Welcome to the MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my seventy eighth episode. Tonight I want to discuss Isaiah chapter 20. This chapter links very closely with chapter 19. Chapter 19 ended with a beautiful vision of all people uniting in peace under God. This is a prophecy that has yet to be fulfilled even today. For now, the narrative returns to bleak reality. Here’s what’s going on. The year is 714 B.C. There is geopolitical tension between three major players: Assyria, Judah, and Egypt. Of these three, Assyria is the most powerful. Egypt is also powerful but they are suffering serious instability. Egypt’s delta cities are being ruled by petty kings who are descending into civil war. Their economy has been crushed by a drought. Upper Egypt has been taken over by the Ethiopian king Shabaka – who is friendly with Assyria. Judah is the smallest of these three players so they don’t stand a chance in this climate. They are just sitting back and nervously watching the imperialistic policies of the Assyrians. Judah doesn’t want the Assyrian Empire to come south and destroy them – the way the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed eight years earlier.
In theory, the Assyrian Empire is supposed to be the governing authority over the whole land at this time. They are the most powerful and they have installed kings in territories that have not yet been formally conquered. But Judah and Egypt are putting up resistance to the idea of widespread Assyrian sovereignty. So is the Philistine city of Ashdod. Under king Azuri, Ashdod stages a rebellion against Assyria. They get in touch with Judah and agree to stop making their tribute payments to the Assyrians. Judah and Ashdod put their trust in Egypt and decide to count on them for support in the event of an invasion. Three years go by and then we see this happen in verses 1-2:
20 In the year that the commander in chief, who was sent by Sargon the king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and fought against it and captured it— 2 at that time the Lord spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go, and loose the sackcloth from your waist and take off your sandals from your feet,” and he did so, walking naked and barefoot.
I actually want to look at verse two before we look at verse one. Notice this strange command that God gives to Isaiah. He tells him to remove his clothes and walk naked in public and in front of the officials of Judah. The phrase, at that time, suggests that Isaiah completed this task during the three years leading up to the Assyrian invasion of Ashdod. So that would be 714 to 711 B.C.
In 711 B.C. – this would be verse one – we see that Sargon II, Assyria’s king, sends his military to Ashdod to crush their rebellion. These forces are led by a man called the Tartan. Egypt is supposed to support Ashdod in defending against this invasion, but they go back on their word and no one shows up. So Sargon’s forces thoroughly destroy Ashdod’s resistance and remove Azuri from office. It’s interesting to note that modern day excavations at Ashdod have uncovered fragments of an inscribed pillar of Sargon II, and it is a duplicate of a victory pillar found at Khorsabad – where the Assyrian Annals of Sargon II were found. These excavations also uncovered the skeletal remains of 3,000 people probably killed when Sargon sacked the city. So Ashdod falls to Assyria and Sargon replaces Azuri with a friendlier leader, Ahimiti. Then Assyria backs off.
The people of Ashdod refuse to accept Ahimiti, so they depose him and appoint their own anti-Assyrian king Iamani. This really upsets Sargon. So Assyria comes back, this time reorganizing Ashdod’s government and deporting some of their people. They also bring in foreigners from the east. It was common practice for ancient empires to remove people from their homeland and mix them up with populations of differing cultures. This helped to prevent the people from uniting in rebellion against the empire. Iamani, Ashdod’s anti-Assyrian king, escapes and flees to Egypt seeking refuge. The last thing he wants is to be captured by an angry Sargon. But all it takes is one threat from Sargon and the Egyptians hand Iamani over to the Assyrians. His fate is not recorded. But what about this strange command God has given to Isaiah? Let’s pick up with verses 3-4:
3 Then the Lord said, “As my servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot for three years as a sign and a portent against Egypt and Cush,[a] 4 so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptian captives and the Cushite exiles, both the young and the old, naked and barefoot, with buttocks uncovered, the nakedness of Egypt.
So now we see that Isaiah’s behavior is meant to send a message about what will happen to Egypt and Ethiopia. Dehumanization is a common practice in war. If you were a prisoner of war in an ancient empire, you would be stripped naked and marched into exile. This same sort of shaming and degradation occurred in the Nazi concentration camps and the Soviet gulag. The idea is to remove all dignity from individuals and crush their spirits. It is utterly evil. Isaiah’s prediction is that Assyria will invade Egypt and Ethiopia, conquering them and leading many of them captive back to Assyria along the highways of Palestine.
During the time of this prediction, there are some political changes happening in Egypt. Shabaka, the Ethiopian king, is consolidating his hold on Egypt’s delta. So the delta cities whom Ashdod mistakenly relied on to support their rebellion are now gone. Judah is in a position where Assyria is ramping up the pressure and the ally they were counting on – Egypt – is basically useless. In desperation they think maybe Shabaka will help them. Of course, if the people of Judah would listen to Isaiah then they would know that neither Shabaka or Egypt will do any good against Assyria. To think that Ethiopia and Egypt can stand against Assyria is a gross miscalculation of the empire’s military might. Judah, under Hezekiah’s leadership, seriously needs to turn back to God. Here’s what God tells them will happen if they continue to look to Egypt and Ethiopia as their saviors. Verses 5-6:
5 Then they shall be dismayed and ashamed because of Cush their hope and of Egypt their boast. 6 And the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, this is what has happened to those in whom we hoped and to whom we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria! And we, how shall we escape?’”
Judah’s courage is failing. They are beginning to see that if Egypt isn’t enough against Assyria, then there is no deliverance for them apart from God. The Ethiopian king Shabaka knows he can’t stand against Assyria, so he actually tries to accommodate them instead. This is the principle reason why Iamani was handed over to Assyria while he was seeking political asylum in Egypt. For Judah and Ashdod, Shabaka’s courtship of Assyria could not have come at a worse time. Both nations were really counting on having the combined power of Ethiopia and Egypt. Instead, Shabaka is able to maintain peace with Assyria for the rest of his lifetime. But when his successor, Shebtako, takes the throne he promptly sends his brother Taharqa to aid Judah against the Assyrians. That means Shabaka’s peace with Assyria is shattered and now it’s only a matter of time before the Assyrian Empire marches on Egypt.
There is no record of an Assyrian invasion of Egypt until decades later during the reign of Esarhaddon. In 671 B.C. he defeats Tirhakah, occupies Memphis, and installs Assyrian governors over local Egyptian princes. Then a rebellion springs up and is crushed by Ashurbanipal in 667 B.C. with Manasseh’s participation. On this occasion, the rebel princes are marched to Nineveh, Assyria’s capital city, stripped naked and dehumanized just as Isaiah said they would be.
The message Isaiah keeps trying to send to Judah is to stop trusting in Egypt and start trusting in God. The Egyptians betrayed Ashdod in 711 B.C. and soon they won’t even be able to help Judah because the Assyrians will overpower them. Isaiah wants Judah to know that God is in control of all the nations on earth – including Egypt, Judah, Ashdod, and Assyria. Remember, Isaiah has already given Judah the prophecy about the angel of the Lord destroying Assyria’s army in one night. If they would only have the faith to listen, then they would stop making useless and counter-productive alliances and they wouldn’t experience so much unnecessary pain and suffering.
There are two major lessons to take from this chapter. The first lesson is that God is in control. If you are in a situation where it’s tempting to circumvent God’s will so that you can manipulate the world into your favor – don’t do it. The best way to find out if what you are about to do goes against God’s will is to check it against Scripture. God will never cause you to sin. It’s a bad idea to try and shape reality into your own image, into what you think is best for you. This is because you are not omniscient and so you are certain to miss things and make mistakes. Instead, you should do your best to allow God to shape you into the image of Himself. This requires that you trust Him – in the same way He wanted Judah to trust Him regarding their situation with Assyria.
The second lesson is that if you put all of your trust in the wrong people – you will pay the price for it. So you might ask: how, then, can you put all your trust in the right people? This is the wrong question. The right question is what happens to our relationships with all people once we put our trust in God and depend on Him alone? The answer is that we are able to have healthier relationships because we are set free to love. Think about it. If you invest all of your being into a person – in other words if you put that person in the position God should be in – then you become fully dependent on them and you need them. You need them in such a way that you are no longer free to love them. Love always requires a choice. If you are not free to leave, then you can never choose to stay. I think this is why God requires us to have faith and not proof. If He gave us all the answers now and made it perfectly clear – would we still be free to choose Him? Once you’ve looked upon God in full – where else is there to go?
The other aspect of your relationships that will dramatically improve once you invest yourself in God is your ability to forgive others. When you understand that human beings are fallen and twisted, you will know that mistakes and betrayal are part of the picture. If you give your soul to a person who betrays you, it becomes very difficult to recover for yourself let alone find forgiveness for them. Instead, give your heart and give your soul to God. He is the only One who is perfectly safe for this – He never makes mistakes and He will never betray you. I’m not saying that you should be distant and aloof with people. This is not about being cynical or bitter. Contrarily, if you give your innermost being to God and you entrust it to Him – only then will you experience the freedom to trust your neighbor. To love your neighbor. And to forgive your neighbor.
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