King James Version
Isaiah 20
6 verses with commentary
A Sign Against Egypt and Cush
In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it;
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KJV Study Commentary
<strong>In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it.</strong> Precise historical reference grounds the prophecy: Tartan (Assyrian military commander title, not personal name) conquered Ashdod (Philistine city) under Sargon II's orders. Archaeological validation: Sargon's annals record this 712-711 BCE campaign. This demon...
Read full commentary →Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
**XX.**
(1) **In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod.**—Better, *the Tartan. *The word was an official title borne by the generalissimo of the Assyrian armies, who was next in authority to the king. He may, or may not, have been the same with the officer of the same rank who appears in 2Kings 18:17 as sent by Sennacherib to Jerusalem.
**When Sargon the king of Assyria sent him.**—Much light has ...
Read full commentary →Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
13-14. (Pr 17:24). The worldly "wise" man has good sense in managing his affairs, skill and taste in building and planting, and keeps within safe and respectable bounds in pleasure, while the "fool" is wanting in these respects ("darkness," equivalent to fatal error, blind infatuation), yet one event, death, happens to both (Job 21:26).
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Chapter 20
The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear no upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by...
Read full commentary →At 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. by: Heb. by the hand of
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KJV Study Commentary
'At 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.' God commands shocking sign-act: Isaiah walks naked (likely meaning stripped to loincloth, not fully nude) and barefoot. Prophets performed symbolic acts to communicate divine messages (Jeremiah's yoke, Eze...
Read full commentary →Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(2) **Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins.**—Against these schemes Isaiah was prompted to prophesy in act as well as words. Month by month, for three whole years, he was seen in the streets of Jerusalem as one who was already as a prisoner of war, ready to be led into an ignominious exile. The “sackcloth” was the “rough garment” which, like Elijah (2Kings 1:8) and John the Baptist, the p...
Read full commentary →Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
13-14. (Pr 17:24). The worldly "wise" man has good sense in managing his affairs, skill and taste in building and planting, and keeps within safe and respectable bounds in pleasure, while the "fool" is wanting in these respects ("darkness," equivalent to fatal error, blind infatuation), yet one event, death, happens to both (Job 21:26).
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Chapter 20
The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear no upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by...
Read full commentary →And 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;
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KJV Study Commentary
'And 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.' God explains the sign: Isaiah's three years of humiliation prefigures Egypt and Ethiopia's coming shame. 'Sign and wonder' (oth umopheth) indicates miraculous testimony—not just unusual but divinely authenticated message. The three-year duration intensified ...
Read full commentary →Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(3) **For a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia.**—Apparently Isaiah prophesied in act, but in silence, and did not unfold the meaning of the symbol till the three years came to an end. There are no adequate grounds for limiting his dramatic action to a single day or three days. Egypt and Ethiopia are, as in Isaiah 18, 19, closely connected, both countries being under a king of Ethiopian ...
Read full commentary →Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
**15. why was I--**so anxious to become, &c. (2Ch 1:10).
**Then--**Since such is the case.
**this--**namely, pursuit of (worldly) wisdom; it can never fill the place of the true wisdom (Job 28:28; Jr 8:9).
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Chapter 20
The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear no upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by...
Read full commentary →So 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. the Egyptians: Heb. the captivity of Egypt shame: Heb. nakedness
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KJV Study Commentary
'So 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.' The prophecy's fulfillment explained: Assyria will deport Egyptians and Ethiopians exactly as Isaiah depicted—naked, barefoot, buttocks exposed (ultimate humiliation in honor/shame culture). 'Young and old' indi...
Read full commentary →Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(4) **So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians . . .**—The prediction did not receive its fulfilment in the reign either of Sargon or Sennacherib, but Esarhaddon subdued the whole of Egypt, carried off its treasures, and appointed satraps over its provinces (Budge’s *Esarhaddon, *pp. 111-129). The prophet paints the brutality with which prisoners were treated on a march in vivid colour...
Read full commentary →Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
**16. remembrance--**a great aim of the worldly (Ge 11:4). The righteous alone attain it (Psa 112:6; Pr 10:7).
**for ever--**no perpetual memorial.
**that which now is--**Maurer, "In the days to come all things shall be now long ago forgotten."
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Chapter 20
The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear no upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by...
Read full commentary →And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.
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KJV Study Commentary
'And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory.' The alliance-seekers will experience fear and shame when their hoped-for help fails. 'Ethiopia their expectation' (mibtagam—what they looked to hopefully) and 'Egypt their glory' (tiphariam—what they boasted in) both proved empty. This demonstrates that misplaced trust inevitably disappoints. Those who ...
Read full commentary →Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
17. Disappointed in one experiment after another, he is weary of life. The backslider ought to have rather reasoned as the prodigal (Ho 2:6, 7; Lu 15:17, 18).
**grievous unto me--**(Job 10:1).
Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Chapter 20
The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear no upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by...
Read full commentary →And 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? isle: or, country
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KJV Study Commentary
'And 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?' The 'isle' (Hebrew 'iy—coastland/region) likely refers to Judah/Palestine from Assyrian perspective. Inhabitants will lament: 'This is what came of our expectation'—our hoped-for help proved useless. The rhetorical que...
Read full commentary →Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers
(6) **The inhabitant of this** **isle . . .**—Better, as elsewhere, *coast-land. *Here it probably refers to the whole coast of Philistia, which had been foremost in the revolt, and Phœnicia, Tyre also having joined in it (*Annals of Sargon *in Lenormant’s *Anc. Hist., *i. 396). Cyprus, the conquest of which Sargon records (*Records* *of the Past, *vii. 51), may also be included. The whole sea-boa...
Read full commentary →Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
18-19. One hope alone was left to the disappointed worldling, the perpetuation of his name and riches, laboriously gathered, through his successor. For selfishness is mostly at the root of worldly parents' alleged providence for their children. But now the remembrance of how he himself, the piously reared child of David, had disregarded his father's dying charge (1Ch 28:9), suggested the sad misgi...
Read full commentary →Matthew Henry’s Concise Commentary
Chapter 20
The invasion and conquest of Egypt and Ethiopia.
Isaiah was a sign to the people by his unusual dress, when he walked abroad. He commonly wore sackcloth as a prophet, to show himself mortified to the world. He was to loose this from his loins; to wear no upper garments, and to go barefooted. This sign was to signify, that the Egyptians and Ethiopians should be led away captives by...
Read full commentary →