Isaiah 19
Often a prophet’s job is to warn people of impending punishment, with the intention that they turn from their wicked ways and thus avoid disaster.
But here, it is too late to attempt to repent, and the impending punishment is coming soon.
1 A prophecy against Egypt:
See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him, and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.
Firstly, people will be struck with inexplicable terror
2 ‘I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian – brother will fight against brother, neighbour against neighbour, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.
In their fear, they will then suspect brothers, neighbours etc and fight against each other – leading to the civil wars that engulfed the land.
3 The Egyptians will lose heart, and I will bring their plans to nothing; they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists.
During times of national disaster people will instinctively turn to a ‘higher power’ for help, look again at who they consulted.
In the case of the Egyptians they stubbornly refused to acknowledge the Lord Almighty and for that reason they would also be punished.
4 I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master, and a fierce king will rule over them,’ declares the Lord, the Lord Almighty.
The Assyrians are about to attack.
But worse even than that, God himself will now intervene.
5 The waters of the river will dry up, and the river bed will be parched and dry.
6 The canals will stink, the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up. The reeds and rushes will wither, 7 also the plants along the Nile, at the mouth of the river. Every sown field along the Nile will become parched, will blow away and be no more.
8 The fishermen will groan and lament, all who cast hooks into the Nile; those who throw nets on the water will pine away.
9 Those who work with combed flax will despair, the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.
10 The workers in cloth will be dejected, and all the wage earners will be sick at heart.
Here the Lord will compound their misery by withholding rain – the result will be no reeds and rushes, no crops in the fields, no fish, and no flax. Egypt had grown up around the Nile and they relied on it’s provision completely. But they had no thought for the one who provided the rain to fill the river.
11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; the wise counsellors of Pharaoh give senseless advice.
How can you say to Pharaoh, ‘I am one of the wise men, a disciple of the ancient kings’?
12 Where are your wise men now? Let them show you and make known what the Lord Almighty has planned against Egypt.
The priests and prophets of their many false gods, the aged wise men, none can foresee what God was intending to bring against Egypt. Their worldview was so limited – they could not imagine a God of infinite power who could bring such punishment.
13 The officials of Zoan have become fools, the leaders of Memphis are deceived;
the cornerstones of her peoples have led Egypt astray.
14 The Lord has poured into them a spirit of dizziness; they make Egypt stagger in all that she does, as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.
15 There is nothing Egypt can do – head or tail, palm branch or reed.
Their officials will be at a loss over what they could do. I once heard a little ditty that seems appropriate here
‘If in danger, or in doubt, shout and scream and run about.’
The prophecies against Egypt seem to have come in ever increasing waves. Now there will be waves of prophecy concerning the distant future. Isaiah again looks forward – to ‘that day’ (my underlining) – a day in the future when the whole land, Egypt, Israel and Assyria will join in acknowledging their one true Lord; and they will become ‘a blessing on the earth’ (v 24)
16 In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the Lord Almighty raises against them. 17 And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the Lord Almighty is planning against them.
18 In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the Lord Almighty. One of them will be called the City of the Sun.
19 In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the Lord at its border. 20 It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a saviour and defender, and he will rescue them. 21 So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them. 22 The Lord will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the Lord, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.
23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 24 In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. 25 The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.’
This may have been looking forward to Cyrus the Great, and the eventual rule of the Persians over the whole of the Middle East, but even that may still be limiting what God had revealed to Isaiah.
Isaiah 20
As Isaiah had prophesied, Assyria was rapidly expanding their territory. They had made Ahaz (king of Judah, in the south) their vassal (2 Kings 16:7-8) and having earlier taken parts of the north of Israel, they now took the rest. Leaving Judah and Jerusalem for now, they then attacked the main Philistine city of Ashdod before continuing south towards Egypt.
(For more historical information see the series of studies starting with 2 Kings(m)).
1 In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it (711 BC) , 2 at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, ‘Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.’ And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.
The Assyrians were well known for the cruel treatment of their captives. To force them to march long distances, barefoot and stripped, was considered a suitable way to demoralise prisoners. This was to be a visual warning to the Egyptians, but also to the Philistines (see v 6: ‘this coast’) who had trusted in Egypt to come to their aid.
Reference to ‘this coast’ may also have extended north from Philistia, through the whole of the eastern edge of the Mediterranean, including Tyre and Sidon to the north (now Lebanon).
3 Then the Lord said, ‘Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared – to Egypt’s shame. 5 Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be dismayed and put to shame. 6 In that day the people who live on this coast will say, “See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?”‘
Cushite kings had taken control of Egypt (750BC-656BC), unified it and so became the Pharaohs of the 25th Dynasty. The Assyrians took the whole of Cush / Egypt from 671 BC adding it to their empire as another vassal state.
But in 609 the Assyrians too were conquered by Babylon who naturally took over the whole of their empire.
2 Kings 24:7 The king of Egypt did not march out from his own country again, because the king of Babylon had taken all his territory, from the Wadi of Egypt to the River Euphrates.
But even Babylon will not be immune from punishment.
Isaiah 21
A prophecy against Babylon
1 A prophecy against the Desert by the Sea:
Like whirlwinds sweeping through the southland, an invader comes from the desert, from a land of terror.
2 A dire vision has been shown to me:
the traitor betrays, the looter takes loot.
Elam, attack! Media, lay siege!
(From the south-east and north-west – possibly a reference to the Medes and Persians.)
I will bring to an end all the groaning she caused.
3 At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labour; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see.
4 My heart falters, fear makes me tremble; the twilight I longed for has become a horror to me.
Isaiah has seen an intense vision of terrible destruction. It causes him physical pain, and leaves him bewildered and fearful. But he continues his prophecy:
5 They set the tables, they spread the rugs, they eat, they drink!
Daniel chapters 4 and 5 vividly portray life in Babylon at this time, culminating with the king's degenerate banquet, ‘the writing on the wall’ and the end of Belshazzar that very night (Daniel 5:30-31).
Get up, you officers, oil the shields!
6 This is what the Lord says to me:
‘Go, post a lookout and let him report what he sees.
7 When he sees chariots with teams of horses, riders on donkeys or riders on camels, let him be alert, fully alert.’
8 And the lookout shouted, ‘Day after day, my lord, I stand on the watchtower; every night I stay at my post.
9 Look, here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses. And he gives back the answer: “Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!”‘
10 My people who are crushed on the threshing-floor, I tell you what I have heard from the Lord Almighty, from the God of Israel.
Babylon was already a vassal state of Assyria (686 B.C.) before they fought back, and finally defeated Assyria in 609 B.C. But in turn, they too were conquered by Cyrus of Persia in 539BC
A prophecy against Edom
11 A prophecy against Dumah: Someone calls to me from Seir,
‘Watchman, what is left of the night? Watchman, what is left of the night?’
12 The watchman replies, ‘Morning is coming, but also the night.
If you would ask, then ask; and come back yet again.’
After a long fearful, sleepless night someone might long for the dawn to come, but the watchman only gives an enigmatic answer: dawn is coming, but night will come again too.
Dumah, was a tribe from the sixth son of Ishmael. They had settled in Seir, in Edom (the kingdom of Esau, south of the Dead Sea). However its nomadic inhabitants had at times migrated further south into Arabia, and west to the borders of Egypt. Edom had also by now been assimilated by the Babylonians.
A prophecy against Arabia
The whole Arabian peninsula – between the red sea and the Persian Gulf, generally consisted of nomadic tribes – e.g. Bedouins. Traditionally in their culture they would give food and water to anyone they encountered.
13 A prophecy against Arabia:
You caravans of Dedanites, who camp in the thickets of Arabia, 14 bring water for the thirsty; you who live in Tema, bring food for the fugitives.
15 They flee from the sword, from the drawn sword, from the bent bow and from the heat of battle.
16 This is what the Lord says to me: ‘Within one year, as a servant bound by contract would count it, all the splendour of Kedar will come to an end. 17 The survivors of the archers, the warriors of Kedar, will be few.’ The Lord, the God of Israel, has spoken.
Dedanites were traders who travelled through Arabia. It seems they were peace-loving, preferring to distance themselves from any sign of conflict. Kedar was another nomadic tribe of Ishmaelites who had settled in northern Arabia. Here they would stand and fight, but no-one will be exempt. Warriors would be defeated and those nomads who thought they could simply hide in the desert, would also, within a year, come under God’s punishment.
Now Isaiah turns his attention to Jerusalem, but that will have to wait for our next study.
