And he will lift up a sign to the nations afar off, and will whistle to them from the ends of the earth: and behold they shall come with speed swiftly.

“I Glorify God, even Jesus Christ, who has given you such wisdom. For I have observed that ye are perfected in an immoveable faith, as if ye were nailed to the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, both in the flesh and in the spirit, and are established in love through the blood of Christ, being fully persuaded with respect to our Lord, that He was truly of the seed of David according to the flesh, and the Son of God according to the will and power of God; that He was truly born of a virgin, was baptized by John, in order that all righteousness might be fulfilled by Him; and was truly, under Pontius Pilate and Herod the tetrarch, nailed [to the cross] for us in His flesh. Of this fruit we are by His divinely-blessed passion, that He might set up a standard for all ages, through His resurrection, to all His holy and faithful [followers], whether among Jews or Gentiles, in the one body of His Church.”

“He [God] says the following about the Gentiles, those he was about to call together from the ends of the earth: "Behold, they shall come swiftly with speed." He says "swiftly" because of the hastening toward end times. He says "with speed" because they will not be weighed down by the weights of the ancient law. He says "they shall be filled" because it is a promise made only to those who hunger and thirst.”

“And He shall raise i.e., the Holy One, blessed be He. an ensign to the nations and signal to them to gather and to come upon them. Raising an ensign (נֵס) is like a long pole (כְּלוּנָס), at the end of which they attach a cloth, [i.e., a flag,] and they climb to the top of a lofty mountain and see it from afar; and that is the sign for people to gather. Comp. (infra 49:22) “And to peoples I will raise My ensign (נִסִּי)”; comp. also (Numbers 21:8), “And set it upon a pole (נֵס),” meaning a pole (כְּלוּנָס), perche in French, but since it is for a sign, it is called נֵס. And He will whistle sibler in O.F. This too is a sign for gathering. from the end of the earth that they should come from afar to besiege Israel. swiftly he will come The enemy [will come] upon them [swiftly,] as Scripture proceeds to explain.”

“And He will lift up, etc. It will be as if He lifted up a banner to all nations to come and to fight against Israel; the same is meant by And will hiss, etc. בזמן קל = קל Swiftly; or it is an adjective, attribute to the subject contained in the verb יבא he, a swift one, will come, and this latter explanation is the right one.”

“In all this the fury has not turned away. Here he sets down the common and final punishment, as regards the captivity by the Romans; and concerning this three things are set down. First, the preparation of the army; second, the disposition of the army, at the place, and behold he hastens; third, the infliction of the punishment, at the place, and he will hold the prey. Concerning the first, three things are set down. First, the indignation of the one gathering, in all this; as if to say: just as you add sins to sins, so he adds punishments to punishments. Below, 9: a man will not spare his brother, and he will turn to the right hand, and will be hungry; and he will eat on the left hand, and will not be satisfied. Second, the raising of the standard, and he will lift up a sign, that is, a standard. Jer. 4: raise up a sign in Sion, take courage, and do not stand still; for I bring evil from the north, and a great destruction. Third, the summoning of the army, and he will whistle, that is, he will inspire. Below, 7. And it will be in that day, the Lord will whistle for the fly that is in the uttermost part of the rivers of Egypt, and for the bee that is in the land of Assur; and they will come, and all will rest in the torrents of the valleys. And so that it may terrify the more, he sets down the foreignness of the nation, both as to worship, among the nations, so that they might not revere your holy things; and as to language, from afar, lest they be won over by words; and as to customs, from the ends of the earth, lest they be bound in league with them. Behold he hastens. Here the disposition of the army is set down: and first he shows them ready for coming; second, armed for fighting, his arrows; third, cruel for punishing, his roaring. Concerning the first, two things are set down. First, their swiftness: behold — for certainly — swift. Thren. 4: our persecutors were swifter than the eagles of heaven. Habac. 1: for his horsemen will come from afar; they will fly like an eagle hastening to eat. Jer. 4: behold, he will come up like a cloud, and his chariots like a tempest; his horses are swifter than eagles. Second, the cause of the swiftness according to the removal of a threefold impediment: the first, which could occur from weakness of nature; against which he says: and there is none feeble, who would have to remain behind, nor weary among them, who would have to come late. Below, 40: but they who hope in the Lord will renew their strength; they will take up wings like eagles; they will run, and not grow weary; they will walk, and not faint. Second, against that which could arise from the will. He says: he will not slumber, through sloth, namely so that he would go sluggishly, nor will he sleep, so that he would not come to himself. Prov. 19: sloth casts one into sleep, and a dissolute soul will be hungry. Third, he removes the impediment arising from the necessity of things: nor will the girdle be loosed. And he sets down those things by which travelers are usually hindered from their journey: as if to say: all things will endure more than usual. Deut. 29: I led you forty years through the desert; your garments were not worn out, nor were the shoes of your feet consumed by age. His arrows are sharp. Here he shows them to be armed for fighting: and first as to the goodness of their weapons; and he sets down those things which in those lands are most customary. Sharp arrows, in which the goodness of the arrows is noted; bows bent, in which is the preparation of arms, lest they be hindered in preparing. Psal. 119: the sharp arrows of the mighty. Second, he sets down the conveyances: the hooves of his horses like flint, which is not broken easily, and his wheels like the rush of a tempest, making a great sound on account of their multitude and swiftness. Jer. 4: behold, he will come up like a cloud, and his chariots like a tempest. His roaring. Here he shows them to be cruel for punishing: and first as to fierceness, roaring. Oseae 11: they will walk after the Lord, he will roar like a lion; for he himself will roar, and the sons of the sea will be afraid. Second, as to rapacity: he will roar like the whelps of lions. Ps. 103: the whelps of lions roaring that they may seize. Third, as to cruelty, and he will gnash, which belongs to the boar. Ps. 34: they have gnashed upon me with their teeth. Ps. 79: the boar out of the wood has laid them waste, and a lone wild beast has devoured it. And he will hold. Here the infliction of the punishment is set down, and finally the despair of those punished, at the place, we will look. Concerning the first he sets down three things. First he threatens the seizure: he will hold the prey; as if to say: he will seize you like prey. Nahum 2: the lion has taken enough for his whelps, and has killed for his lionesses, and has filled his dens with prey, and his lair with spoil. Second, the anxious detention: and he will hold fast, lest you go out through their carelessness; and there will be none to deliver, through their powerlessness. Threnorum 1: the Lord has given me into a hand, from which I will not be able to rise. Third, the rigid domination, and he will make a sound, with threats and terrors. Jer. 6: behold, a people will come from the land of the north, and a great nation will rise up from the ends of the earth; it will seize the arrow and the shield; it is cruel, and will not have mercy; its voice will sound like the sea. We will look toward the land. Here he sets down their despair: and first as to help from the earth: we will look toward the land, on every side, and behold darkness, because all were pursuing them; second, as to help from heaven: and the light, of the divine hope, has been darkened in its gloom. Jer. 4: I looked upon the earth, and behold it was empty and nothing; and the heavens, and there was no light in them. And the prophet numbers himself among them through compassion.”

“And he will lift up an ensign to the nations from far,.... Not to the Chaldeans or Babylonians, for they were not nations, but one nation, and were a people near; but to the Romans, who consisted of many nations, and were afar off, and extended their empire to the ends of the earth; these, by one providence or another, were stirred up to make an expedition into the land of Judea, and besiege Jerusalem: and this lifting up of an ensign is not, as sometimes, for the gathering and enlisting of soldiers, or to prepare them for the battle, or to give them the signal when to begin the fight; but as a direction to decamp and proceed on a journey, on some expedition: and will hiss unto them from the end of the earth, or "to him" (i); the king, or general of them, wherever he is, even though at the end of the earth: and the phrase denotes the secret and powerful influence of divine Providence, in moving upon the hearts of the Romans, and their general, to enter upon such a design against the Jews; and which was as easily done as for one man to hiss or call to another; or as for a shepherd to whistle for his sheep; to which the allusion seems to be; the Lord having the hearts of all in his hands, and can turn them as he pleases, to do his will: and, behold, they shall come with speed swiftly; or "he shall come"; the king with his army; and so the Targum paraphrases it; "and behold, a king with his army shall come swiftly, as light clouds;'' this shows the swift and sudden destruction that should come upon the Jews; and is an answer to their scoffs, Isa 5:19. (i) "ei", Vatablus; Montanus; "illi", Cocceius; "ad se", Junius & Tremellius.”

“Off. Like a king, leading all his subjects to battle. (Calmet) — Whistle. He alludes to the custom of leading forth bees by music, chap. vii. 18. (St. Cyprian) — Earth. The Chaldeans, (chap. xli. 9., and Jeremias vi. 22.) and not the Romans, as some would suppose. — Swiftly. Like an eagle, Daniel vii. 4., and Jeremias xlviii. 40.”

“lift . . . ensign--to call together the hostile nations to execute His judgments on Judea (Isa 10:5-7; Isa 45:1). But for mercy to it, in Isa 11:12; Isa 18:3. hiss-- (Isa 7:18). Bees were drawn out of their hives by the sound of a flute, or hissing, or whistling (Zac 10:8). God will collect the nations round Judea like bees (Deu 1:44; Psa 118:12). end of the earth--the widely distant subject races of which the Assyrian army was made up (Isa 22:6). The ulterior fulfilment took place in the siege under Roman Titus. Compare "end of the earth" (Deu 28:49, &c.). So the pronoun is singular in the Hebrew, for "them," "their," "whose" (him, his, &c.), Isa 5:26-29; referring to some particular nation and person [HORSLEY].”

“Jehovah finds the human instruments of His further strokes, not in Israel and the neighbouring nations, but in the people of distant lands. "And lifts up a banner to the distant nations, and hisses to it from the end of the earth; and, behold, it comes with haste swiftly." What the prophet here foretold began to be fulfilled in the time of Ahaz. But the prophecy, which commences with this verse, has every possible mark of the very opposite of a vaticinium post eventum. It is, strictly speaking, only what had already been threatened in Deu 28:49. (cf., Deu 32:21.), though here it assumes a more plastic form, and is here presented for the first time to the view of the prophet as though coming out of a mist. Jehovah summons the nations afar off: haggōyim mērâchok signifies, as we have rendered it, the "distant nations," for mērâc is virtually an adjective both here and Isa 49:1, just as in Jer 23:23 it is virtually a substantive. The visible working of Jehovah presents itself to the prophet in two figures. Jehovah plants a banner or standard, which, like an optical telegraph, announces to the nations at a more remote distance than the horn of battle (shophâr) could possibly reach, that they are to gather together to war. A "banner" (nês): i.e., a lofty staff with flying colours (Isa 33:23) planted upon a bare mountain-top (Isa 13:2). נשׂא alternates with הרים in this favourite figure of Isaiah. The nations through whom this was primarily fulfilled were the nations of the Assyrian empire. According to the Old Testament view, these nations were regarded as far off, and dwelling at the end of the earth (Isa 39:3), not only inasmuch as the Euphrates formed the boundary towards the north-east between what was geographically known and unknown to the Israelites (Psa 72:8; Zac 9:10), but also inasmuch as the prophet had in his mind a complex body of nations stretching far away into further Asia. The second figure is taken from a bee-master, who entices the bees, by hissing or whistling, to come out of their hives and settle on the ground. Thus Virgil says to the bee-master who wants to make the bees settle, "Raise a ringing, and beat the cymbals of Cybele all around" (Georgics, iv 54). Thus does Jehovah entice the hosts of nations like swarms of bees (Isa 7:18), and they swarm together with haste and swiftness. The plural changes into the singular, because those who are approaching have all the appearance at first of a compact and indivisible mass; it is also possible that the ruling nation among the many is singled out. The thought and expression are both misty, and this is perfectly characteristic. With the word "behold" (hinnēh) the prophet points to them; they are approaching mehērâh kal, i.e., in the shortest time with swift feet, and the nearer they come to his view the more clearly he can describe them.”