Isaiah 18:4

I will take … consider Better: I will quietly look on, the first verb being subordinate to the second.

like a clear heat upon herbs Translate as R.V.: like clear heat in (or, along with) sunshine. The overpowering heat of the atmosphere in the height of summer seems something superadded to the effect of the sun's rays.

like a cloud of dew The Hebr. word for "dew" means really a fine drizzling mist: what is meant is possibly the stationary cirrus-cloud in the upper air, which is called a -mist-cloud," in distinction from the rain-cloud near the earth (so Duhm).

Both expressions are rightly construed as comparisons. The temporal construction suggested by R.V. marg. ("when there is, &c.") is grammatically possible in the first case, but hardly in the second. The points of comparison are apparently two: (1) the motionless stillness of the noon-tide heat and the fleecy cloud are an emblem of Jehovah's quiescence. (2) As these natural phenomena hasten the ripening of the fruit, so all providential agencies appear to further and mature the schemes of Assyria. But the development is suddenly arrested just before its fruition.