September 27, Isaiah 20
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, 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."
- Isaiah 20:3-4
God sometimes instructed his prophets to do
strange things to be living illustrations of some
message he sent to the people through the
prophet. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Hosea
come to mind as examples of God’s prophets
behaving as God told them to do to get Israel’s
attention and deliver a message.
Isaiah began his three-year walk in 714 BC, the
same year that Ashdod fell to the Assyrians.
Ashdod was one of the five great cities of the
Philistines, and the people would have known
about the Assyrian victory in the Philistine city
just 35 miles west of Jerusalem. God told Isaiah
to take off his prophet’s sackcloth garment and
walk exposed like a captive before the people.
Some scholars insist that Isaiah was stark
naked; others insist that the word for naked in
the text also means involuntarily uncovered,
exposed and shamed. Adam and Eve were
naked in Eden before the fall without shame. But
when David's men were humiliated by the
Ammonite king, they were sent home with their
clothing cut off at the waist and their buttocks
exposed.
Whichever it was, Isaiah's was not a news report
of what had happened at Ashdod. It was a
prophecy of what was going to happen in Egypt,
the same Egypt that some in Israel wanted to
join as an ally against the Assyrians. The
argument was, “If these people fall captive to the Assyrians, what makes you think you can rely on them to protect you from the same enemy that will defeat and subdue them?
Israel had already fallen, and Judah was on
Assyria’s list of countries to be conquered. The
cruel and sadistic Assyrians treated their
captives with violence and dishonor. When God
spared Judah from falling to Assyria, he was
showing mercy. Even though the southern
kingdom would fall to the Babylonians about 100 years later, the Babylonians were not nearly so cruel to their captives.
For once, the people listened to God's
messenger. The alliance never formed. Isaiah's
dramatic portrayal of captivity and shame that
was coming to Egypt persuaded the people of
Judah to trust the Lord instead of their doomed
neighbor who would be unable to to help them.
They understood that the power, wealth and
splendor of Egypt was about to run out. With no
possible support and defense coming from an
alliance, the people were willing to turn to God
and trust that he would deliver them. And he did.
Isaiah's obedience and faithfulness shines in this
self-exposing drastic obedience to a difficult
command. No wonder God called Isaiah "my
servant.” The prophet joined a select group of
people whom God called "my servant." Abraham, Moses, Caleb, Job and a couple of others were honored with the same title from God.
This short chapter poses a couple of questions
about our own relationship with God. Do I
understand that compromising to please other
people at the expense of dishonoring or
disobeying God is a foolish thing to do? We
ought to rely on God, not other humans, not our
material possessions, not our friends or our own
flawed righteousness and good works. Also, how willing am I to be a faithful servant of the Lord? Will I obey even if it seems unreasonable? Will I surrender my personal comfort and will to obey him? God help us to be men and women who are truly servants of God. I hope we are standing shoulder to shoulder some day to hear him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant!”
Copyright © 2023 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—September 2023
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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