Isaiah 20 - A Message About Egypt and Cush

“My servant Isaiah has gone around barefoot for three years. He has not worn anything but his underwear. He is a sign and reminder to Egypt and Cush about what will happen to them.”

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Our gracious God, in the previous chapter, offered relief and salvation to Ethiopia and Egypt because of their willingness to listen and call upon Him. The promise refers to events happening in the 4^th century BC. This doesn’t mean they wouldn’t first pay for their disobedience.

Things got a lot worse before they got better…

It is possible to date the events of chapter 20 precisely “Sargon sent his highest commander to the city of Ashdod. He attacked it and captured it. Sargon was king of Assyria”. Sargon's inscriptions date that event in 711 B.C." Isaiah mentions the fact that his symbolic act (going naked and barefoot) was interpreted to the people in that year.

Because of alliances she had formed, the Northern Kingdom, Israel, had already been destroyed by Sargon and carried off to Nineveh 11 years earlier. Now, Sargon had his sights set on Egypt/Ethiopia.

After Ashdod was captured, the Lord said: “My servant Isaiah has gone around barefoot for three years. He has not worn anything but his underwear. He is a sign and reminder to Egypt and Cush about what will happen to them”. The king of Assyria will lead prisoners away from Egypt and Cush. Young people and old people alike will be taken away. Like Isaiah, they will be barefoot. They will not be wearing anything but their underwear. And their backsides will be bare. So the Egyptians will be put to shame. Forty eight years later the mass deportation occurred. 

The prior fate of the Northern Kingdom should have been sufficient warning but, Isaiah's purpose was to discourage Judah's from joining her Egyptian allies in their war against Sargon. The prophet was a walking symbol of utter humiliation and destitution in the streets of Jerusalem. He seems to have been successful because there is no record that Sargon attacked Jerusalem. That came over a hundred years later in the reign of Sennacherib his son.

America has made all sorts of unholy alliances in the last generation. Alliances that are moral as well as geographical. As a nation we are allied with an industry that kills unborn babies. We are allied with interest groups that openly defy the teachings of Romans, Chapter one. We are allied with nations in the Middle East that martyr Christians.

We need to extricate ourselves from these Godless entanglements as quickly as we can. But, it will get worse before it gets better.

Live boldly out there today…