Isaiah 30:1

Egypt Will Prove Unreliable

30:1 “The rebellious ¹  children are as good as dead,” ²  says the Lord,

“those who make plans without consulting me, ³ 

who form alliances without consulting my Spirit, ⁴ 

and thereby compound their sin. ⁵ 

Isaiah 20:1-6

20:1 The Lord revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. ⁶  20:2 At that time the Lord announced through ⁷  Isaiah son of Amoz: “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off your feet.” He did as instructed and walked around in undergarments ⁸  and barefoot. 20:3 Later the Lord explained, “In the same way that my servant Isaiah has walked around in undergarments and barefoot for the past three years, as an object lesson and omen pertaining to Egypt and Cush, 20:4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old. They will be in undergarments and barefoot, with the buttocks exposed; the Egyptians will be publicly humiliated. ⁹  20:5 Those who put their hope in Cush and took pride in Egypt will be afraid and embarrassed. ¹⁰  20:6 At that time ¹¹  those who live on this coast ¹²  will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

[30:1]  ¹ tn Or “stubborn” (NCV); cf. NIV “obstinate.”

[30:1]  ² tn Heb “Woe [to] rebellious children.”

[30:1]  ³ tn Heb “making a plan, but not from me.”

[30:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “and pouring out a libation, but not [from] my spirit.” This translation assumes that the verb נָסַךְ (nasakh) means “pour out,” and that the cognate noun מַסֵּכָה (massekhah) means “libation.” In this case “pouring out a libation” alludes to a ceremony that formally ratifies an alliance. Another option is to understand the verb נָסַךְ as a homonym meaning “weave,” and the cognate noun מַסֵּכָה as a homonym meaning “covering.” In this case forming an alliance is likened to weaving a garment.

[30:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “consequently adding sin to sin.”

[20:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “In the year the commanding general came to Ashdod, when Sargon king of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and captured it.”

[20:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “spoke by the hand of.”

[20:2]  ¹² tn The word used here (עָרוֹם, ’arom) sometimes means “naked,” but here it appears to mean simply “lightly dressed,” i.e., stripped to one’s undergarments. See HALOT 883 s.v. עָרוֹם. The term also occurs in vv. 3, 4.

[20:4]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “lightly dressed and barefoot, and bare with respect to the buttocks, the nakedness of Egypt.”

[20:5]  ²¹ tn Heb “and they will be afraid and embarrassed because of Cush their hope and Egypt their beauty.”

[20:6]  ²⁶ tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV).

[20:6]  ²⁷ sn This probably refers to the coastal region of Philistia (cf. TEV).