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The United States
in Bible Prophecy
Part 5
by Steve Ashburn
Today, I want to revisit Isaiah 18, and explain a few things
from Scripture that have not yet been fully apprehended:
Woe to the land
shadowing with wings, which is beyond the rivers of
Ethiopia: That sendeth ambassadors by the sea, even in
vessels of bulrushes upon the waters, saying, Go, ye swift
messengers, to a nation scattered and peeled, to a people
terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out
and trodden down, whose land the rivers have spoiled!
(Isaiah 18:1–2)
We saw in
Part 1 of this series that the “land of whirring wings”
most likely represented the United States, based on our
aircraft industry, and perhaps symbolically by the “wasp”
pictured in the Great Lakes. Amazingly, the acronym WASP
even described our ethnic origins as a nation in our native
language of English, and with a couple of minorities
symbolized by the two minor Great Lakes! Please read this
article if you haven’t already!
Some translators think that this chapter in Isaiah
corresponds to insects buzzing around in Africa. Hah! In
order to clarify this matter, let’s take a look at what the
Scripture actually says. Our text passage literally can be
translated, “Woe to the land of whirring wings, which is
beyond the rivers of Cush, That sends ambassadors by sea,
Even in vessels of papyrus on the waters…”
In Isaiah’s day, the kingdom of Cush extended several
hundred miles north of the present-day Aswan Dam, almost to
the vicinity of present-day Cairo (ancient Memphis), thence
eastward into the Sinai, thence southward into present-day
Ethiopia. The kingdom of Egypt proper occupied the narrow
Nile valley, and was divided into Upper Egypt, whose capital
was Thebes, and Lower Egypt, whose capital was Memphis. The
Egyptians and Cushites plied the river in papyrus “river
boats” from Thebes downstream, but did not travel upriver
beyond the first cataracts of the Nile (present-day Aswan
Dam) because the river was simply too turbulent to navigate
beyond that point!
Also, in the days of Moses, Pharaoh had his capital by the
easternmost delta branch of the Nile (which is now silted
in). It was along the fertile eastern side of this branch
where the “land of Goshen” was located, and this was where
Israel stayed during their sojourning in Egypt. The Romans
later built the city of Pelusium here, which is near
present-day Port Said. This branch of the Nile is called
“the river of Egypt” in Genesis 15:18, and marked the
westernmost boundary of the land of Canaan. In Isaiah 23:3
this stream is known as “Sihor” and was the export route of
grain headed for Tyre. The name “Sihor” comes from a root
word meaning, “dark, or turbid,” indicating it was full of
silt even back then.
The use of “papyrus” in our text seems to have a dual
purpose: it identifies the river in question as the lower
Nile; and it implies the use of very strong ships by the
“land of whirring wings.” In addition, the lower Nile
remained a single stream until reaching its delta.
Therefore, the term, “rivers of Cush” (plural) could only
refer to the delta. The “river of Egypt” already was named
in Genesis 15:18, as the easternmost delta branch, and so
Isaiah named the river delta after its origin in the land of
Cush. Since the kingdom of Cush extended far down the Nile,
this made sense from his point of view, and may have been a
common term in his day. He may not even have known about the
Blue Nile and the White Nile, which are major tributaries of
the Nile or the geography of Africa south of Egypt.
Our text passage says that this “land of whirring wings” is
“beyond the rivers of Cush” (emphasis mine).
Accordingly, if a line is drawn from Jerusalem westward, it
passes just north of the Nile delta, clips the tips of Libya
and Algeria, and then intersects the middle of: the United
States! Scripture implies here that the “land of whirring
wings” was unknown in Isaiah’s time, but lay far to the west
of Israel. (Since this nation sends “ambassadors,” Isaiah
would have named it had it been known in his day.)
The phrase, “beyond the rivers of Cush” appears only one
other time in the Bible, in Zephaniah 3:10: “From beyond the
rivers of Ethiopia [Cush] my suppliants, even the daughter
of my dispersed, shall bring mine offering.” The context of
this passage is the millennium, where the descendants of the
nations that survive the tribulation (“the daughter of my
dispersed”) will bring an offering yearly to the Lord at
Jerusalem (Zechariah 14:16). Scripture here is referring to
nations in general that are located some distance from
Jerusalem, including the United States. The important point
to remember is that the phrase, “beyond the rivers of Cush”
refers to nations that are a considerable distance from
Jerusalem, NOT residents of Ethiopia!
Verse 2 continues, literally: “…saying, ‘Go, ye swift
messengers, Unto a nation scattered and peeled, Unto a
people fearful from its beginning and onwards, A nation
measured out by line, and trodden down, Whose land floods
have spoiled!’” (Isaiah 18:2). We saw in Parts 1-2 of this
series how this described the US as scattered (from coast to
coast), clean-shaven (“peeled”), highly respected (for our
military power and our support of equality and the rule of
law), surveyed, settled and enriched by rivers (which are
transportation corridors, and sources of water for
irrigation, drainage, recreation and electrical power).
During the ice age which followed the flood (3200-2500 BC),
much of the North American continent was covered by the
Laurentide ice sheet. The Missouri and Ohio rivers
approximated the southern boundary of this ice sheet, and
today the terminal moraine can be seen just south of these
rivers as a low range of hills. In addition, lateral
moraines and small glacial valleys can be seen where tongues
of ice from this sheet terminated at the Missouri River;
these can be easily seen, for example, along Interstate 29
from Sioux Falls, South Dakota to Kansas City. When the ice
sheet melted, it left giant lakes behind the terminal
moraine, which gradually silted in with peat and topsoil.
Today, many parts of the Midwest are covered with up to 30
feet of rich topsoil—for example, in Iowa. The terminal
moraine also broke through in several places, washing vast
amounts of soil into the land below, and into the
Mississippi delta. This vast and extremely fertile farmland
(and the great rivers that drain it) has created for us
enormous national wealth, and is what Isaiah 18:2 means by,
“Whose land floods have spoiled!”
Another example is found in the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
During the ice age, the mountainous northwest was covered by
the Cordilleran ice sheet, which formed a giant ice dam over
2,000 feet tall on the Clark Fork River near present-day
Sandpoint, Idaho. This formed Glacial Lake Missoula behind
it, which was half the size of Lake Michigan. Eventually the
rising water behind the dam weakened it so that it broke,
resulting in a catastrophic flood that was ten times greater
than all the world’s rivers combined! This happened
repeatedly over the centuries of the ice age, forming
features such as Grand Coulee and Moses Coulee (giant dry
waterfalls) and the Columbia River gorge. The floodwaters
also backed up repeatedly into the Willamette Valley, due to
log- and ice-jams on the Columbia, depositing rich volcanic
topsoil to a depth of ½ mile in places!
Today, this valley is one of the richest agricultural areas
in the world and was widely publicized in the 1820s as a
"promised land of flowing milk and honey." It was here that
settlers arrived on the Oregon Trail, and started farming in
this richly fertile valley, “Whose land floods have
spoiled!”
Our text passage therefore can be translated, “Woe to the
land of whirring aircraft wings, which is west of the Nile
delta: that sends ambassadors by sea in strong ships,
saying, Go, ye swift messengers, to a nation spread out and
clean-shaven, to a people highly respected from their
beginning onward; a nation surveyed and settled, whose land
floods have enriched!”
In
Part
2 of this series we saw how our nation, described
in Isaiah 18 as “the land of whirring wings,” was suddenly
caught up in the rapture, described as: “All ye inhabitants
of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he
lifteth up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a
trumpet, hear ye” (verse 3). This led to the sudden
depopulation of the US and its subsequent conquest by other
nations, most likely including Russia.
This event takes place during a period of complacency,
described as: “the LORD said unto me, I will take my rest”
(verse 4). I believe this period of complacency follows a
regional nuclear war in the Middle East, sometimes referred
to as the “Psalm 83” war. According to Ezekiel 29 and Isaiah
19, this war is followed 40 years later by the second coming
of Christ and his millennial kingdom. Please read Part 1
of this series for more details!
I
hope this article has cleared up the confusion in many
people’s minds about the meaning of “rivers of Cush,” and
the “floods” which have enriched our land with such enormous
wealth! I provide more details of this and many other
end-times prophecies in my recently published book, END
TIMES DAWNING: Get Ready! (available from
www.endtimesrecord.com). Please read it! Also if you
would, please like my Facebook page at:
www.facebook.com/endtimesrecord.
Yours in Christ,
Steve Ashburn
[This article was published on September
4, 2020] |
