Isaiah 18:1

[Jason Hare]

They have one more product key. I sent you the information through Facebook.

[Schubert]

Jason,

This is off topic, but you mentioned using Logos for doing this research. May I ask: what packages do you have for doing Hebrew? (I'd also be interested in what you have for Greek.) The reason I'm interested is that I've decided to migrate from BibleWorks (R.I.P.), and am considering what is minimally necessary to do work in the Hebrew Bible. Thanks.

Kirk, I'm still using Bibleworks (the most up to date version (plus HALOT) available prior to its demise a few years ago). I'm curious what has triggered your decision to move to Logos.

[Jason Hare]

Kirk, I'm still using Bibleworks (the most up to date version (plus HALOT) available prior to its demise a few years ago). I'm curious what has triggered your decision to move to Logos.

I also still have BibleWorks. Mine is version 10.0.4.114 from 2015.

However, I've gone ahead and moved to Logos. I've HALOT and BDAG on both platforms. I have more freedom on Logos to decide what font to use to display the text (whether Hebrew, Greek, or English). It just feels cleaner for reading on the screen. BW feels like reading an old DOS screen. It's pixelated and unattractive. More old-school and less reader-friendly.

[Kirk Lowery]

John,

After using the free Logos Basic, I began to find the user interface and especially the search features connecting all the various resources one has to be better for how I study the text. And I say this as a BW user since the early 1990s. I'm not happy about buying all those original language resources *again*, but I decided that the improvement in my study workflow to be worth the cost. I'm also concerned about the feature freeze of BibleWorks. That's not a complaint, simply the consequence of the closure of the BibleWorks corporation. Logos is actively developed both with new features and new resources. I'm not expert enough in Logos to give a line by line feature comparison or critique, but the above were definitive for my decision to migrate to Logos.

HTH,
Kirk

[Kirk Lowery]

Another reason: there's a probability of incompatibilities when we upgrade to Windows 11.

[Jason Hare]

Another reason: there's a probability of incompatibilities when we upgrade to Windows 11.

That's just around the corner, isn't it? I didn't think about losing BibleWorks with the upcoming upgrade. No!!!

I'm really enjoying reading on Logos lately more than I thought I would. I have my laptop hooked up to a 35" television screen, and putting books up there on Logos with a keyboard beside to push the down key just makes it a pleasure. You can reduce the font size and it becomes two or three columns in the reading view with footnotes at the bottom of the screen. It's much nicer than I had expected.

[Kirk Lowery]

The word on the street is that Win 11 will be released in November, not that I believe that. And I've heard nothing about BW and compatibility with Win 11. Just history and experience tells me that going from major version to major version can have deleterious effects on my software. I'm just being negative and jittery.

Even Mike Bushell, former owner/developer of BW, says not to expect BW to last beyond your current hardware. So I'm bowing to the inevitable. And for that matter, Roy Brown is no spring chicken, and the future of Accordance is therefore clouded. I hope they have a succession plan...

[Chris Watts]

Gentlemen, may I digress for a moment? Returning to verse one but this is about the identity of the land referred to in this verse.

Must admit have spent countless hours on and off on this. I will draw my conclusions but would apprciate any helpful insight that other memebers might have, thankyou.

1. Without a doubt not Egypt:
a) Egyypt is referred to directly n the next verse
b) It is not beyond the rivers...so to speak
c) why not say the Nile if Egypt is meant?

2. Also not Ethiopia:
a) Cush has meant Ethiopia in some instances in scripture but not all
b) Strictly speaking I see the modern day Sudan as Cush since the Cushite controlled Egypt known as the Napatan period and covered a rough area spreading over modern day Sudan, southern and northern Egypt.
c) If Ethipia were meant why say "Beyond the rivers"

Beyond the rivers I think is the phrase that has to eliminate both modern day Sudan, Egypt and Ethoipia. As for the time of Isaiah when the Cushite kingdom from the south dominated the southern and northern Egypt and even moved into Libyia from 740 to 650 BC thereabouts, Isaiah could not have seen his oracle as referring to any of these areas. The phrase shadowing with wings is ambiguous, has been given various interpretations even tse tse fly and mosquito, but I see no reason to base this on meanng either Ethiopia nor Egypt, as also is the idea of winged gods of Egypt being a justification. The force driving my present belief is that if Egypt or Ethiopia were meant then why all the cryptic suggestions, especially since the whole chapter would not accept these two lands as being meant.

This is just a summary without all the details.

Chris watts

[Jason Hare]

Just checking a commentary:

Isaiah announces the overthrow of Sennacherib’s hosts and desires the Ethiopian ambassadors, now in Jerusalem, to bring word of it to their own nation; and he calls on the whole world to witness the event (Is 18:3). As Is 17:12–14 announced the presence of the foe, so Is 18:1–7 foretells his overthrow.

1. Woe—The heading in English Version, “God will destroy the Ethiopians,” is a mistake arising from the wrong rendering “Woe,” whereas the Hebrew does not express a threat, but is an appeal calling attention (Is 55:1; Zec 2:6): “Ho.” He is not speaking against but to the Ethiopians, calling on them to hear his prophetical announcement as to the destruction of their enemies.

shadowing with wings—rather, “land of the winged bark”; that is, “barks with wing-like sails, answering to vessels of bulrushes” in Is 18:2; the word “rivers,” in the parallelism, also favors it; so the Septuagint and Chaldee [EWALD]. “Land of the clanging sound of wings,” that is, armies, as in Is 8:8; the rendering “bark,” or “ship,” is rather dubious [MAURER]. The armies referred to are those of Tirhakah, advancing to meet the Assyrians (Is 37:9). In English Version, “shadowing” means protecting—stretching out its wings to defend a feeble people, namely, the Hebrews [VITRINGA]. The Hebrew for “wings” is the same as for the idol Cneph, which was represented in temple sculptures with wings (Ps 91:4).

beyond—Meroe, the island between the “rivers” Nile and Astaboras is meant, famed for its commerce, and perhaps the seat of the Ethiopian government, hence addressed here as representing the whole empire: remains of temples are still found, and the name of “Tirhakah” in the inscriptions. This island region was probably the chief part of Queen Candace’s kingdom (Ac 8:27). For “beyond” others translate less literally “which borderest on.”

Ethiopia—literally, “Cush.” HORSLEY is probably right that the ultimate and fullest reference of the prophecy is to the restoration of the Jews in the Holy Land through the instrumentality of some distant people skilled in navigation (Is 18:2; Is 60:9, 10; Ps 45:15; 68:31; Zep 3:10). Phoenician voyagers coasting along would speak of all Western remote lands as “beyond” the Nile’s mouths. “Cush,” too, has a wide sense, being applied not only to Ethiopia, but Arabia-Deserta and Felix, and along the Persian Gulf, as far as the Tigris (Ge 2:13).

Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset, and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, vol. 1 (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc., 1997), 449.

[Chris Watts]

Just checking a commentary:

Ethiopia—literally, “Cush.” HORSLEY is probably right that the ultimate and fullest reference of the prophecy is to the restoration of the Jews in the Holy Land through the instrumentality of some distant people skilled in navigation

Well, the fact that you mentioned Horsley (no idea who he is just yet) and I certainly was not going to put this forward but after many weeks to be honest I came to the conclusion that this can not have anything to do with Sennecherib, and everything to do with a nation far away that has a naval power. The absolute and incontrovertible fact, twice mentioned, is that this nation will bring an offering (incense see Zephaniah 3:10) of help to Israel's restoration. There is no other way to translate this, and so ironically the end result of the prophecy appears to actually help us translate the meaning of verses 1 and 2. Chastise me if I am stepping over the line here, but a personal project and interest of mine has been for sometime studying source information, newspaper articles and eye witness accounts, pilots accounts and the whole Palestine campaign from oct 31st 1917 to december 9th 1917. I believe there is something here to observe. Every verse fits in nicely both with history and event. I can safely say that EVERY verse appears to tell that story of Jerusalem's liberation from Ottoman rule beginning with Allenby entering Cairo and actually extending onward to 1948 - in a rather extremely summarized form of course.

Now I realise I may evoke a storm of protest from some quarters, this I will respect.
Chris watts