I was struck quite freshly by this morning’s lectionary reading from Isaiah. (And, yes, Tim Chesterton, we had a whole chapter!) Here’s the portion that really provoked me to pondering:
The LORD will strike Egypt, striking and healing; they will return to the LORD, and he will listen to their supplications and heal them. On that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will worship with the Assyrians. On that day Israel will be the third with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth, whom the LORD of hosts has blessed, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel my heritage.” (Isaiah 19:22-25 NRSV)
Part of the reality of Israel’s life is to be piggy-in-the-middle between two great empires. There is, as far as the respective imperial armies are concerned, already a highway between Assyria and Egypt. It’s called Israel, and as well as a direct route it offers crops and livestock along the way to keep the armies fed. Yet despite this Isaiah envisages a future when they live at peace, the highway is a good thing encouraging trade and peace, and Israel in the middle is the bridge of blessing between the former enemies and between God and his peoples – peoples which include the Assyrians and the Egyptians.
It’s not just the content, however, that makes this a jewel among prophecies. It’s the fact that by the time the book of Isaiah reached its final form, this was a failed prophecy. By comparison with the time the words were first uttered, both Israel and Assyria were rump countries and shadows of their former selves, and the geopolitical kaleidoscope had been well shaken. Isaiah’s universalist vision was an increasingly ill fit in post-exilic times. And yet, it’s still there.
Unlike the future prophecies of peace that we have become used to reading through a messianic lens, and which get a regular Christmas outing, this is still untamed prophecy: a theocratic geopolitics without any messianic ruler. As a clear early and obviously pre-exilic statement of faith in YHWH as the God of the enemy, and of all the nations it is quite a piece of work.
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I’m delighted that you have highlighted this important passage. I know someone who regularly uses this as a promise/prophecy that will one day come to fulfilment.
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