Isaiah 19

19:1 - 20:6. Burden of Egypt.

A4  O  19:1-4. Confusion. Assyria.
     P  19:5-10. Desolation.
      Q  19:11-17. The Lord of hosts. The cause.
     P  19:18-25. Healing.
    O  20:1-6. Captivity. Assyria.

19:1-4. Confusion.

O  g  1. Idols, &c.
    h  2. War. Civil.
   g  3. Idols, &c.
    h  4. War. Foreign.

649-588 B.C.

Isaiah 19)

1 The burden of Egypt (4th of 7 burdens). “Behold, the Lord rides 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 (referring to the anarchy consequent on the defeat of Egypt by Sargon [688 B.C.]): and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; 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 (see 2:8), and to the mutterers, and to them that have familiar spirits (see Lev. 19:31; 20:6,7; Deut. 18:11, &c.), and to the wizards.

4 And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord (sing. adjective with plural noun = the lord of the nations, as the kings of Assyria called themselves); and a fierce king shall rule over them,” says the LORD ’Adõn, the Lord of hosts.

5-10. Desolation.

P  i  5,6. Waters.                        Things.
    k  7. Vegetation.                       "
   i  8. Waters. Fishers in them.         Persons.
    k  9,10. Vegetation. Workers therein.    "

5 And the waters shall be dried up from the sea, and the river (i.e. the Nile) shall be wasted and dried up.
6 And the arms of the river shall stink; and the brooks of defense (= canals of Matzor: i.e. Egypt. See 7:18) shall be shallow and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.

7 The meadows by the canals, by the mouth of the canals, and every thing sown by the canals, shall be dried up, be driven away, and be no more (or, and disappear).

8 The fishers also shall mourn (see 3:26), and all they that cast angle into the canals 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 (or, foundations) thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for souls (or, work for wages shall be grieved in souls ).

11-17. The Cause: The Lord of Hosts.

Q  l  11-. Princes...fools.
    m  -11,12. Cause. The Lord of hosts.
   l  13-15. Princes...fools.
    m  16,17. Cause. The Lord of hosts.

11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools (see Prov.1:7), the counsel of the wise counselors of Pharaoh is become brutish:

how say you all to Pharaoh, ‘I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?’
12 Where are they? where are your wise men? and let them tell you now, and let them know what OF HOSTS has 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 has mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof: and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man goes astray in his vomit. (as in preceding clause)
15 Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which the head or tail, branch or rush (see 9:14), may do.

16 In that day (i.e. the day when this burden should be fulfilled [NOT "the Day of the Lord"]. Note the 6 steps, vv.16.18.19.21.23.24) shall Egypt be like unto women: and it shall be afraid and fear because of the shaking of the hand (put for the judgments indicated by the act) of the Lord of hosts, which He shakes over it.
17 And the land of Judah (The Assyrian armies came through Judah) shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that makes mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which He has determined against it.

18-25. Healing.

P  n  18. Cities.
    o  19-22. Healing.
   n  23. Highway.
    o  24,25. Blessing.

18 In that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt (probably Heliopolis, Leontopolis, Daphne, Migdol, and Memphis) speak the language of Canaan (i.e. the Hebrew language, by the multitude of tribe of Judah that went to that place), and swear to the Lord; one shall be called, The city of righteousness. (the primitive reading was doubtless ha-zedeck = "righteousness", which the Sept. simply transliterates. From a desire not to compete with "Jerusalem", which bore this name [Isa.1:26], it was altered to cheres, which in Chaldee = "the sun", or in Greek = "Heliopolis", which is the reading in many MSS., two early printed editions, and the margins of the A.V. and R.V. But when the temple at Jerusalem was cleansed and restored, the temple at Heliopolis was deemed schismatic; and, by altering one letter [CH, for H], cheres [the sun] was altered to heres [destruction]. Hence the present reading of the current Hebrew text. See Ginsburg, Introduction, pp.404-8.)

19 In that day shall there be an altar (see below) to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar close to the border thereof to the Lord. (probably a boundary pillar, or, perhaps the Great Pyramid of Giza! a pillar or monument. Not for worship. Since the full official name of the Pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza, means, in English, the Great Pyramid of the Border, the answer to the apparently contradictory definition of Isaiah is found in the Great Pyramid. The only spot on the face of the earth that completely answers this description, both geometrically and geographically, is the precise place where the Great Pyramid stands (E. Raymond Capt, The Great Pyramid Decoded))

The “Altar to Yahaveh in the land of Egypt”

(appendix 81 of Companion Bible) The fulfillment of this prophecy took place in 1 B.C., and is recorded by Josephus (Ant. xiii. 3.1-3; 6; Wars 7.10,3; and Against Apion, 2.5):- In consequence of wars between the Jews and Syrians, Onias IV, the high priest, fled to Alexandria; where, on account of his active sympathy with the cause of Egypt against Syria, he was welcomed by Ptolemy Philometor, and rewarded by being made prince over the Jews in Egypt (see longer note at the end of the Book of Jeremiah), with the title of Ethuarch and Alabarch. Josephs says:- “Onias asked permission from Ptolomy and Cleopatra to build a temple in Egypt like that at Jerusalem, and to appoint for it priests and Levites of his own nation. This be devised, relying chiefly on the prophet Isaiah, who, 600 years before, predicted that a temple must be built in Egypt by a Jew to the supreme God. He therefore wrote to Ptolomy and Cleopatra the following epistle:- ‘Having come with he Jews to Leontopolis of the Heliopolite district, and other abodes of my nation, and finding that many had sacred rites, not as was due, and were thus hostile to each other, which has befallen the Egyptians also through the vanity of their religions, and disagreeing in their services, I found a most convenient place in the fore-mentioned stronghold, abounding with wood and sacred animals. I ask leave, then, clearing an idol temple, that has fallen down, to build a temple to the supreme God, that the Jews dwelling in Egypt, harmoniously coming together, may minister to your benefit. For Isaiah the prophet has predicted this: there shall be an altar in Egypt to the Lord God"; and he prophesied many other such things concerning the place’ “The king and queen replied: ‘We have read your request asking leave to clear away fallen temple in Leontopols of the Heliopolite nome. We are surprised that a temple should be pleasing to God, settled in an impure place, and one full of sacred animals. But since you say that Isaiah the prophet so long ago foretold it, we grant you leave, if, according to the Law, we may not seem to have offended against God’ ” (Ant. xiii.6) The place of this temple was the identical spot where, many centuries before, Israel had light in their dwellings while the rest of Egypt was suffering from a plague of darkness. Hence again was light in the darkness, which continued for more than 200 years (about 160 B.C. to 71 A.D.), when it was closed by Vespasian. The Jerusalem Jews were opposed to, and jealous of, this rival temple; and, by changing 2 letters turned "The city of sun" into "city of destruction". See v.18 above

20 And it shall be for a sign (see 7:11) and for a witness to the Lord in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry to the Lord because of the oppressors, and He shall send them a Savior, 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 ("The third Ptolemy, which he had occupied all Syria by force, did not sacrifice thank-offerings to the gods of Egypt, but came to Jerusalem an made votive offering" [Josephus, c. Apion, 11.5]); yes, they shall vow a vow to 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 entreated of them, and shall heal them.
23 In that day (i.e. the glorious future, the Day of the Lord. not the same as v.-11) shall there be a highway out of Egypt to Assyria (see 7:3), and the Assyrian shall come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians shall serve with the Assyrians.
24 In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land (or, earth):
25 Whom the Lord shall bless, saying, “Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

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