Isaiah 19:16-20:6.  This is a very interesting reading today and an interesting arrangement.  Yesterday we saw a message about Egypt.  Isaiah calls theses messages burdens (some translations use the word “oracle” which means a spoken message but the Hebrew word means burden).  And this message certainly was a burden, some very serious stuff happened to Egypt in yesterday’s reading and the whole theme that Isaiah is dealing with in the book overall is serious as well.  Helping people see and deal with their sin (disobedience to God) and getting them to start giving God the credit instead of themselves is hard to do.  And think about how Isaiah did this for well over 40 years, through several different kings.  Then to have theses messages about nations suffering, it would be pretty tiring.

So today’s reading starts out with the Egyptians weak and afraid (Sorry to all you girls out there but in those days women just didn’t generally go out to battle, it’s a generalization and doesn’t mean that all women are weak all the time.  Remember Jael (Judges 4:17-21)).  But it is interesting that the thing they are afraid of isn’t from the civil war that was going on and the drought and famine.  Now what they are afraid of is “the land of Judah” (v. 17).  That doesn’t mean they are afraid of dirt, it doesn’t even mean they are afraid of the people of Judah, what it means is they are afraid of the God of the people of Judah.  Notice in verse 16 it is because of God’s “hand” moving over them and verse 17 mentions the purposes of Yahweh (the LORD all capitals in some Bibles).  Verses 16 mentions in that day and may be talking about the timing of the events in the first part of the chapter but the phrase, “in that day”, seems to change meaning or have a double meaning as it is used in the rest of the chapter.  Remember back in chapter 13 (Isaiah 13:6) the message about Babylon started out by talking about the “Day of the LORD” and how that is a reference to things that are described in the book of Revelation in the New Testament.  We also talked about how there were little “days of the LORD” through out history where God deals with the disobedience and disrespect of different nations.  Sometimes a predictions will be fulfilled on a “little day of the LORD” but also God will be showing us what will happen on the “day of the LORD”.  It seems like there is some of that going on here with respect to Egypt, and near the end of the chapter Assyria is back in the picture.  The message moves from trouble in Egypt to the Egyptians and the Assyrians both turning to the God of Judah.  That’s amazing and really hasn’t happened in history yet.  Look at Isaiah 19:25, Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands (meaning they are his too), and Israel my inheritance (meaning the people who will inherit from God), and they will be friends (v. 24).  That is awesome and amazing especially when you think that Assyria (modern day Iraq and Iran) and Egypt are both Muslim nations and the amount of hatred in that part of the world for the Israelites.  God really is the solution to the world’s problems, and it is only when the world submits to him.  We will all coexist some day but it won’t be on our terms it will be in honor and worship of Yahweh (see v. 21).  God will make himself know it says and that is really a big part of the “Day of the LORD” described in the book of Revelation, the trouble that comes always seems to have the point of getting people to return to God (Revelation 9:20-21; 169-11).

The next part of the message is pretty shocking.  Isaiah walks around naked for three years.  Obviously Judah needed a pretty shocking message from God.  What was going on was continued invasions by Assyria and continued rebellion by the different kings on the area.  In this case the Philistine town, Ashdod, was invaded by the Assyrian king, Sargon, this happened in 711 BC.  A few years earlier Sargon had replaced a rebellious king in Ashdod with one who would follow him.  The people threw that king out and replaced him with an anti-Assyrians one.  When Sargon returned to put down the rebellion a second time the new king fled to Egypt.  At the time Egypt was in the midst of internal conflict between several kings including the powerful Ethiopian king, Shabaka (Ethiopia is Cush in the Bible.  Remember the both Ethiopia and Philistia in earlier messages (Isaiah 14, 18)).  Egypt handed the refugee king over to Sargon.  In spite of their cooperation eventually Egypt and Cush would be taken over by Assyria and their captives would be humiliated by being lead away naked to Assyria.  Egypt was often turned to in times of invasion, the were a larger and somewhat powerful ally but they didn’t follow through very well.  In this case they let Ashdod down and the message was a warning to Hezekiah not to make an alliance with Egypt.  Running thought this whole section is the power and faithfulness of God.  God has the power to humble any nation he wants to and God alone deserves the worship of all of the nations.  Israel is God’s people and he will take care of them, not only that he will make their enemies their brothers, how is that for power and faithfulness.  We too are God’s people and he is the same God or purity and power in our lives as he was in those lives, in fact, remember that part of the message Isaiah gave is still in the future.  God is still working all of this out in history and we an be a part of it by turning to Jesus and worshiping Yahweh now (See John 8:58).  If we don’t we can expect the same kind of consequences in our lives that God has brought into the lives of people every where down through history.  Lord thank you for even bothering to make a new relationship with you available.  Thank you for being loving as well as pure and holy.  Help me consistently make the right choices, ones that please and honor you.  Let me not be a burden to you and to your prophets today.  Make your will clear to me and help me have the courage to follow your way.