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Monday, September 24, 2018

A Prophecy Against Egypt 1










Isaiah 19:1-25 NIV








A Prophecy Against Egypt








1A prophecy against Egypt:


See, The LORD Rides On a swift cloud
and Is Coming To Egypt.







The idols of Egypt tremble Before HIM,
and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.







2“I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian—
brother will fight against brother,
neighbor against neighbor,
city against city,
kingdom against kingdom.


3The Egyptians will lose heart,
and I Will Bring their plans to nothing;
they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead,
the mediums and the spiritists.

4I Will Hand the Egyptians over
to the power of a cruel master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,”


Declares The LORD, The LORD ALMIGHTY.


5The waters of the river will dry up,
and the riverbed will be parched and dry.
6The canals will stink;
the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up.
The reeds and rushes will wither,
7also the plants along the Nile,
at the mouth of the river.
Every sown field along the Nile
will become parched, will blow away and be no more.
8The fishermen will groan and lament,
all who cast hooks into the Nile;
those who throw nets on the water
will pine away.
9Those who work with combed flax will despair,
the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.
10The workers in cloth will be dejected,
and all the wage earners will be sick at heart.
11The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools;
the wise counselors of Pharaoh give senseless advice.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I am one of the wise men,
a disciple of the ancient kings”?
12Where are your wise men now?
Let them show you and make known
What The LORD ALMIGHTY
Has Planned against Egypt.
13The officials of Zoan have become fools,
the leaders of Memphis are deceived;
the cornerstones of her peoples
have led Egypt astray.
14The LORD Has Poured into them
a spirit of dizziness;
they make Egypt stagger in all that she does,
as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.
15There is nothing Egypt can do—
head or tail, palm branch or reed.


16 In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted Hand that The LORD ALMIGHTY Raises against them. 17And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what The LORD ALMIGHTY Is Planning against them.

18 In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to The LORD ALMIGHTY. One of them will be called the City of the Sun.

19 In that day there will be an altar to The LORD in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to The LORD at its border. 20It will be a sign and witness to The LORD ALMIGHTY in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to The LORD because of their oppressors, HE Will Send them a savior and defender, and HE Will Rescue them. 21So The LORD will make HIMSELF known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge The LORD. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to The LORD and keep them. 22The LORD Will Strike Egypt with a plague; HE Will Strike them and heal them. They will turn to The LORD, and HE Will Respond to their pleas and heal them.


23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. 
The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. 







The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. 
24In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessingb on the earth. 


25 The LORD ALMIGHTY Will Bless them, Saying, 


“Blessed Be Egypt MY people,


Assyria MY Handiwork,


and Israel MY Inheritance.”


















Prophecy concerning Egypt, in which her lamentable condition under the Babylonians, Persians, etc., is pointed out in verses 1-17. The true religion shall be propagated in Egypt; referring primarily to the great spread of Judaism in that country in the reign of the Ptolemies, and ultimately to its reception of the Gospel in the latter days, Isaiah 19:18-22. Profound peace between Egypt, Assyria, and Israel, and their blessed condition under the Gospel, Isaiah 19:23-25.


Not many years after the destruction of Sennacherib's army before Jerusalem, by which the Egyptians were freed from the yoke with which they were threatened by so powerful an enemy, who had carried on a successful war of three years' continuance against them; the affairs of Egypt were again thrown into confusion by intestine broils among themselves, which ended in a perfect anarchy, that lasted some few years. 


This was followed by an aristocracy, or rather tyranny, of twelve princes, who divided the country between them, and at last by the sole dominion of Psammitichus, which he held for fifty-four years. Not long after that followed the invasion and conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar, and then by the Persians under Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. The yoke of the Persians was so grievous, that the conquest of the Persians by Alexander may well be considered as a deliverance to Egypt; especially as he and his successors greatly favored the people and improved the country.


To all these events the prophet seems to have had a view in this chapter; and in particular, from Isaiah 19:18, the prophecy of the propagation of the true religion in Egypt seems to point to the flourishing state of Judaism in that country, in consequence of the great favor shown to the Jews by the Ptolemies. Alexander himself settled a great many Jews in his new city Alexandria, granting them privileges equal to those of the Macedonians. 


The first Ptolemy, called Soter, carried great numbers of them thither, and gave them such encouragement that still more of them were collected there from different parts; so that Philo reckons that in his time there were a million of Jews in that country. These worshiped the GOD of their fathers; and their example and influence must have had a great effect in spreading the knowledge and worship of the True GOD through the whole country.










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