The meaning of the prophet is—So ye Ethiopians, reduced to a condition of bondage, remember ye are the inheritors of the curse of Ham!
The arrangement of the language to us clearly indicates that sense. Besides, we must take into consideration the peculiar meaning of the words חַלְלֵיḥallê and חַרְבִּ֖יḥarbî— that the prophet is writing in a highly figurative and poetic strain; and we would also compare what this prophet says to the Ethiopians with what the other prophets have said of the same people. כּוּשִׁיםkûšîm is here applicable to all the tribes of Ham, as in Amos ix. 7: “Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me? O children of Israel, saith the Lord.” It may be well here to notice also that the word “Ethiopian” is of Greek origin, and associates with the idea blackness, like that of Ham. Thus, Αιθιοπς, Aithiops, sun-burnt, swarthy as Ethiopians; αιθος, warmth, heat, fire, ardent, blazing like fire, blackened by fire, black, dark; αιθοπς, burning fiery, blazing, burned, darkened by fire, dark-coloured, consuming, destroying. Donnegan p. 34. But Isaiah speaks of the descendants of Ham perhaps in a more figurative language, and in a more elevated and poetical strain:
1. Wo to the land shadowing with wings,
Which is beyond the rivers of Ethiopia:
2. 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 the beginning hitherto;
A nation meted out and trodden down,
3. Whose land the rivers have spoiled!