Isaiah 19King James Version
The burden of Egypt. The Lord rides upon a swift cloud and comes into Egypt. The idols shall be moved. Brother shall fight against brother. Yet in the last days, there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of Egypt, and Egypt and Assyria and Israel will be blessed together. 'Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.'
The LORD rides into Egypt on a swift cloud. The Egyptians fight each other, their counsel fails, their wise men are fools. Egypt becomes desolate, the Nile fails, the linen workers despair. Five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan. An altar to the LORD will stand in the heart of Egypt. Then: Egypt my people, Assyria the work of my hands, Israel my inheritance, a threefold blessing that shocks its original audience.
The nations Isaiah judges most severely end the chapter as God's own people. Judgment is never the final word, even for Egypt.
verse: "Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance", the most shocking verse in the chapter: the two empires that have oppressed Israel are called God's people alongside Israel itself.
Egypt, the greatest civilization in the ancient world, circa 715 to 700 BC. The Cushite dynasty rules Egypt but internal strife weakens it. The Nile, Egypt's entire economic foundation, failing even slightly is an existential crisis. Against that backdrop of political and agricultural collapse, Isaiah sees an altar to the LORD standing in the heart of the land.
Isaiah the prophet. Egypt personified, divided against itself. The Nile as the source of Egypt's life, now failing. Five unnamed cities in Egypt who will swear to the LORD. The LORD who brings judgment and then, astonishingly, mercy to Egypt and Assyria.
Verse 25 is arguably the most universalist statement in the first half of Isaiah. In a book saturated with oracles against the nations, declaring Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands alongside Israel is a theological earthquake. It plants the seed that will bloom fully in Isaiah 56-66's inclusion of foreigners.
The chapter runs from catastrophe to collapse to something unexpected. By the end, the reader who came in expecting another destruction oracle finds themselves standing in the middle of a blessing that includes Israel's oldest enemies. The surprise is the point.
1The burden of Egypt. Behold, the LORD rideth upon a swift cloud, and shall come into Egypt: and the idols of Egypt shall be moved at his presence, and the heart of Egypt shall melt in the midst of it.
2And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbour; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom.
3And the spirit of Egypt shall fail in the midst thereof; and I will destroy the counsel thereof: and they shall seek to the idols, and to the charmers, and to them that have familiar spirits, and to the wizards.
4And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.
5And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
6And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
7The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more.
8The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish.
9Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
10And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.
11Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
12Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
13The princes of Zoan are become fools, the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.
14The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.
15Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.
16In that day shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand of the LORD of hosts, which he shaketh over it.
17And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that maketh mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the LORD of hosts, which he hath determined against it.
18In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan, and swear to the LORD of hosts; one shall be called, The city of destruction.
19In that day shall there be an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to the LORD.
20And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.
21And the LORD shall be known to Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know the LORD in that day, and shall do sacrifice and oblation; yea, they shall vow a vow unto the LORD, and perform it.
22And the LORD shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it: and they shall return even to the LORD, and he shall be intreated of them, and shall heal them.
23In 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 serve with the Assyrians.
24In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:
25Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.