Do Not Go Down to Egypt
Isa 30:1 “Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;
Isa 30:2 who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
Isa 30:3 But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
Isa 30:4 Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
Isa 30:5 everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.”
Isa 30:6 A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation,
Isa 30:7 to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing.
A Rebellious People
Isa 30:8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
Isa 30:9 For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.
Isa 30:10 They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
Isa 30:11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”
Isa 30:12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
Isa 30:13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
Isa 30:14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”
Isa 30:15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
Isa 30:16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
Isa 30:17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.”
The Lord Will Be Gracious
Isa 30:18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
Isa 30:19 People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.
Isa 30:20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.
Isa 30:21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
Isa 30:22 Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”
Isa 30:23 He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows.
Isa 30:24 The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel.
Isa 30:25 In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill.
Isa 30:26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
Isa 30:27 See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.
Isa 30:28 His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; he places in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray.
Isa 30:29 And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people playing pipes go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.
Isa 30:30 The LORD will cause people to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.
Isa 30:31 The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria; with his rod he will strike them down.
Isa 30:32 Every stroke the LORD lays on them with his punishing club will be to the music of timbrels and harps, as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.
Isa 30:33 Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.
1 The prophet threatens the people for their confidence in Egypt, 8 and contempt of God’s word. 18 God’s mercies towards his church. 27 God’s wrath, and the people’s joy, in the destruction of Assyria.
Do Not Go Down to Egypt
Isa 30:1 “Woe to the obstinate children,” declares the LORD, “to those who carry out plans that are not mine, forming an alliance, but not by my Spirit, heaping sin upon sin;
Isaiah still has Sennacherib’s invasion in mind, the time when the Rabshakeh taunted Hezekiah for trusting in Egypt (2 Kings 18:19, 21; Isa. 36:4, 6).
The present chapter gives evidence of a considerable group in Judah that favored an alliance with Egypt. Instead of turning to God and placing their trust in Him, these timorous men rebelled against God and turned to the heathen for help.
Sin upon sin. It was because of the sins of Judah that the Assyrian armies had been permitted to come against her in the first place. Now Judah added to her sin in by going to Egypt for help against Assyria.
Isa 30:2 who go down to Egypt without consulting me; who look for help to Pharaoh’s protection, to Egypt’s shade for refuge.
A land of almost perpetual sunshine and not much shade. At this time Egypt was weak, and unable to provide effective help against Assyria. It was but a few years after this that Egypt itself was invaded by the armies of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanipal).
The pro-Egyptian group in Judah that sent to Egypt for help did not ask counsel from God because they knew they were acting contrary to His will. Upon entering the Promised Land, Israel had been forbidden to make treaties with the inhabitants of the land (Ex. 23:32, 33; Deut. 7:2; Judges 2:2). When Joshua made a covenant with the men of Gibeon he did so without asking counsel of God (Joshua 9:14).
Isa 30:3 But Pharaoh’s protection will be to your shame, Egypt’s shade will bring you disgrace.
Your shame. Egypt was a weak nation at this time (see on v. 2). Sennacherib taunted the men of Judah for looking to a nation that was in no position to help them and declared that the “broken reed” of Egypt would pierce the hand of anyone who leaned upon it (Isa. 36:6; 2 Kings 18:21).
Isa 30:4 Though they have officials in Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,
Zoan. The city had been built seven years after Hebron (Num. 13:22). The Hyksos (see on Gen. 39:1; 45:10) made this city their capital, calling it Avaris. It was later given the name Tanis. A century after Isaiah, in the time of Ezekiel, it seems still to have been an important city (Eze. 30:14).
Isa 30:5 everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them, who bring neither help nor advantage, but only shame and disgrace.”
The Egyptian alliance brought only shame. Its promises of substantial help proved worse than worthless, for it brought down on Judah the wrath of Assyria. It had been the alliance of Hoshea with Egypt and his refusal to pay tribute to Assyria that had, but a few years before, brought Shalmaneser against Samaria (2 Kings 17:4–6).
Isa 30:6 A prophecy concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lions and lionesses, of adders and darting snakes, the envoys carry their riches on donkeys’ backs, their treasures on the humps of camels, to that unprofitable nation,
In this solemn message the prophet graphically portrays the shameless journey of the envoys, with their asses and camels carrying presents, on their way through the Negeb and the Egyptian desert to seek the help of the nation from which God had once delivered them. The land through which they passed was desolate, haunted by wild beasts, vipers, and venomous serpents.
Isa 30:7 to Egypt, whose help is utterly useless. Therefore I call her Rahab the Do-Nothing.
Egypt would promise assistance, but would not actually do anything when her help was needed.
A Rebellious People
Isa 30:8 Go now, write it on a tablet for them, inscribe it on a scroll, that for the days to come it may be an everlasting witness.
The truth Isaiah was about to utter was fraught with importance far beyond the immediate occasion. In it was a lesson for generations yet to come 1 Cor 10:11 Now all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come. (see 1 Cor. 10:11). Rahab (see on Isa. 30:7), the dragon (see Isa. 51:9; see on Job 9:13), represented none other than Satan, the great deceiver (Rev. 12:9).
Those who forsook the Lord and went to Egypt for help were turning to Satan, and in so doing they sought in vain for succor, for Satan was a defeated foe, who could not even save himself. The message to be written on the tablet follows immediately.
Isa 30:9 For these are rebellious people, deceitful children, children unwilling to listen to the LORD’s instruction.
Israel had followed Satan in his rebellion and war against God. Like their father before them (John 8:44), they had made lies their refuge (see on Isa. 28:15).
Isa 30:10 They say to the seers, “See no more visions!” and to the prophets, “Give us no more visions of what is right! Tell us pleasant things, prophesy illusions.
When Satan was cast out of heaven his one object was to deceive the world (Rev. 12:9). In practicing deceit, the people of Judah were following their father the devil. They chose to ignore the prophets of God, whose messages were always unwelcome. So far had these men strayed from truth that they were completely satisfied with error, and demanded messages they knew to be in error.
Isa 30:11 Leave this way, get off this path, and stop confronting us with the Holy One of Israel!”
They knew Isaiah to be a true prophet but wanted nothing to do with him or with God. The very thought of holiness stirred within them feelings of resentment and hatred.
Isa 30:12 Therefore this is what the Holy One of Israel says: “Because you have rejected this message, relied on oppression and depended on deceit,
God responds to the attitude expressed in vs. 8–11. The people, that is, most of them, will not listen, but the words of Isaiah will testify against them in the day of judgment.
These wicked men oppress the weak and then boast about what they have done. Justice and a willingness to listen to reason mark the true children of God. By their arrogant refusal to heed Isaiah’s words, these reprobate hearers had given proof of the justice of the sentence now pronounced upon them.
Isa 30:13 this sin will become for you like a high wall, cracked and bulging, that collapses suddenly, in an instant.
Isa 30:13 Therefore this iniquity shall be to you Like a breach ready to fall, A bulge in a high wall,
A breach ready to fall. A bulge in a high wall warns of a coming crash. The structure these men had built stood on a foundation of sand and was certain to collapse (see on Matt. 7:26, 27).
Isa 30:14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.”
Once broken in pieces, an earthen pot can never be mended for any practical use. Thus it will be with the unregenerate men of Jerusalem. Utter doom awaits them.
Isa 30:15 This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.
The only hope of Judah was to turn from evil back to God. In doing so they would find confidence, rest, and peace. In looking to the strength of men they had found only disappointment, trouble, and defeat, but trust in God would bring peace, calmness, and strength.
Isa 30:16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift!
Assyria had introduced cavalry, and the Jews were relying on a supply of these animals, which they felt were necessary to resist Assyria. Isaiah declares that the horses will prove useful only to facilitate retreat. In ancient times the horse was used almost exclusively in fighting.
Isa 30:17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.”
God had promised His people that, if faithful to Him, five of them would chase a hundred, and a hundred would “put ten thousand to flight” (Lev. 26:8). Because of Judah’s perversity, however, the promised blessing would be reversed.
During the time of Isaiah, Piankhi of Egypt made the proud boast that with the help of his god, Amen, “many shall turn their backs on a few, and one shall rout a thousand.” With a taunting reproach, however, Isaiah proclaimed that those who flee will be the forces of Egypt, in which the reprobate Jews were placing their trust.
Judah would then be left alone like a solitary tree on a mountain peak, or like a flagstaff on a lofty hill. All passers-by could see the terrible fruitage of transgression.
The Lord Will Be Gracious
Isa 30:18 Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion. For the LORD is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!
God was reluctant to bring upon His erring children the judgments with which He threatened them, and would graciously give them every possible opportunity for repentance and salvation.
Isa 30:19 People of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you.
These comforting words addressed to the inhabitants of Jerusalem seem especially appropriate to the period of anxiety and distress following the fall of Samaria and the captivity of Israel. The dwellers in Zion are now given the assurance that they will not suffer the same fate that has befallen their northern neighbors. God will hear their cries and will save them and their city (see ch. 37:21–36).
Isa 30:20 Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them.
This prediction was fulfilled during Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah, when only Jerusalem remained.
The judgments about to fall upon the land would make it appear that God had forsaken them (see Ps. 13:1; 83:1; etc.). Eventually Judah’s faithful teachers, Isaiah and his fellow workers, would be recognized and their faith rewarded. They and their messages would be vindicated when God should deliver Jerusalem.
Isa 30:21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”
God would grant them the guidance of His Spirit to direct them aright and correct them when they were about to go astray. All who will hear this “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) if they will but listen.
Isa 30:22 Then you will desecrate your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, “Away with you!”
With zeal for God, Hezekiah and the devout of Judah would go forth to destroy their graven images and all the monuments of idolatry (see 2 Chron. 31:1). These objects of worship would be cast away as utterly worthless. As the perverse inhabitants of Jerusalem wanted nothing more to do with the Holy One of Israel (Isa. 30:11), the faithful remnant would want nothing to do with idolatry.
Isa 30:23 He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows.
The rain after seed sowing was the “former rain” (see on Joel 2:23), which came in the autumn. The promise here includes both temporal and spiritual blessings. The nation would receive blessings in basket and in store, in the fruits of the ground and in the increase of their cattle and flocks (Deut. 28:3–5; Joel 2:24–26), and they would, in addition, enjoy an outpouring of God’s Holy Spirit (Joel 2:28, 29; Acts 2:17, 18).
Isa 30:24 The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel.
The lowliest of cattle, the oxen and asses that plow the ground, would have the best of feed. Ordinarily, they were fed barley mixed with hay or straw, but “then” (v. 23), says Isaiah, even the lowly asses would be fed the finest of winnowed grain mixed, perhaps, with salt or alkaline herbs. The point is that this would be evidence of the greatest of plenty. Human beings would, accordingly, fare incomparably better.
Isa 30:25 In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill.
He sees the mountains and hills, usually dry and barren, supplied with streams. Even the most unlikely places would yield an abundant harvest. The prophet foresees a golden age in which the earth is to be restored to its original fertility and beauty. Similarly, God would have the earth watered with rich supplies of heavenly grace, transforming the world’s dry and barren wastes into beautiful gardens and flourishing fields (see Isa. 35:1, 2; 41:17–19; 43:19, 20; 44:3, 4; 55:1; John 4:10, 13, 14; John 7:37–39).
The day. That is, the day when God would subdue all His enemies (see Isa. 66:16; Jer. 25:33; Ze. 14:1–3, 8, 9; etc; see also p. 30).
Towers fall. That is, the fortified towers guarding the walls of enemy cities. Compare the fall of mystical Babylon (Jer. 51:8, 29; Rev. 16:19; 18:21; see on Isa. 13:1–18).
Isa 30:26 The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.
Light of the sun. Isaiah describes a world in which there is no intervening veil to bar the light of moon or sun (see Zech. 14:6, 7; Rev. 21:23).
Sevenfold. means simply a great increase of light, or perfection qualitatively rather than quantitatively.
Isa 30:27 See, the Name of the LORD comes from afar, with burning anger and dense clouds of smoke; his lips are full of wrath, and his tongue is a consuming fire.
Name of the Lord. The Lord comes forth to champion the cause of His beleaguered people (see Rev. 19:11–21; GC 633, 642, 656; 6T 406). It is Christ who bears the name of God (Ex. 23:21).
Full of indignation. The hour of God’s indignation will be the time of the seven last plagues (Rev. 15:1, 7; 16:1). When Christ comes again, He will slay the wicked with “the breath of his lips” (Isa. 11:4), with flames of fire (Ps. 50:3; 97:3; 2 Peter 3:10).
Isa 30:28 His breath is like a rushing torrent, rising up to the neck. He shakes the nations in the sieve of destruction; he places in the jaws of the peoples a bit that leads them astray.
Christ’s wrath is pictured as sweeping on with the force of a stream, carrying everything before it (see ch. 8:8).
Sieve of destructions. The wheat is to be separated from the worthless chaff (see on Matt. 3:12; 13:38–40). The chaff, being burned, is reduced to vanity, or nothingness (see on Eccl. 1:2), and the instrument employed in the process of separation is, therefore, termed a “sieve of vanity.”
Again, the figure changes, and the nations are pictured as under the control of a power that impels them on to destruction against their will.
Isa 30:29 And you will sing as on the night you celebrate a holy festival; your hearts will rejoice as when people playing pipes go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the Rock of Israel.
The sacred feast here alluded to is probably the Feast of Tabernacles, in the autumn when the fruits had been gathered (Lev. 23:34, 39–43; Neh. 8:14–18). This was an occasion of great joy.
In later times the feast included a night ritual in which the court of the Temple was illuminated by great lamps hoisted atop two lofty standards, which shed their beams far across the city (see DA 463).
The Feast of Tabernacles was often termed “the feast” (1 Kings 8:2; 2 Chron. 7:8, 9). The ceremony of the lights commemorated the pillar of light that guided Israel in their march through the desert and pointed forward to the coming of Messiah as the Light of the world. On this occasion the people made their way with great happiness of spirit to Jerusalem, singing sacred songs and playing pipes.
Isa 30:30 The LORD will cause people to hear his majestic voice and will make them see his arm coming down with raging anger and consuming fire, with cloudburst, thunderstorm and hail.
In highly figurative language Isaiah depicts the defeat of the Assyrian hosts (see v. 31). Similar language is used elsewhere to describe actual events at the second coming of Christ (Rev. 16:18–21; 19:15).
Isa 30:31 The voice of the LORD will shatter Assyria; with his rod he will strike them down.
The prediction made here points to the destruction of Sennacherib’s army (see ch. 37:36). As the Assyrian smote with a rod, so he would be smitten with the rod of God’s wrath. Similarly, all the wicked will finally be smitten with a “rod of iron” (Ps. 2:9; Rev. 2:27; 12:5; cf. Isa. 19:15).
Isa 30:32 Every stroke the LORD lays on them with his punishing club will be to the music of timbrels and harps, as he fights them in battle with the blows of his arm.
According to this reading, every stroke of divine judgment upon Assyria will be greeted by songs of victory and rejoicing on the part of God’s people.
Isa 30:33 Topheth has long been prepared; it has been made ready for the king. Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the LORD, like a stream of burning sulfur, sets it ablaze.
The destruction of Sennacherib’s army is referred to once more, in highly figurative language (see on v. 30). This name was given the Valley of Hinnom, on the south of Jerusalem, where human beings, particularly children, were sacrificed to Molech (see on 2 Kings 16:3; 23:10; Jer. 7:31; cf. Jer. 19:6, 11–13). It became symbolic of the fires of the last day.
The Greek transliteration of the Heb. Ge Hinnom, Valley of Hinnom—Geenna—is always translated “hell” in the NT (see on Matt. 5:22). Here, Tophet is pictured as the place where the enemies of the Lord are to be consumed with fire (see Isa. 33:14; Heb. 12:29; Rev. 20:9).