6 And the inhabitants of this coast shall say in that day, Behold, such is our confidence, whither we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and how shall we escape?
Woe to the rebellious children, saith Jehovah, who take counsel, but not of me, and who make leagues, but not by my Spirit, that they may heap sin upon sin; who walk to go down into Egypt, and have not asked of my mouth, -- to take refuge under the protection of Pharaoh, and trust in the shadow of Egypt! For to you the protection of Pharaoh shall be a shame, and the trust in the shadow of Egypt a confusion. For his princes were at Zoan, and his ambassadors came to Hanes. They were all ashamed of a people [that] did not profit them, nor were a help or profit, but a shame, and also a reproach. -- The burden of the beasts of the south: Through a land of trouble and anguish, whence come the lioness and lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to the people that shall not profit [them]. For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose; therefore have I named her, Arrogance, that doeth nothing.
For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, the Holy One of Israel: In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength; but ye would not. And ye said, No, but we will flee upon horses, -- therefore shall ye flee; and, We will ride upon the swift, -- therefore shall they that pursue you be swift.
Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and depend on horses, and confide in chariots because [they are] many, and in horsemen because they are very strong; and who look not unto the Holy One of Israel, neither seek Jehovah! But he also is wise, and he bringeth evil, and recalleth not his words; and he will arise against the house of evildoers, and against the help of workers of iniquity. And the Egyptians are men, and not ùGod, and their horses flesh, and not spirit; and Jehovah shall stretch forth his hand, and he that helpeth shall stumble, and he that is helped shall fall, and they all shall perish together.
Why criest thou because of thy bruise? thy sorrow is incurable; for the greatness of thine iniquity, [because] thy sins are manifold, I have done these things unto thee. Therefore all that devour thee shall be devoured, and all thine adversaries, every one of them, shall go into captivity; and they that spoil thee shall be for a spoil; and all they that prey upon thee will I give to be a prey. For I will apply a bandage unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith Jehovah; for they have called thee an outcast: This is Zion that no man seeketh after.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » John Gill's Exposition of the Bible » Commentary on Isaiah 20
Commentary on Isaiah 20 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
INTRODUCTION TO ISAIAH 20
This chapter contains a prophecy of the destruction of the Egyptians and Ethiopians by the Assyrians, which had been prophesied of separately in the two preceding chapters Isaiah 18:1, and now conjunctly in this: the time of it is given, Isaiah 20:1 the sign of it, the prophet's walking naked, and barefoot, Isaiah 20:2 the explanation and accommodation of the sign to the captivity of Egypt and Ethiopia, Isaiah 20:3 the use of this to the Jews, and the effect it had upon them; shame for their trust and dependence on the above nations, and despair of deliverance from the Assyrians by their means, Isaiah 20:5.
In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod,.... Or Azotus, as the Septuagint here call it; and which is its name in the New Testament; see Gill on Acts 8:40. This Tartan, or whom the Septuagint names Tanathan, and the Arabic version Tathan, was one of Sennacherib's generals, 2 Kings 18:17,
(when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him); to the above place to besiege it. This Sargon is generally thought to be the same with Sennacherib, since Tartan was one of his generals, who might have more names than one. Jerom says he had seven; the Jewish RabbinsF8T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 94. 1. eight; though some think a predecessor of his is meant, Shalmaneser; and others his son Esarhaddon, who in the Apocrypha:
"And there passed not five and fifty days, before two of his sons killed him, and they fled into the mountains of Ararath; and Sarchedonus his son reigned in his stead; who appointed over his father's accounts, and over all his affairs, Achiacharus my brother Anael's son.' (Tobit 1:21)
is called Sarchedon, which might easily pass by pronunciation into Sargon:
and fought against Ashdod, and took it; which was held by the Assyrians till the time of Psammiticus, and was so strong a city, and so well fortified, that it held out a siege of twenty nine years before he could be master of itF9Herodot. l. 2. c. 157. ; how long Tartan lay against it, before he took it, is not said; nor is it certain what year he came against it; those who take Sargon to be Shalmaneser place it in the fourth year of Hezekiah's reign, who sent Tartan to Ashdod at the same time that he went against Samaria, 2 Kings 18:9 but others, who think Sennacherib is Sargon, fix it to the fourteenth year of Hezekiah's reign, as Kimchi; who, hearing of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia and Egypt coming against him, went forth to meet him, and subdued him; and at the same time sent Tartan against Ashdod; or rather this was done when he took the fenced cities of Judah, of which this was one, having been taken a little before by Hezekiah from the Philistines; see 2 Kings 18:8 though, if Esarhaddon is Sargon, this must be in the times of Manasseh, perhaps about the twenty second year of his reign, by whom he was taken, and carried captive; but it is most likely to have been in Hezekiah's time.
At the same time spake the Lord by Isaiah the son of Amoz,.... Or, "by the hand of Isaiah", by his means; and it was to him likewise, as the following words show; and so the Septuagint version renders it; he spoke by him, by the sign he used, according to his order, and he spoke to him to use the sign:
saying; so the Arabic version, "with him"; and with these versions Noldius agrees:
go, and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins; a token of mourning, and which the prophet wore, as Kimchi thinks, because of the captivity of the ten tribes; and it may be also on account of the miseries that were coming upon the people of the Jews; though some think this was his common garb, and the same with the royal garment the prophets used to wear, Zechariah 13:4 but that he had put off, and had put on sackcloth in its room, which he is now bid to take off:
and put off thy shoe from thy foot; as a sign of distress and mourning also, 2 Samuel 15:30,
and he did so, walking naked and barefoot; Kimchi thinks this was only visionally, or in the vision of prophecy, as he calls it, and not in reality; but the latter seems most probable, and best to agree with what follows; for he was obedient to the divine command, not regarding the disgrace which might attend it, nor the danger of catching cold, to which he was exposed; and hence he has the character of a servant of the Lord, in the next words, and a faithful obedient one he was.
And the Lord said,.... Here follows the explanation of the sign, and the accommodation of it to the thing signified by it:
like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot; not wholly naked, for that would have been very indecent and dangerous indeed; but without his upper garment, as Saul, 1 Samuel 19:24 and David, 2 Samuel 6:14 or with rent and ragged clothes, and old shoes, as JarchiF11T. Bab. Yoma, fol. 77. 1. & Sabbat, fol. 114. 1. interprets it, and which might be only when he appeared abroad; and how long he thus walked is not certain, whether only one day, as some, or three days, as others, or three years, which is not said, though our version inclines to it; but the three years next mentioned are not to be joined to Isaiah's walking, but to the thing signified by it; for the accent "athnach" is at the word which is rendered "barefoot", and distinguishes this clause from the following. The Septuagint indeed puts the phrase "three years" into both clauses, but it only belongs to the latter:
three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt, and upon Ethiopia; that is, the prophet's walking naked and barefoot was a sign that three years after this Egypt and Ethiopia should be subdued by the Assyrians; or, that so long he should be in subduing them, or their calamities should last such a term of time. This sign was only seen by the Jews, for whose sake chiefly this prophecy was, to take off their dependence on the above nations; though probably this might be made known to the Egyptians and Ethiopians.
So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives,.... As beasts are led or driven, being taken prisoners, and carried captive by the king of Assyria, namely Sargon, whoever is intended by him:
young and old; without any regard to age, sparing none for their tender years or gray hairs:
naked and barefoot; as prisoners of war commonly are, being stripped by their conquerors of their clothes, and having only a few rags given them to cover their nakedness with, and obliged to travel without shoes on their feet:
even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt; having no clothes on them to cover those parts; or the skirts of their garments cut off, as David's servants were by the Ammonites, 2 Samuel 10:4 and this to humble and mortify the pride of the Egyptians.
And they shall be afraid and ashamed,.... That is, those that trusted and depended upon the Egyptians and Ethiopians, particularly the Jews after mentioned, shall be "afraid" that it will be their turn next, that they also shall be taken and carried captive; and they shall be "ashamed" that they have put their trust and confidence in those nations, and not in the Lord:
of Ethiopia their expectation; from whom they expected assistance and protection, particularly when Tirhakah king of Ethiopia went out against the king of Assyria, that he would have been a match for him, and have overcome him, and so have freed them from such a powerful enemy:
and of Egypt their glory; who was their ally, and a very potent one, and in whom they gloried; but now should be ashamed, when both those people on whom they relied were carried captive.
And the inhabitants of this isle shall say, in that day,.... Not of Ashdod, Isaiah 20:1 or the isle of Caphtor, Jeremiah 47:4 but the land of Israel, as both Jarchi and Kimchi interpret it; so called, because it bordered on the sea, as such countries are sometimes called isles; see Jeremiah 25:22. Ben Melech interprets it of Jerusalem, and observes that the word signifies a place or country, whether it has a river or sea encompassing it, or not; besides, the land of Canaan had the Mediterranean sea on one side of it, and the sea of Galilee and Tiberias on the other, and was moreover separated from all other countries by the power, providence, and presence of God:
behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help, to be delivered from the king of Assyria; signifying that it was vain and foolish, and they had acted a very weak, as well as a wicked part, in having recourse to the Egyptians and Ethiopians to help them against the Assyrians, as it plainly appeared by both nations now being conquered by them:
and how shall we escape? seeing they had not, who were more powerful than they were; and how could they think that they could save them, who could not save themselves? and so the Targum,
"if they have not delivered their souls (themselves), how shall we be delivered?'