haddon, and Nebuchadnezzar fulfilled this prediction.
John Gill on Isaiah 7:18
And it shall come to pass in that day,.... the time when those evil days before spoken of should take place:
that the Lord shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt; or flies, as the Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions render it; the Egyptians, so called because their country abounded with flies; and because of the multitude of their armies, and the swiftness of their march; this seems to have had its accomplishment when Pharaohnechoh king of Egypt slew Josiah, put his son Jehoahaz, that reigned after him, in bands, placed Eliakim his brother in his stead, and made the land of Judah tributary to him, 2 Kings 23:29 though some think either the Edomites o…
(Verse 18, 19) And it shall come to pass in that day, that the LORD shall hiss for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assyria. And they shall come, and shall rest all of them in the desolate valleys, and in the holes of the rocks, and upon all thorns, and upon all bushes. In the same day shall the Lord shave with a razor that is hired, namely, by them beyond the river, by the king of Assyria, the head, and the hair of the feet: and it shall also consume the beard. Therefore, you are in vain afraid of present but half-burnt towers, which have no fire within. For you must know that by its hiss the Lord signifies the flies of Egypt and its rivers, with no doubt seven channels of the Nile, which are about to be called forth. And he signifies the bee, which is in the land of Assyria. But he calls the flies of Egypt on account of the filth of idolatry and the weak people. And he calls the bee Assyrians, whose kingdom was most powerful at that time, and were very ready for war. Either because all the region of the Assyrians and Persians used bows, or because they had access to them all the time. Therefore, all will come and occupy your land in the torrents of the valleys, and in the caves of rocks, and in all the fruits, and in the holes, and in the wooded groves. However, these things are said by metaphor, so that because he had mentioned flies and bees once, he would maintain consistency in the translation of the rest. Let us read the books of Kings and Chronicles, and we will find that the holy king Josiah was killed by the Egyptians, and the people of Israel were subjugated to the power of Egypt (2 Kings 23; 2 Chronicles 35): so that he would appoint a king for them. And after not much time, Nebuchadnezzar came with an innumerable multitude of warriors, captured Jerusalem, and destroyed the other cities of Judaea. He burned down the Temple and placed Assyrian inhabitants in Judaea.
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
Ahaz — Possessor. (1.) A grandson of Jonathan (1 Chr. 8:35; 9:42). (2.) The son and successor of Jotham, king of Judah (2 Kings 16; Isa. 7-9; 2 Chr. 28). He gave himself up to a life of wickedness and…
Assyria — The name derived from the city Asshur on the Tigris, the original capital of the country, was originally a colony from Babylonia, and was ruled by viceroys from that kingdom. It was a mountainous…
Bee — First mentioned in Deut. 1:44. Swarms of bees, and the danger of their attacks, are mentioned in Ps. 118:12. Samson found a “swarm of bees” in the carcass of a lion he had slain (Judg. 14:8). Wild…
Fly — Heb. zebub, (Eccl. 10:1; Isa. 7:18). This fly was so grievous a pest that the Phoenicians invoked against it the aid of their god Baal-zebub (q.v.). The prophet Isaiah (7:18) alludes to some…
Fly, Flies — The two following Hebrew terms denote flies of some kind:
Pekah — Open-eyed, the son of Remaliah a captain in the army of Pekahiah, king of Israel, whom he slew, with the aid of a band of Gileadites, and succeeded (B.C. 758) on the throne (2 Kings 15:25). Seventeen…
Insects · Mentioned in scripture: Bee — Mentioned in scripture: Bee
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).
John Calvin on Isaiah 7:18
And it shall be in that day. The Jews thought that the Assyrians were bound by their league with them; but the Prophet ridicules this folly, and declares that they will be ready at God's bidding to drive them in any direction that he thinks fit. Yet instead of command he employs the metaphor hiss, in allusion to the climate of those kingdoms of which he speaks; for Egypt abounds in flies, because the country is hot and marshy; and when the air is both hot and moist, there must be produced a great abundance of flies. Assyria, on the other hand, abounded in bees; and when he says that he will bring them by a hiss, he alludes to the natural habits of bees and flies, but he means that he will fi…
"And it comes to pass in that day, Jehovah will hiss for the fly which is at the end of the Nile-arms of Egypt, and the bees that are in the land of Asshur; and they come and settle all of them in the valleys of the slopes, and in the clefts of the rocks, and in all the thorn-hedges, and upon all grass-plats." The prophet has already stated, in Isa 5:26, that Jehovah would hiss for distant nations; and how he is able to describe them by name. The Egyptian nation, with its vast and unparalleled numbers, is compared to the swarming fly; and the Assyrian nation, with its love of war and conquest, to the stinging bee which is so hard to keep off (Deu 1:44; Psa 118:12). The emblems also correspon…
The repetition of in that day referred to the yet future day of the Lord. Judah would experience the judgment already announced by Isaiah as a foretaste of an even greater judgment to come: exile in Babylon (586–538 BC).
Rashi on Isaiah 7:18
the Lord shall whistle Shall signal them that they assemble.
to the “fly” Armies as numerous as flies, will come from Egypt with Sennacherib.
the canals of Egypt Since all the land of Egypt is made into canals, for rain does not fall there, but the Nile rises and waters it.
and to the “bee” An army of heroes who sting like bees.
