To be sure, Egypt is used elsewhere in Scripture as a type of the old life. To “return to Egypt” is a warning to believers not to return to their pre-Christian lifestyle. In the context of Isaiah, however, Egypt is both a one-time enemy and a false ally to whom Israel turned to help from time to time. They are probably representative of the worst kind of relationship, one which you never wished you’d ever developed to begin with, someone you simply wish you’d never even met. If they’re not trying to dominate and control you, they’re failing to support you.
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Some translations take the liberty of designating this as Ethiopia, but it’s more likely using the jargon of the time to describe a very distant, even unknown nation to Israel at the time. (No, I’m not trying to say this is “America”.) But when you look at all the other nations mentioned in chapters 13-23 of Isaiah, they’re all either somehow a familial relation to Israel through Abraham, or a nation with whom they’ve sought an alliance, or an eventual conqueror, or combinations of these. This one is in a category all its own. It has no familial connection, never signed a political pact, nor interacted militarily with Israel. It’s the very definition of a “Gentile” nation, completely removed from Israel.
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Although the city of Damascus is with us today, the people that originally lived there have long disappeared. The city has changed hands several times so that the Arameans of Isaiah’s time have been long extinct, having experienced God’s judgment on them in every detail biblically predicted. The chief issue that kept arising with Damascus is that it was an ally sought by Israel to provide earthly protection and partnership that they were supposed to only pursue with the God of Israel.
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Both Israel and Moab are related to each other through Abraham. Israel is a direct descendant while Moab was Abraham’s nephew, one of the sons of Lot. It’s fair to say that they were given a spiritual legacy through Abraham, even to the point of God providing for them their own lands to the southeast of Israel on the other side of the Dead Sea. When Israel came out of Egypt, God gave them specific instructions to let Moab alone, that He did not number them among the wicked as were the nations occupying Canaan at that time. But because of its own continuing issues of sin and rebelliousness, Moab suffered God’s judgment so that by Jesus’ time they were an extinct people.
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In the person of Jesus, God has revealed all the things for which we should aspire and provided all the guidelines for becoming “Christ-like”. So if Christ Himself “delight[s] in the fear of the Lord“, I most certainly have no alternative but to do the same. And if He “will not judge by what His eyes see”, I’d better learn to look at things the way He does. It’s humbling to come face to face with the fact that God didn’t just issue a set of rules and conditions by which humans alone must exclusively abide, but provided a real-life example of them in action to prove that they’re attainable.
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At first I’m thinking, “OK…how can they ‘know’ and understand the message God has sent, and yet allow their pride to ignore it?” And now I’m wondering that if it happened then, does it still happen now? Do people — even Christians — continue to plan a new endeavor in their own strength and pride even though the most recent was mowed down spiritually by God Himself? Alas, yes. One of the examples that immediately comes to mind is church itself.
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Here’s an interesting teaser of why it’s just so wrong to engage in even casual participation of earthly conspiracy theories: You’re lending approval to the notion that something is greater than God.
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