Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. I read Isaiah 20:
A Prophecy Against Egypt and Cush
1 In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it- 2 at that time the LORD spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, "Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet." And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.
3 Then the LORD said, "Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt's shame. 5 Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be afraid and put to shame. 6 In that day the people who live on this coast will say, 'See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?' "
The Bible Knowledge Commentary: 20:1. Isaiah interposed a narrative section here
to drive home what had been said in chapter 18 against Cush and in 19:1-17
against Egypt. Some in Judah wanted to form an alliance with these two nations
to help stave off the Assyrian threat. Chapter 20 shows the foolishness of such
a course of action. In 711 b.c. Ashdod, a Philistine city, was captured by the
commander-in-chief of the Assyrian king Sargon II (722-705). The capture of
Ashdod was to signal to the Judahites that they could not count on foreign
alliances to protect them, for the Assyrians believed their advances could not
be stopped.
20:2-6. For three years Isaiah did not wear his outer
garment of sackcloth (also the attire of Elijah, 2 Kings 1:8), or his sandals.
(He was not completely naked.) This object lesson was to show how the Egyptians
and Cushites would be treated by the victorious Assyrian forces. When those
nations (Egypt and Cush) would fall to the Assyrians (Isa. 20:4), the Judahites
who thought an alliance with those countries would help them would be afraid and
ashamed (v. 5). People would realize that if Egypt and Cush had fallen to
Assyria, then they had no chance for escape (v. 6). Judah, then, should trust in
the Lord for protection rather than in the foreign alliance they were
contemplating.
My Understanding: Shaggy hair: unkept; disheveled; bushy; unshorn; covered with or resembling coarse, long, and usually uneven hair…
A donkey is an animal that carries supplies, so the fact that there was a shift and then the man and the animal disappeared sounds as though this judgment causes depletion both in man and in resources.
If hair is a symbol of authority over someone then this possibly is symbolic of someone who falls under disorderly authority, which was the case in this scripture passage where some people in Judah wanted to form an alliance with Cush and Egypt to help them stave off the Assyrian threat. The fact that the man is poorly dressed could be symbolic of a stripping off of riches as a result of this trust in other men rather than putting his trust in God. This could be symbolic of a single man or it could be representative of a people group.
8/21/08 – I believe that this is speaking about the situation between Russia and Georgia. Georgia was relying upon the USA, NATO and the EU for their support against Russia. The people of Georgia want to form an alliance with NATO and one other organization, I believe, just like Judah wanted to form and alliance with Cush and Egypt to help them against the Assyrian threat.
The result, so far, has been that Russia is having its way with Georgia and that the USA, NATO, the EU, etc. have not yet come to Georgia’s aid other than to provide medical aid and to make threats against Russia. So, Georgia is being stripped of its riches and the people are fleeing their homeland, so this is being fulfilled in this situation here between Russia and Georgia and their allies.
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