1.
The 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.
2.
And 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.
3.
And 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.
4.
And 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.
5.
And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up.
6.
And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
7.
The 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.
8.
The 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.
9.
Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded.
10.
And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.
11.
Surely the princes of Zoan are fools, the counsel of the wise counsellers of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
12.
Where 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.
13.
The 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.
14.
The 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.
15.
Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush, may do.
16.
In 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.
17.
And 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.
18.
In 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.
19.
In 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.
20.
And 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.
21.
And 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.
22.
And 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.
23.
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 serve with the Assyrians.
ISRAEL A UNITING BOND
‘In that day there shall be a highway out of Egypt into Assyria.’
Isaiah 19:23
I. In the prophet’s view the three ancient foes, Egypt, Assyria, and Israel, are to be friends and allies, a blessing to all the earth, because they themselves have been blessed by God. Assyria and Egypt have passed away, and neither ever became worshippers of the true God. How then are we to understand this prophecy? I think that in this prophecy we have to distinguish between the religious and moral truths revealed by God to prophets, and the form in which the prophets expressed them. God revealed the principles and laws by which He ordered the government of the world. These great spiritual and moral laws were applied by the prophets themselves to the affairs of the Jewish and other nations. Isaiah understood that the God of Israel was the only God, and would at last be known to all the kingdoms of the earth. Egypt perished, Assyria perished, but the prophet had given a true testimony. God was not the God of the Jews only, but of all men.
II. It does not appear that any serious effort was made by the Jews to bring other nations to worship God.—The book of Jonah is to my mind an imaginative story, with some slight substratum of historic fact, intended to rebuke the indifference of the Jews to the condition of the world outside. We have no evidence that the rebuke produced the least effect.
Professor Max Müller divided the religions of the world into the class opposed to missions—Judaism, Brahminism, and the religion of Zoroaster—and those which have always had the missionary spirit in them, Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Christianity. The non-missionary religions were dead, the others were still alive. The proselytes of Judaism were made without any formal missionary effort, Christianity was missionary from its very origin. The coming of Christ was the revelation of the love of God for the human race.
III. The Gospel is plainly a gospel for all mankind.—There is not a man among the vast populations of heathen cities, or among the wandering tribes of tropical countries, or living a cheerless life on the shores of Arctic seas, who might not claim for himself all the spiritual blessings which have been revealed in the lives of the greatest saints.
Complete indifference to the religious state of others is impossible to a really Christian man. We begin to pray for the salvation of others as soon as we begin to pray for our own.
As our love for others extends beyond our own family and our own country, we shall have the same kind of solicitude for the salvation of men in heathen lands as for the salvation of our own flesh and blood. The old Jewish exclusiveness has not died out. It is as hard, as mean, as unloving as ever. Let us care for our country, it says, and leave other races to their lower symbols of the Eternal and the Divine. That is false as a philosophy, it is simply demoniacal as a law of Christian conduct. The Christian Gospel is not the growth of our civilisation. It comes as a revelation direct from God, and so is suited for every nation.
24.
In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land:
25.
Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.