"In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing on the earth. The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, 'Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance'" (Isaiah 19:24-25 NIV).
Biblical prophecy is weird. As a pastor, I probably shouldn't be calling a third of the Bible weird, but I also think it's important to keep in mind when reading prophecy that we're reading something unusual. The words "prophesy" and "predict" have come to be synonymous in modern English, but prediction was only an incidental role for a biblical prophet. The primary role of a prophet – and, thus, the primary role of prophecy – is to speak to the people on God's behalf. In the Bible, this would often include some speech about the future, but prediction was never the point of the message. Speech from God is not intended to merely inform, but to transform.
Put another way, I think it's so easy to get caught up in the what of prophecy – which might be useful for some of us down the road – that we completely miss the why of prophecy, which is useful to all people in all times. I don't have space here to fully discuss this, but much of the Bible's prophecy has already been fulfilled. If the point had only been to predict, these prophecies would only serve to prove to us God's predictive power, which I believe sells them short.
Prophets serve as corrective agents to the people's misconceptions about God and who God is. "You think that God feels this way or will act in that way, but SURPRISE! You've got it all wrong." The important question when reading predictive biblical prophecy isn't "What's going to happen?" but "Why was God predicting this particular event to those particular people?" The first question tells us about the future, but the second tells us about God. The first prompts us to plan and the second prompts us to trust.
I want to ask that question of today's text. In the time that Isaiah 19 was spoken to Judah, the Assyrians were the big bad guys on the scene. They still stand as one of the most brutal and destructive empires in ancient history. Egypt was the only power in the area with the military capability to stand up to Assyria. Thus, an alliance with Egypt was the most logical move for anybody hoping to resist Assyria.
Our text for today stands in the middle of a prophecy against Egypt (Isaiah 19–20). You see, God didn't want Judah to put their trust in Egypt. God's people should – and really must – put all their trust in God. God is saying through this prophecy against Egypt, "You think you can put your trust in Egypt. But, because of their pride and sin, they will also be overthrown." It's a call to radical faithfulness to God and God alone in the face of stark geopolitical realities.
The "In that day" at the start of verse 24 signals that God has shifted our focus to God's final plan. It would be easy to think from everything that surrounds our text that God's game plan is total annihilation of all of Judah's enemies. It would be easy for Judah to take pride in their exclusive position as God's chosen people. Verses 24–25 (and really 19–25) put up a huge stop sign.
God's final plan is redemption. God's wrath is real and the consequences of setting ourselves up against God are real, but God's ultimate desire and plan is to redeem and to restore. God is working to bring everyone, everyone possible, into the community of faith. God's favored plan for evildoers is not annihilation, but reconciliation (which challenges any simplistic good vs. evil conceptions of humanity).
Jumping forward several hundred years, we hear Israel's ultimate prophet, priest and king say, "Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you" (Matthew 5:44). Understood in light of Isaiah 19:19-25, we see that this command is in line with God's broader plan. God sees past the evil powers of this world to the lost souls caught up in them. Today, we see "Assyria" all around us in the brutal Godlessness of the world. However, our salvation is not an occasion for pride in our goodness and safety. It is a call to actively love even our most bitter enemies. After all, God doesn't just want to save us, but Assyria too.
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