1 An oracle concerning Egypt.
Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud and comes to Egypt; and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
2 And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
and they will fight, each against another
and each against his neighbor,
city against city, kingdom against kingdom;
3 and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
and I will confound their counsel;
and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers,
and the mediums and the necromancers;
4 and I will give over the Egyptians
into the hand of a hard master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,
declares the Lord GOD of hosts.
5 And the waters of the sea will be dried up,
and the river will be dry and parched,
6 and its canals will become foul,
and the branches of Egypt’s Nile will diminish and dry up,
reeds and rushes will rot away.
7 There will be bare places by the Nile,
on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched,
will be driven away, and will be no more.
8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,
all who cast a hook in the Nile;
and they will languish
who spread nets on the water.
9 The workers in combed flax will be in despair,
and the weavers of white cotton.
10 Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed,
and all who work for pay will be grieved.
Comment: There are those who think that the Bible is many different things but most end-up finding it irrelevant! Even some Christians choose even just a single word or a phrase to sum up all that the Bible says! ‘God is love’, is one of the common ways of summing up the Bible. Then they use it as a reason to excuse all sorts of behaviour – not that sin is ‘right’ but it will be OK, for God is ‘LOVE’. Others say that the Old Testament God is not the same as the God (Jesus) of the New Testament. Arguing that the OT God was ferocious and the NT God is ‘Gentle Jesus, meek and mild’ – overlooking the fact that Jesus mentions hell more often then heaven! I think that this passage is fascinating for several reasons. Firstly, if you check up on this time historically there were both civil wars in Egypt and a period of the Nile being very empty! Secondly, the two Nile rivers are the life blood of Egypt (see the video above) and in many ways as you read this passage you can see modern Egyptian fishermen throwing out their nets to fish; you can see the flax mentioned and farmers looking desperately at the slow flow in the river as their crops wilt and die! Not worshipping Jehovah God you can sense the rows of people flocking to their idols, and ‘witches’ to plead for intervention! Thirdly, although this is all in the past for us, it was a prediction in the future for them! When it came to pass, when the mighty Egypt was overcome, it must have shook them to the roots! But maybe they didn’t connect their desperate needs to the prophecy of Isaiah, and they, as we do so often, in their self centered living forgot that God Almighty is in charge and can tell what is going to happen tomorrow! To be continued!
Proverbs 16: 2 – All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the spirit.
Prayer: Thank You that in the Bible You give us glimpses into our future, and choices as to how we should walk!
As I read it! 