Thoughts on Isaiah 19

Today’s reading: Isaiah 19;  Peter 3

The opening line of Isaiah’s oracle concerning Egypt in Isaiah 19 serves so many purposes at once.

First, to Isaiah's original audience, he is opening with a polemic against Baal, the Canaanite god who Israel was constantly turning to in worship. Baal was described in Ugaritic texts as the one who rides the clouds. So saying that the Lord, Yahweh, is riding on a swift cloud as He descends on Egypt for judgment is a theological statement that Yahweh, not Baal, is the one with the authority, and therefore the one Israel should be worshipping and loyal to. While this is not familiar language to us, it would have been very familiar language to Isaiah's contemporaries, leaving no question at all that he was taking a jab at Baal.

Beyond the polemic against Baal, Isaiah 19 helps establish Jewish "binitarian" theology. Christians generally have Trinitarian theology, believing in a single God who exists eternally in the three persons of the Trinity; the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jewish writings and teachings from well before the time of Christ, and continuing on until around 200 AD, show us that they held a similar binitarian view. While they did not have an understanding of the Holy Spirit, they recognized that at times, in the Old Testament Scriptures, God is present as a disembodied/spiritual entity, and at other times He appears in a body. And while you could make the argument, in many passages, that this is the same "person" just showing Himself in different ways, there are a handful of passages in which they are both present together or they reference one another in the third person. This led Jewish scholars and teachers to talk about the two Yahwehs, one embodied and one disembodied, though both Yahwehs were one God. It was not until teaching about Jesus was spreading, claiming that He was Yahweh in the flesh, that this teaching suddenly went from being orthodox Jewish belief to being declared heresy by the Jews (purely coincidental timing, I'm sure...).

But Isaiah 19 helps make the case for the Binitarian view of Yahweh in the Old Testament because both Yahwehs seem to be in view. First, in the opening verse, the embodied Yahweh is said to be riding on a swift cloud. This language does not make sense for the disembodied Yahweh, so in talking about Him riding on a cloud on His way to Egypt, Isaiah makes it clear we are dealing with the embodied Yahweh, the Angel of the Lord. However, it does not say, "I am riding on a swift cloud," but "the Lord is riding on a swift cloud," referring to Him in the third person. Then, in the very next sentence, it changes to the first person and Yahweh starts speaking about what He will personally do. So the fact that God can say "He is coming on the clouds, and I will do these things," tells us that both persons are present in this passage at the same time. Interestingly, it also tells us that what is being done is the will/purpose of the disembodied Yahweh, but it is being carried out by the embodied Yahweh. This parallels Jesus's own word when He said, "For I have come down from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me." The Son comes to carry out the will of the Father, and this was evidently the pattern prior to the incarnation as well.

Then, along with what God was doing through Isaiah with this passage when he originally wrote it, Jesus uses this passage to tie Himself back to the person of the embodied Yahweh of the Old Testament. When talking about the signs of the last days in Matthew 24, Jesus says, "Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory." While Yahweh describes bringing judgement upon Egypt in Isaiah 19, then chapter also ends with a look toward the "last days" where Egypt, along with Assyria and Israel, are all God's people. In the same way, as Jesus puts Himself in the place of Yahweh, coming on the clouds of Heaven in the last days, He is likewise bringing judgement, but also, if you continue reading on in Matthew 24, gathering His people from those nations that are being judged. Jesus is not only telling us that He is the embodied Yahweh, the Angel of the Lord, sent to bring about the Father's will, but also declaring that it is not only Egypt and Assyria, but every nation from which God will gather His people to Himself in the last days.

I know that is mostly just the first verse or two of Isaiah 19 that we talked about this morning, but there is enough going on, and this imagery gets repurposed enough, that I thought it would be worth taking the time to look at it.