Chapter 19
Prophecy about Egypt.
2021 - They first fight internally. Civil war type fighting maybe. Says neighbor against neighbor. They will turn to all sorts of divination, sorcery, necromancy and so on for counsel, but God will confound that. After their idols and counselors fail them they will be given to a hard master, "a fierce king" who will rule over them. Perhaps this refers to Assyria...the MSB note here says Assyria conquered them in the mid-7th century BC. (But isn't that before Isaiah wrote? 739-686 BC was Isaiah's time. Mid-7th BC is 650 BC. So that could be the reference. Would be interesting to see if there is evidence of severe unrest within Egypt before Assyria came.
2021-Vss 5-10 seem to prophecy an extended drought in the region. The Nile itself will dry up - or at least run very low, and have large stagnant areas. Perhaps it went without its annual flooding for a long time, ruining crops - or causing crops to fail. Neither cultivation nor natural vegetation - which likely also depends on those floods to mature - produced crops. Can this be historically verified? It sure seems like there are a lot of opportunities to "verify" what the Bible says - to place it in a position of respect as to the history it reports/predicts. The way these verses are worded make it look like the drought comes after the conquest.
Then the prophecy says the Nile and some of it's tributaries will dry up the crops will fail. No fish, no textiles, no resources produced by the land. Poverty, even among their rulers. They will be a confused nation with no wisdom to rule and grow and react to these events. They will be as a "drunkard, stumbling in his vomit". I read this as their leaders have no wisdom, nor any wise counselors to confer with. They will be directionless, poor, without purpose or goal. They will just exist from day to day.
2021 - This verse:
[Isa 19:14 ESV] The LORD has mingled within her a spirit of confusion, and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds, as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
Egypt becomes a nation lacking wisdom, foresight, planning. It will be a nation that just sort of stumbles around and goes nowhere. It is still mostly like that. A nation that follows others, never a leader.
Then in the last 6 verses of the chapter, blessings on Egypt, Assyria, and Israel.
16 starts with "in that day". Egyptians will be like women. Israel will be a terror to them. Five Egyptian cities that speak the language of Canaan will swear allegiance to God. One will be called The City of Destruction.
There will be an altar in Egypt, and a pillar. They will sacrifice to God, make vows to Him and keep them. The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians and they will know Him. God will "strike them and heal them". There will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and they will freely go back and fourth. These verses summarize:
23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and Assyria will come into Egypt, and Egypt into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. 24 In that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, 25 whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, "Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my inheritance." [Isa 19:23-25 ESV]
This certainly seems very different than anything we have read about Assyria before. Assyrian is gone now. Isaiah has already told us that Assyria will fall. But somehow, it is hard to say that they aren't going to rise again, be allies with Israel and with Egypt, and the three of them will be blessed by God. These places will worship God. This could only be during end times or the Millennial - or the time leading up to these things. There has certainly not yet been a time like this. Except...Egypt and Israel have been allied in some Middle East conflicts. Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin won the Nobel Peace prize in 1978 and made peace - a treaty? - in 1979. Ancient Assyria occupied the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates all the way down through what was later Babylon to the Persian Gulf. This is modern-day Iraq, parts of northern Syria, and southern Turkey. Hmm...These are Muslim areas today. So...that's a big change. A change like that might not occur until the Millennial. Hard to say.
2021 - Israel will be third of the three. So this does not sound like the Millennial when Christ will rule, and Israel will lead the whole world. Wouldn't that make this part of the prophecy be in t/gt? Some of that consolidation and the 10 horns, and 3 fall and a new one rises? Perhaps this whole area of Assyria through Israel to Egypt will be three allied nations as the Tribulation period opens. Then the stresses of the 7 trumpets begin, and there is turmoil, and ultimately the beast arises in this place, rebuilding the temple and making peace between these ancient enemies, appeasing both Islam and Judaism with some compromise. But does that make any kind of sense? It says these areas will be worshiping God, they will all be His people. So you'd have to have had some kind of "revival" through that whole area. Either toward Judaism, or a Christian revival. Doesn't really seem to hold up, now that I've written it down. But an interesting possibility just the same. Just because it doesn't make sense today doesn't mean it won't tomorrow.
2023 - I don't think there has been a time when Egypt, Israel, and Assyria (which is mostly Turkey nowadays) have all worshiped God. Ethiopia has...and we have to remember that Isaiah would have been seeing this worship of Jehovah as it was practiced in his day. He talks about an altar in Egypt. Actually, as I read the maps, Assyria itself went from Upper Egypt, up the Mediterranean coast through Israel, and then included Lebanon, Syria, southern Turkey, and most of Iraq all the way down to where the Tigris and Euphrates empty into the Persian Gulf. I think Alexander the Great also controlled all that area and more in his day. It was broken up after that, with the portion in Egypt going to Ptolemy. But I don't see any way that they were worshiping Jehovah throughout this whole area when Alexander was in charge. I think that's the intertestamentary period also, so we have very little - as in none - biblical information about that time. So my opinion would be that this alignment of nations is yet future. And...I think the possibility that these are the three of the horns from which one rises is worth exploring. Certainly this would be an alliance that the MoL would need to break up as soon as possible and put under his heel if he could. What a "sign" to watch for. Assyria, Egypt and Israel united under Yahweh. That would be a pretty obvious sign to look for, and there is no indication of it right now...There is peace between Israel and Egypt, but they are still far apart religiously. And southern Turkey under Erdogan is strictly Muslim.