Isaiah 20

This happened in the year the chief commander of the Assyrian army came to the city of Ashdod. Sargon, king of Assyria, was the one who sent him. He attacked Ashdod and captured it.

1In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;

Note"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.

2At that same time the LORD had spoken through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said, "Go, take off the rough cloth you wear around your waist, and take the sandals off your feet." Isaiah did it, and went around naked and barefoot.

2At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot.

NoteSackcloth 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.

3Then the LORD said, "My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot for three years. He is a sign and a warning about what is coming to Egypt and Cush.

3And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia;

Note"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.

4In the same way, the king of Assyria will lead away prisoners from Egypt and captives from Cush. Young and old alike will go naked and barefoot, with their backsides bare. It will shame Egypt.

4So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.

NoteAssyrian 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.

5People who counted on Cush to help them, and who bragged about Egypt, will be frightened and ashamed.

5And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.

NoteSmall 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.

6On that day the people living along this stretch of coast will say, "Look what happened to the ones we counted on. We ran to them for help, to be rescued from the king of Assyria. So how can we get away now?"

6And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?

Note"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.