Many regard Isaiah’s prophecy as a sealed book. Who does it address, only people in the past? A key to this mystery exists in the linear and synchronous structures that govern the book of Isaiah. These enable us to read it as a prophecy about the past but also as a prediction of the future. The book of Isaiah, in other words, serves a twofold purpose. Without taking anything away from what happened in the past, it uses the past as an allegory of the future. In that case, persons and nations of Isaiah’s day typify ones who perform similar roles at the end of the world. The names of past persons and nations function as codenames for their endtime counterparts.

The importance of understanding Isaiah’s message increases daily as world events line up like planets for the fulfillment of his prophecy. Under the codename “Egypt”—the great superpower of Isaiah’s day—America is predicted to suffer spiritual decline, political ineptitude, economic collapse, internal anarchy, and invasion by a foreign military world power from the North—a latter-day “Assyria.” On the other hand, a community of covenanters in “Egypt” will turn back to Jehovah,
who will send them a savior and deliver them. In the end, at the commencement of the millennial age, America will again become “my people”—a covenant people of God (Isaiah 19).

5. 20. 2010

What sets the book of Isaiah apart from all other prophetic writings is its all-inclusiveness in depicting an End-Time scenario. More complete in its portrayal of that time than even apocalyptic writings such as Daniel and Revelation, it spells out a great confluence of events to which humanity may look forward. Using Israel’s ancient history as an allegory of the end of the world, it predicts the future by drawing on events of the past. Only a prophet–poet with extraordinary literary skills could have predicted “the end” based on the world’s beginnings (Isaiah 46:10). Only a visionary who saw both time periods could have crafted such a prophetic masterpiece.

While the book of Isaiah’s apocalyptic message accords with Jewish tradition, and while literary structures provide proof of its twofold applicability—Isaiah’s day and the end of the world—it still requires a leap of faith to believe that this is indeed a handbook for our time. For one thing, it may mean discarding much or all of what we have been taught. Isaiah foresees this confusion when he speaks of the deaf “hearing” and the blind “seeing” the words of his book. Only then will “they who erred in spirit gain understanding and they who murmured accept instruction” (Isaiah 29:18, 24). Fortunately, not all of God’s people fall in that category (Isaiah 66:2, 5).

10. 12. 2011

Isaiah’s use of types of ancient world powers that foreshadow End-Time ones extends to the great superpower Egypt. As with all nations and persons who appear in the book of Isaiah, their true identity emerges when we observe how Isaiah characterizes them, not when we apply historical or archaeological data, though at times that may help. In searching the world today for a nation that matches Isaiah’s description of “Egypt,” the sole candidate is America. That connection is further strengthened by the fact that God’s people anciently dwelt in Egypt, that Joseph ruled Egypt, and that the birthright tribe of Ephraim sprang from Joseph and Asenath, an Egyptian woman.

Isaiah’s “Egypt,” however, is a superpower in decline: “The ministers of Zoan have been foolish, the officials of Noph deluded; the heads of state have led Egypt astray. Jehovah has permeated them with a spirit of confusion; they have misled Egypt in all that it does, causing it to stagger like a drunkard into his vomit. . . . Manufacturers of combed linen and weavers of fine fabrics will be dismayed. The textile workers will know despair, and all who work for wages suffer distress. . . . I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians; they will fight brother against brother and neighbor against neighbor, city against city and state against state” (Isaiah 19:2, 9–10, 13–14).

11. 16. 2011