College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

Isaiah 19:16-25

EGYPT

In that day shall the Egyptians be like unto women; and they shall tremble and fear because of the shaking of the hand of Jehovah of hosts, which he shaketh over them.

And the land of Judah shall become a terror unto Egypt; every one to whom mention is made thereof shall be afraid, because of the purpose of Jehovah of hosts, which he purposeth against it.

In that day there shall be five cities in the land of Egypt that speak the language of Canaan, and swear to Jehovah of hosts; one shall be called The city of destruction.

In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to Jehovah.

And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto Jehovah of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry unto Jehovah because of oppressors, and he will send them a savior, and a defender, and he will deliver them.

And Jehovah shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day; yea, they shall worship with sacrifice and oblation, and shall vow a vow unto Jehovah, and shall perform it.

And Jehovah will smite Egypt, smiting and healing; and they shall return unto Jehovah, and he will be entreated of them, and will heal them.

In that day shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria; and the Egyptians shall worship with the Assyrians.

In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth;

for that Jehovah of hosts hath blessed them, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

QUERIES

What is the language of Canaan and why would the Egyptians speak it?

In what way would the Egyptians worship Jehovah?

Why does Isaiah predict that Assyria and Egypt and Israel will someday be united?

PARAPHRASE

When Jehovah culminates His judgment upon Egypt she will be humbled. Her great and powerful men will be as timid as women and be afraid at the evident hand of the Lord in her judgment. Just the mention of the name Judah will remind Egypt of Judah's God and cause Egypt to remember that Judah's God keeps His word. In the day that Egypt is brought to such a humble relationship to the God of Judah great portions of the people of Egypt will speak the language of faith and allegiance to Jehovah. Some portions of the people, however, will remain in rebellion against Jehovah and thus destined for destruction. In that day Jehovah shall be worshiped in Egypt's midst and a sign of His presence there will be manifested. He will make a witness to His presence there as He defends and delivers those oppressed Egyptians which have become His through a savior He will send them. God will make Himself known to the Egyptians and they shall know Him in that day. Indeed, they will worship Jehovah in truth and they will do so willingly and freely. They will make commitments to Jehovah and keep them. Jehovah will alternately chasten these Egyptian worshipers of His and heal them. In that day also there will be a peaceful unity accomplished between peoples formerly at enmity with one another. Believers from Egypt and Assyria shall worship together as one people. And even believers in Israel, a major bone of contention between Egypt and Assyria, will be joined with believers of Egypt and Assyria and this united people will be a blessing in the midst of the earth, because Jehovah has united them as one peopleHis people.

COMMENTS

Isaiah 19:16-17 PERSUADED: These verses are transitional. They form the bridge between the former predictions of Egypt's judgment and the following predictions of Egypt's turning to Jehovah. In other words, when the day comes that some of the Egyptians realize that Judah's God is the only true God, as a result of receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error, they will begin to seek Jehovah's purpose in their lives. The time will come, says Isaiah, when the mere mention of Judah will remind Egypt of Judah's God and cause some of her people to remember that Judah's God keeps His word. They will fear Him. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Egypt's wisdom had evaporated. But it will come back when they fear Jehovah. At last, some Egyptians will be persuaded of the sovereignty of Judah's God.

Isaiah 19:18-22 PENITENT: Persuaded of Jehovah's sovereignty, many Egyptians will some day (In that day) repent, change their minds and actions, and worship Him. In that day can only, as we shall develop, refer to the Messianic age, the church. Five cities is probably a figure of speech meaning a considerable number of people. Amos uses the phrase, For three transgressions, yea for four, and does not intend to say Israel had committed only four transgressions. Isaiah does not mean to say only five cities. While there are five cities speaking the language of Canaan, a sixth city shall be called destruction. In other words, there will still be some in Egypt who will not repent just as the rest of mankind did not repent after the judgments portrayed in Revelation 9:20 ff. Speaking the language of Canaan, and swearing to Jehovah of hosts is to speak the language in which the God of the Israelites is worshiped. That, of course, does not mean the Egyptians would speak Hebrew any more than it means they would speak Greek (the language of the New Testament). It means they would speak truth as opposed to falsehood. It means they would give allegiance to Jehovahthey would come into covenant relationship with Him. They would become citizens of Jehovah's kingdom (the church). It is doubtful that it could mean great numbers of the Egyptians would become Jewish proselytes.

We take the altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt to be prophetic of the worship of the one true God being established when the gospel was preached there and people became Christians in the first century A.D. The statement that sacrifices (Isaiah 19:22) will be offered does not limit the meaning of this passage to Old Testament practices for there are certain sacrifices to be offered in the New Testament church (Cf. Hebrews 13:15-16). The pillar is in Hebrew matztzevah which is a stone pillar resembling an obelisk. Such a pillar was erected by Jacob (Genesis 28:16-22) to memorialize the presence of God. The pillar in Egypt is figurative of saying that when one approaches the border of Egypt he comes to a land that is also the Lord's for the presence of Jehovah is here (in the church). This is an especially vivid figure for Isaiah's Jewish audience. It is being predicted to them that one day Palestine will not be the only land where the presence of Jehovah dwells. The universal kingdom of Jehovah (the church) will extend into Egypt as well as Palestine!

The Jews who wrote the Septuagint (cir. 300 B.C.) thought this prophecy of Isaiah (and Ezekiel and Jeremiah) against Egypt was fulfilled in the days on Onias, a Jew of great distinction and a high priest. In 160 B.C. Onias IV, was compelled to flee Palestine. He fled to Egypt and sought and received permission from the Egyptian monarch, to build a temple like that in Jerusalem and even pointed the king Ptolemy to this passage in Isaiah for authority to build it. Josephus, the Jewish historian records this for us. Titus Vespasian destroyed this temple in Egypt in 70 A.D. when he destroyed the temple in Jerusalem. We believe this passage has a much larger and grander fulfillment than that, as subsequent verses will show.

Whatever the language of Canaan, the altar, the pillar, they were to be a sign and for a witness unto Jehovah of hosts in the land of Egypt. These things were to signify and testify that these Egyptians were God's people and He was their God. For now, as God's people, they who were formerly oppressors would become the oppressed. As Jesus said, If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. (John 15:19). But now these Egyptians are in covenant relationship to Jehovah and they may have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19 ff) and cry unto God and He will strengthen them, save them and deliver them.

Jehovah shall be known to Egypt and the Egyptians shall know Jehovah, in that day. Their relationship shall be experiential as well as mental. They will enter into a life-style of belief. It will be done willingly. The offering of vows is done not by way of obligation or legislation but by willingness (Numbers 30:1 ff). Furthermore, since these Egyptians are true children of God, they will be treated like His children. Whom the Lord loves, He chastens, etc.. (Hebrews 12:3-17). If God does not chasten, they are illegitimate children. Jehovah will smite and heal in order to turn them constantly to Him.

Isaiah 19:23-25 PEACEFUL: NOW we have portrayed in figurative language the consequences of God's redemptive work in Egypt. Egypt and Assyria were inveterate enemies for many centuries. But when the universal kingdom of God is established (the church) men out of every tribe and tongue will join together in peace and unified worship of Jehovah. The reference is not to any literal highway or literal Egypt and Assyria. These two nations stood at opposite poles geographically and opposed each other politically. They represent or symbolize the conversion of all the heathen and the formation of those converted into a kingdom of peace. What God will accomplish in His redemptive work, in establishing His kingdom of peace, will be a divine reversal of what occurred at Babel. At the tower of Babel the world was dispersed, and a division of mankind occurred. Languages were confused. Ideologies grew and competed and opposed one another and wars ensued. This divided mankind fought to maintain individuality and rebellion against God, each nation characterized by this in common, that it did not know nor worship Jehovah. Many nations fought one another proposing that their ideology was what would be best for the whole world and so empires rose and fell in attempting to unify the world under one human ideology. Jehovah called out a people (the Jews) and began His work of redeeming and unifying all who would in a kingdom of men once again be ruled over by God and Truth. But even this called out people (for the most part) rejected God's Messiah and His Messianic kingdom. But God's new kingdom of unity and peace was intended to be universal from the very start. And so the prophets, especially Isaiah, predicted it. We believe Ephesians 2:11-22 are the precise fulfillment of this passage as well as that of Isaiah 2:1-4 (see our comments there) and many other universalized passages of the O.T. Prophets.

If this be the proper application of this passage, then the Israel joined as a third party with Egypt and Assyria in Isaiah 19:24 is the Israel of God of Galatians 6:16 which is none other than the New Testament church. It would take a Jew who is one inwardly (Cf. Romans 2:28-29) to ever agree to a unity such as is described in Isaiah 19:24-25.

The ultimate fulfillment of this passage is, therefore, Messianic. It has to do with Christ and the Church. This has come to pass and they who were strangers and foreigners in Egypt and Assyria, and yes, even in Israel, will be found in that building, fitly framed together, which groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord (Ephesians 2:11-22).

It is interesting that these three areas, Egypt, Israel and Assyria are the three areas where we find some of the earliest of the missionary endeavors of the infant church. At the beginning of the 4th century (300-400 A.D.) parts of the Scriptures had been translated into more than one of the Egyptian vernaculars and the foundations had been laid of a native Egyptian church known as Coptic. By the end of the 5th century the Christian faith had become rooted among native Egyptian stock and in time was the dominant religion of the land. The Coptic church, numbering 22,000 members at the turn of the 20th century, still flourishes in parts of Egypt and Ethiopia.
At Dura-Europos, on the river Euphrates (where ancient Assyria was located) on the great road between Antioch and Ctesiphon, 20th century excavation has revealed a building which was used as a Christian church as far back as the year 232 A.D. There are still many Christians in Armenia (Assyria).

There were people from Egypt and parts of Libya and Mesopotamia in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost (Acts 2:8-13) and some of them were converted. Here the seeds were sown in the hearts of men who returned to their homelands with the gospel of peace and thus the prophecy of Isaiah came to pass (see also the Ethiopian eunuch, Acts 8:26-40).

QUIZ

In what way do Isaiah 19:16-17 form a transition from one section of this chapter to the other?

Why does Isaiah say five cities will speak the language of Canaan?

What is the altar and pillar that is to be found in Egypt?

How will Jehovah smite and heal the Egyptians?

How will the Egyptians and Assyrians worship Jehovah together?

In what way is Israel included with Egypt and Assyria in blessing the earth?

Why is it apparent that this section of Isaiah is Messianic?

What are Coptic and Armenian Christians and where may we trace their beginnings in the New Testament?

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