Isaiah 20: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

In the year the Assyrian commander captured the Philistine city of Ashdod, the LORD tells Isaiah to take off his rough clothing and sandals and go about naked and barefoot. Isaiah does this for three years as a sign about Egypt and Cush. The LORD explains the sign: Assyria will lead away captives from Egypt and Cush stripped and barefoot, and the people who counted on those nations for help will be ashamed and will ask how they themselves can escape.

Claim by Claim

1. 20:1
   • In the year that the Assyrian commander-in-chief came to Ashdod, the events that follow took place.
   • Sargon was king of Assyria.
   • Sargon sent the commander to Ashdod.
   • The commander fought against Ashdod.
   • The commander captured Ashdod.
2. 20:2
   • At that same time the LORD spoke through Isaiah.
   • Isaiah was the son of Amoz.
   • The LORD told Isaiah to go.
   • The LORD told Isaiah to loosen the sackcloth from his waist.
   • The LORD told Isaiah to take the sandals off his feet.
   • Isaiah did what the LORD told him.
   • Isaiah went about naked and barefoot.
3. 20:3
   • The LORD spoke.
   • The LORD called Isaiah his servant.
   • Isaiah had walked naked and barefoot.
   • The period involved was three years.
   • It is not clear whether the three years describes how long Isaiah walked or how long the sign lasts.
   • Isaiah's walking was a sign and a portent.
   • The sign and portent were against Egypt.
   • The sign and portent were against Cush.
4. 20:4
   • In the same way the king of Assyria will lead away Egyptian prisoners.
   • The king of Assyria will lead away Cushite exiles.
   • Those led away will include the young and the old.
   • Those led away will be naked and barefoot.
   • Their buttocks will be uncovered.
   • This will be the shame of Egypt.
5. 20:5
   • They will be dismayed.
   • They will be ashamed.
   • Cush was their expectation.
   • Egypt was their glory.
6. 20:6
   • The inhabitant of this coastland will speak on that day.
   • He will say that this is what became of their expectation.
   • They had fled to that expectation for help.
   • They had fled there to be delivered from the king of Assyria.
   • He will ask how they themselves can escape.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1

"Tartan" in the King James is not a personal name but an Assyrian title, roughly "commander-in-chief," the second-ranking officer after the king. Ashdod was one of the five main Philistine cities, a port on the Mediterranean coast southwest of Jerusalem. Sargon II ruled Assyria, the dominant empire of the region, and his general took Ashdod after it revolted, around 711 BC, an event Sargon also records in his own inscriptions.

20:2

Sackcloth was a coarse fabric of goat or camel hair, worn next to the skin as a sign of mourning or grief, and here apparently as Isaiah's ordinary prophetic dress. Stripping it off left him in whatever was underneath. "Naked" in Hebrew usage does not always mean completely unclothed; it often means stripped down to a loincloth, or wearing only an undergarment, the state of a slave or a prisoner of war rather than of a bather. The text does not settle which is meant here. Prophets sometimes delivered a message by acting it out in public rather than only speaking it. The performance was the message, and it was meant to be seen and asked about.

20:3

"Ethiopia" in the King James translates Cush, which is not the modern country of Ethiopia. Cush was the kingdom to the south of Egypt, in what is now southern Egypt and Sudan, Nubia. At this period a Cushite dynasty ruled Egypt itself, which is why the two are named together throughout the chapter. "Sign and wonder" here means a portent or omen: an action performed as a public advertisement of something that will happen, not a miracle. The three years are counted from when Isaiah began; the text does not say whether he went stripped continuously or only on set occasions.

20:4

Assyrian palace carvings show prisoners of war driven along stripped and barefoot, and the humiliation was deliberate policy as much as practicality. "To the shame of Egypt" means the disgrace falls on Egypt as a nation, whose people are being paraded this way.

20:5

Small states like Judah and the Philistine cities, caught between Assyria and Egypt, repeatedly looked to the Egyptian–Cushite alliance for military backing against Assyrian invasion. "Their expectation" in the King James means the thing they were counting on; "their glory" means the ally they boasted about having.

20:6

"Isle" in the King James translates a Hebrew word covering islands and also coastlines, the seaboard strip along the Mediterranean, here the coastal country including Philistia and Judah's neighbors. It does not mean an island.