🌨️🌨️🌨️☃️🌨️🌨️🌨️

❄️❄️❄️🏂❄️❄️❄️

🚪 [-knock-knock-knock!]

🤔 hello?

🥶 umm…. Hi.

😧 Get inside! What on earth are you doing out in this weather? You’re frozen. Here… have some coffee ☕️

😶‍🌫️ ☕️ thanks…

🤔 Why are you here? You DO realize that we’re supposed to be in the middle of the winter storm of the decade, right? 🌨️❄️🌬️Emergency food, 🥘 extra batteries, 🔋bring your animals inside 🐓🐑🐊🏠, shelter in place and all that?

😐 ☕️ There was no blog post this morning.

😳 Whaaaat?! oh no! Do you think she froze? Should we find a dogsled 🐕🐕🐕🛷 and go check? Should we call the police?! 👮🏻‍♂️ 🚓

😐 Well, she did survive a few winters in Canada. 🇨🇦

😧 Yeah but just barely! Remember the time she dug herself out of her house… WITH A PIZZA PAN? 🍕

😏 Oh yeah… Epic.

😧 What do we do?! What do we do?!

😏 Well… WE could always write the post.

🤔 Ho no. This is Isaiah, not a simple historical narrative.

😏 C’mon. We could do it. And I’ll send a text message to check on her. No dogsleds.

🤔 I’m still not convinced this is a good idea.

😄 It’ll be fine. Let me get my glasses… 🤓 (Ahem) Isaiah 18-20…

🫤 Ho boy….

---

🤓 Once upon a time there were these Cushy people in Ethiopia. 🇪🇹

🙄 They weren’t “cushy”, they were descended from a man named Cush who was the son of Ham and grandson of Noah. And their land was called “Cush” after him.

🤓 Yes, and I was using it in its adjectival form. People from the south do “southern” things. People from the north behave in “northern” ways. People from Cush…

🙄 …do Cushy things. (Sigh) Proceed…

🤓 The people of Cush… uh… are feared because they have conquered other peoples, but it sounds like they are going to be cut off like when you prune a bush.

🤔 When?

🤓 I dunno. I guess it’s probably already happened cuz when I look in my atlas I can’t find a Kingdom of Cush anywhere, and Ethiopia isn’t exactly famous today as a conquering nation.

😯 Ooo can I tell about the theory connected to verse 7?

🤓 Go for it.

🤔 Well… some people think that verse 7 is a hint about the Ark of the Covenant being in Ethiopia and that someday they will take it out of its hiding place and bring it to Jerusalem. It’s supposedly in this church in Aksum, Ethiopia:

🤓 Hmm… I’m not so sure about that. Indiana Jones showed that it was in some top secret government warehouse under the Smithsonian or something.

🤨 Here… you dropped your tinfoil hat. Let’s move on to chapter 19.

🤓 Ok. This one is about Egypt. 🇪🇬 Is this where we get that song “Behold He comes (woo!), riding on the clouds…”?? (Ya gotta do the woo)

🤔 Probably not exactly. But God is described a lot in the Bible as riding on clouds.

🤓 That sounds fun. I wanna ride on a cloud. Kinda like a very fluffy pony. Giddyup lil cloud…☁️

🤔 I think it has more to do with the idea of controlling the weather; ⛈️ especially storms. 🌪️ A lot of the ancients worshiped some kind of storm-god who was depicted riding on clouds ☁️ and hurling lighting bolts. ⚡️⚡️Like Zeus.

🤓 But Yahweh is the REAL cloud-rider.

🤨 Exactly.

🤓 And He shows up on His cloud and brings the powerful kingdom of Egypt to an end.

🤔 Yes. And many of the Egyptians will abandon the gods of Egypt and will serve Yahweh. They’ll even learn Hebrew and study the scriptures. And they did too. A huge Jewish community developed in both Egypt and Ethiopia.

“In that day five of Egypt’s cities will follow the Lord of Heaven’s Armies. They will even begin to speak Hebrew, the language of Canaan. One of these cities will be Heliopolis, the City of the Sun. In that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt, and there will be a monument to the Lord at its border.”
‭‭Isaiah‬ ‭19‬:‭18‬-‭19‬ ‭NLT‬‬

🤔 Some people have proposed wild theories that the Great Pyramid is this “monument,” or maybe an obelisk supposedly marking the location where Israel crossed the Red Sea. But the prophecy mentions a “city of destruction.” In other ancient manuscripts is has “city of the sun” which is Heliopolis. And near Heliopolis an exiled community of Jews would – many years after Isaiah during the space between old and new testaments – they would build a 2nd Temple in a place called Leontopolis. And it was this community of Jews in Egypt that began translating the Old Testament into Greek; what we now call The Septuagint. For 200 years there were 2 temples – one in Jerusalem and one in Leontopolis in Egypt. Betcha didn’t know that.

🤓 Nope. Wow. It really helps to know history doesn’t it?

🤨 Yes. Especially when we’re reading the prophets. Cuz so much of the stuff they predicted is now history to us even though it was maybe even centuries in their future.

🤓 Flux Capacitor… fluxing. Great Scot! 1.21 jiggawatts!

🤔 What?!

🤓 Never mind. Some people will get it. On to chapter 20!

🤔 Ummm. Could we just stop here?

🤓 No. The schedule is for chapters 18-20.

🫤 But chapter 20 is awkward. Isaiah is naked. I’d rather not think about a naked prophet.

🤓 Well… maybe we need to look up a commentary like we learned about.

🤔 That’s a good idea…

🤓 Here is a link to what an ACTUAL scholar has to say about Isaiah 20.

🤔 So, Professor Fausset says that Isaiah didn’t actually go about in the buff and live as a nudist?

🤓 Nope. Professor F says that he removed his outer garment and shoes. Let’s ask that other guy; Matthew Henry.

👨🏻‍🦳 Matthew Henry– (ahem), 2. The making of Isaiah a sign, by his unusual dress when he walked abroad: He had been a sign to his own people of the melancholy times that had come and were coming upon them, by the sackcloth which for some time he had worn, of which he had a gown made, which he girt about him. Some think he put himself into that habit of a mourner upon occasion of the captivity of the ten tribes. Others think sackcloth was what he commonly wore as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world, and that he might learn to endure hardness; soft clothing better becomes those that attend in king’s palaces (Mt. 11:8) than those that go on God’s errands. Elijah wore hair-cloth (2 Ki. 1:8), and John Baptist (Mt. 3:4) and those that pretended to be prophets supported their pretension by wearing rough garments (Zec. 13:4); but Isaiah has orders given him to loose his sackcloth from his loins, not to exchange it for better clothing, but for none at all-no upper garment, no mantle, cloak, or coat, but only that which was next to him, we may suppose his shirt, waistcoat, and drawers; and he must put off his shoes,and go barefoot; so that compared with the dress of others, and what he himself usually wore, he might be said to go naked. This was a great hardship upon the prophet; it was a blemish to his reputation, and would expose him to contempt and ridicule; the boys in the streets would hoot at him, and those who sought occasion against him would say, The prophet is indeed a fool, and the spiritual man is mad, Hosea 9:7.

🤓 Thanks, Professor. That makes sense. Cuz didn’t God command people to cover up?

🤔 Yes. He was very particular about having a ramp instead of stairs going up to the altar so the priests wouldn’t accidentally flash someone (Ex. 20:26). And the priests also had to wear long boxers as a matter of life and death (Ex. 28:42-43).

🤓 And there’s all that talk about nakedness in Leviticus 18. That was another super awkward chapter.

🤔 Yes. Though that is probably talking about more than just being a peeping Tom. God is always consistent with His own Word. He wouldn’t command His anointed priests to cover up then tell His anointed prophet to expose himself to the world. I don’t think God asked Isaiah to be perverse. He may have been stripped down to as little as a thin linen under-tunic called a ketonet or perhaps even just to some kind of loincloth.

🤔 The point is, the prophet does not necessarily have to have his buttocks uncovered in order to prophesy that the Egyptians and Ethiopians will be led captive with their buttocks uncovered.

🤓 That’s good. It’s too cold today to even think about buttocks being uncovered. I got my long underwear on.

🔔 Ting!

🤓 Oh look! She finally texted back!