The Lord Said: "The Harvest Is Coming."

 

Isaiah 18:3 All you inhabitants of the world,
    you who dwell on the earth,
when a signal is raised on the mountains, look!
    When a trumpet is blown, hear!
4 For thus the Lord said to me:
“I will quietly look from my dwelling
    like clear heat in sunshine,
    like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”
5 For before the harvest, when the blossom is over,
    and the flower becomes a ripening grape,
he cuts off the shoots with pruning hooks,
    and the spreading branches he lops off and clears away.
6 They shall all of them be left
    to the birds of prey of the mountains
    and to the beasts of the earth.
And the birds of prey will summer on them,
    and all the beasts of the earth will winter on them.

At the time of his speaking, Isaiah was watching his people struggle, like under the intense heat and humidity of summer. Days are full of either dry baking or ferocious flooding.  Isaiah's people sat there feeling helpless, suffering for their disobedience at the hand of pagan peoples. But when harvest time comes the days are clear and crisp, with a cooling dew in the morning. Then, the sickle flies, and whatever is left behind is taken by scavengers.  Isaiah's people needed to watch and wait: judgment day would come on all.