Week 16 Isaiah
Isaiah prophesied during the reigns of four kings of Judah – Uzziah Jotham Ahaz and Hezekiah – so he spent a lot of his book talking to or about the reigns of those four.
But there’s a section of the book – taking up maybe 14% of the total – where Isaiah makes prophecies about other states in the region: Babylon Assyria Philistia Moab Damascus Ethiopia Egypt Edom Arabia & Tyre. Eleven chapters of international predictions.
When I started reading chapter nineteen I wasn’t too surprised to see that a lot of gloom-and-doom things would be showing up on Egypt’s horizon: fear civil-war confusion military-conquest economic-collapse delusion helplessness oppression.
But then I was surprised: in that day the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians…The Lord will strike Egypt in a way that will bring healing. For the Egyptians will turn to the Lord, and he will listen to their pleas and heal them.
I wondered when that would happen. Egypt was the traditional enemy of Israel and lots of times in the OT Egypt is code for Bad-Guys. But Isaiah predicted that at some future time the Lord would embrace Egypt.
Reading-through the OT I routinely get a strong sense of Israel-centrism. So this forecast about Egypt turning to the Lord is a nice example of inclusion in what usually seems like an exclusive text.
Note: quote from Isaiah 19:21-22 (NLT)