ETHIOPIA IN PROPHECY

Old Testament:

1.     Isaiah 18:1-7 “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!  All the inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, see ye, when he lifted up an ensign on the mountains; and when he bloweth a trumpet, hear ye.  For so the Lord said unto me, I will take my rest, and I will consider in my dwelling place like a clear heat upon herbs, and like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.” 

“For afore the harvest, when the bud is perfect, and the sour grape is ripening in the flower, he shall both cut off the springs with pruning hooks, and take away and cut down the branches.  They shall be left together unto the fowls of the mountains, and to the beasts of the earth: and the fowls shall summer upon them, and all the beasts of the earth shall winter upon them.  In that time shall the present be brought unto the Lord of hosts of a people scattered and peeled, and from a people terrible from their beginning hitherto; a nation meted out and trodden under foot, whose land the rivers have spoiled, to the place of the name of the Lord of hosts, the Mount Zion.”

2.     Isaiah 20:1-6 “In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it; At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot.  And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.  And the Lord said, like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.  And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.  And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee from help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and how shall we escape?”

3.     Jeremiah 46:9 “Come up, ye horses; and rage, ye chariots; and let the mighty men come forth; the Ethiopians and the Libyans that handle the shield; and the Lydians, that handle and bend the bow.”

4.     Ezekiel 30:1-26 “And the sword shall come upon Egypt, and great pain shall be in Ethiopia, when the slain shall fall in Egypt, and they shall take away her multitude, and her foundations shall be broken down.  Ethiopia, and Libya, and Lydia, and all the mingled people, and Chub, and the men of the land that is in league, shall fail with them by the sword.  Thus saith the Lord; they also that uphold Egypt shall fall, and the pride of her power shall come down: from the tower of Syene shall they fall in it by the sword, saith the Lord God.  And they shall be desolate in the midst of the countries that are desolate, and her cities shall be in the midst of the cities that are wasted.  And they shall know that I am the Lord, when I have set a fire in Egypt, and when all her helpers shall be destroyed.”

“In that day shall messengers go forth from me to ships to make the careless Ethiopians afraid, and great pain shall come upon them, as the day of Egypt: for, lo, it cometh.  Thus saith the Lord God: I will also make the multitude of Egypt to cease by the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.  He and his people with him, the terrible of the nations, shall be brought to destroy the land and they shall draw their swords against Egypt, and fill the land with the slain.  And I will make the rivers dry, and sell the land into the hand of the wicked: and I will make the land waste, and all that is therein, by the hand of strangers: I the Lord have spoken it.”

5.     Daniel 11:40-45  “And at the time of the end shall the king of the south push at him: and the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind, with chariots, and with horsemen, and with many ships; and he shall enter into the countries, and shall overflow and pass over.  But he shall have power over the treasures of gold and of silver, and over all the precious things of Egypt; and the Libyans and the Ethiopians, shall be at his steps.  But tidings out of the east and out of the north shall trouble him: therefore he shall go forth with great fury to destroy, and utterly make away many.  And he shall plant the tabernacles of his palace between the seas in the glorious holy mountain; yet he shall come to his end, and none shall help him.”

6.     Amos 9:7 “Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel, saith the Lord?  Have not I brought up Israel out of the land of Egypt?  And the Philistines from Caphtor, and the Syrians from Kir?”

7.       Nahum 3:9 “Ethiopia and Egypt were her (Nineveh) strength, and it was infinite; Put and Lubim were thy helpers.  Yet was she carried away, she went into captivity: her young children also were dashed in pieces at the top of all the streets: and they cast lots for her honorable men, and all her great men were bound in chains.”

8.       Zephaniah 2:12 “Ye Ethiopians also, ye shall be slain by my sword.”

New Testament:

1.     Acts 8:26-27, 39 (Larger Passage Acts 8:26-40) “And the angel of the Lord spake unto Philip, saying, Arise, and go toward the south unto the way that goeth down from Jerusalem unto Gaza, which is desert.  And he arose and went: and behold, a man of Ethiopia, an eunuch of great authority under Candace queen of the Ethiopians, who had the charge of all her treasure, and had come to Jerusalem for to worship…And when they were come up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught away Philip, that the eunuch saw him no more: and he (eunuch) went on his way rejoicing.”

2.     Acts 13:1 “Now there were in the church that was at Antioch (Syria) certain prophets and teachers; as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger (Niger = Latin origin meaning black, implying African descent), and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.”