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Dr. Manny Arango
Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry, that's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website, built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade. Get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped. Family. Welcome to day 197. We are in the book of Isaiah, walking through Isaiah, chapter 16, 17, 18 and 19. We got four chapters to cover today. If you haven't done the reading, make sure that you do the reading. These episodes are not designed to be a substitute for reading the Bible, but a supplement to help you read the Bible. So do your Bible reading and, and come back if you have done your reading. And I wanna remind you that we are in a bigger section, okay? Isaiah chapter 16 to 19 exists within a larger section of the book, which is Isaiah chapter 13 to 23, which contained oracles against the nations. And we're gonna keep the party going. Chapter 16 and 19, we got some more oracles against the nations. We are going to get Moab again. We're gonna get Damascus, okay? We're gonna get Kush and then we're gonna get Egypt. Okay, so four more nations. We're gonna get a continuation of the oracles against Moab from yesterday. They're gonna flow right on into today. Not a ton to say about the oracles against Moab, but one of the things that I wanna help us understand is that Damascus is the capital of Aram or the Aramean. The Nation of the Arameans. Okay? So when you think Damascus or you think Arameans or Aram, that's talking about the same place. And this is modern day Syria. Modern day Syria. So if it's helpful for you to think about it as Syria, you totally can. Okay, so Damascus, Aram, Syria. That is the same. Same jam. Okay, Same stuff. Okay? We're going to get oracles against Cush in the Bible. Cush is code word for black people, ok? Kush, ok? Moses had a wife from Kush, ok? And remember his sister is upset about it and since she's racist, God turns her hand leprous white. Because God's got a sense of humor. Like, you want to be white, I'm going to make you white white. Okay? So Kush. Kush is talking about black people. Now when the Bible talks about Kush, it is talking about Sudan and Ethiopia, okay? So if you want to put that on a map, obviously Kush is not a word that we use today. So that would be Sudan and Ethiopia. Sudan and Ethiopia. We'll get into a little bit about some historical context because that's actually really, really, it's important. So, and then Egypt, everybody know where Egypt is? Egypt is still a nation. So Egypt has maintained similar borders actually since biblical times. All right, so let's dive into some context clues today. First we're gonna just get some dates going. Damascus, Aram, Syria, however you wanna refer to. This group of people is destroyed by Assyria in 732 B.C. so the Oracle is most likely it predates 732 B.C. now here's a good place for me to stop and let everybody know that the book of Isaiah and prophetic books in general are not gonna work in chronological order. Okay? So like yesterday we were reading or maybe it was two days ago, and I said, oh, look at that. This prophecy was given the year that Ahaz died. And we know from history that that was 715 B.C. i think that is the date that I gave you yesterday. Any. Yeah, I'm not gonna spend time trying to check it. You can fact check me. Okay, that was 715 B.C. and now we're here and we're reading something that is probably predates 732 B.C. and that may be disorienting or confusing for some of you. Well, here's a word that I want to introduce and it's that the prophetic books are anthologies. Okay? So they don't function like a chronology, they function like an anthology. And so an anthology is a collection. Okay? So let's Say I actually, I do have a collection of Tupac Shakur's poems. Okay. A collection of poems is not going to be written in chronological order. A collection is going to be maybe organized by theme instead of organized by date. And so the book of Isaiah are. Let's think about it. I think trying to get this off the top of my head, I have to fact check myself. I think that Isaiah prophesied over like a 40 something year period. So let's just think about how many sermons, like. Cause in ancient Israel, a prophet really functioned like a preacher. All right? And so let's just think how many, how many sermons, how many prophetic messages, how many oracles this man had in a 40 year ministry. And the 66 chapters that we have here are probably just a. I mean, a fraction of the body of work that this man probably produced in his lifetime. So the book of Isaiah is obviously not a book about the life of Isaiah. It is a collection of, of prophecy sermons and oracles that Isaiah spoke out. And when we get to the book of Jeremiah, Jeremiah is even gonna tell us the name of the guy who wrote down his sermons. So Jeremiah is the guy preaching and there's a guy named Baruch who's like writing everything down. So the book of Isaiah is an anthology of poems, prophecies, sermons and oracles. So if you're ever disoriented, like, wait a second, I thought this was moving in chronological order. You're okay, like that, that's, that's normal for like maybe modern prose to be written in chronological order. But this is not modern and is not prose. This is poetry and it is prophecy and it's. It's also. I, I have Timothy Keller's. Like a collection of Timothy Keller's sermons. That kind of, that. Yeah, they kind of do a little bit chronologically and then a lot of it through thematically. So. All right, I just want you to like have that funny, funny kind of joke, not joke, funny situation. A friend of mine, he's a preacher, he lives in la, he's got an amazing church. And he found out that there was a woman at the church that was taking like incredible notes like while he was preaching. Just like, I mean, almost like manuscript. Like just taking like, that's pages and pages of notes and then she would like go photocopy them and she was selling them for like $5 in the lobby. And they had to shut that down because like. Ma', am, what are you doing? But hey, we love the enthusiasm. Let's keep up the energy. Let's just not maybe like sell the pastor's notes in the lobby. Anyway, so Isaiah is the one preaching. He's probably not the one writing. He's probably like Jeremiah has Baruch. He probably has somebody who's writing down his sermons, his prophecies, his oracles and his poems. And they are collecting them all together. And that is why things are not always in chronological order. I hope that's helpful for you to know and understand. All right, now, interesting context clue. Why is Cush prophesied against? Cush? Modern day Sudan and Ethiopia are going to be prophesied against because the. This whole land of Cush was obsessed with Egypt. Actually, you. This is just. This is. This ain't even a Bible nerdy nugget. This is a nerdy nugget from life. There are actually more pyramids in Sudan than there are in Egypt, okay. Because the, the people of Kush loved the Egyptians, okay? And so in 744 BC you get the 25th Dynasty of Egypt and this is actually called the Nubian dynasty of Egypt. And it is about 80 years of black pharaohs, okay? So black men, okay, so like Sudanese, current day Sudanese or Ethiopian men conquer Egypt and you get about 80 years of what history refers to as the black pharaohs. That's just kind of baller, yo. Like what you mean it was just like black pharaohs. That, that's. I just feel like that should be like a marvel. That should be in the Marvel universe, but that is not in the Marvel universe. That's real history. There were actually black pharaohs for about 80 years. And so the thing that's going to end the reign of the Nubian pharaohs or the, or the Nubian dynasty or the black pharaohs is in 673 BC the Assyrian military is going to begin the conquest of Egypt. And they are going to succeed. It's going to take them a long time. They'll take them about 10 years. But right around 663 BC, Egypt is going to become a vassal of a vassal state to Assyria. Big bad Assyria. So Cush is gonna get an oracle against it because they've conquered Egypt. And then Egypt is gonna get an oracle against it. And the oracle against Egypt is going to be a prediction that they are going to fall to the Assyrians, that they are going to. Because again, they're arrogant because of how they've treated the people of Israel. They are going to become a vassal state to the Assyrians, but in the middle. So. So I just gave you a Lot of date so that you can see, okay. Like Isaiah's prophesying before these things occur. Okay, so that's all my context clues. Now we can move into some nerdy nuggets. Okay, I got two big nerdy nuggets for you. Here's the first one. I know in modern language, like in today's language, we love to say things like family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold. Literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to correct crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote a good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. I just want you to visit my nation. Like God, we need a visitation of the Lord. And I know that's like a popular thing for us to say, especially in Pentecostal circles, but a visitation from the Lord in the. But in biblical terms is not a good thing. Okay, so Isaiah, chapter 19, verse 1 is actually going to start out and God's going to come to Egypt. A prophecy against Egypt. See the Lord rise on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt tremble before him. The hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear. Okay, the coming day of the Lord is not the way that we use this in our current vernacular. Like God, would you visit us? When God visits in the Old Testament, he's going to visit with. With judgment. And so I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian. Brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom. The Egyptians will lose heart and will bring their plans to nothing. They will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead, the mediums and the spiritists. I will hand the Egyptians over to the power of a cruel master. And a fierce king will rule over them. Declares the Lord. Declares the Lord. The Lord Almighty. Obviously we know that's going to be Assyria. Let's actually go down to verse 19. This is going to steal some thunder from my timeless truth. But it's okay. Verse 19. And that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt and a monument to the Lord at its borders. It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cried out to the Lord because of their oppressors, He. He will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. Yo, this is actually really, really cool like that. So let's, like, unpack this. Because my timeless truth, and I know I'm still in thunder for my timeless truth. My timeless truth is coming in a couple of minutes. But my timeless truth today is that laced with every judgment is also a promise that God doesn't give judgment without a promise of restoration. And so here's a promise that we get a restoration. And that day there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt and a monument to the Lord at its borders. It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. They will cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors. He will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. So here is one of the coolest things. Number one, Egypt has one of the highest populations of Christians in the entire Middle east today. So there's actually a fulfillment to this prophecy, like in our own time right now, like, for most Christians, the Coptic Orthodox Church in Egypt, I don't know if you know this, they baptize infants because they're Orthodox, but they also tattoo infants. They put a little cross on baby's wrists. And they do that because they live in an Arab world, they live in a Muslim world. And so if you go to Egypt today, you'll be able to really eat easily identify who the Christians are, because they all have a little orthodox cross tattoo on their wrist. And they got that cross tattooed on them when they were infants. And so anyone who's like anti tattoo, I always love to tell them, interesting that you're anti tattoo. You probably developed that opinion while you were living inside of a bubble. Because if you actually, like, visit the world, the tattoo that Christians have in Egypt is not anti Christian at all. It's actually a way to mark children from birth so that they will always be believers. And even if they go away from the faith, they'll always be marked by God. There's a literal, permanent mark on their body. So that even. Because again, people who baptize infants, unlike Protestants, don't believe that God is just saving individuals, but saving households. And so there are tons of Christians who believe that it is the parent's responsibility to baptize you as a baby so that you would be marked by God from birth. This is not the place for us to get into that debate about whether or not that's a good thing to believe or a bad thing to believe. But there are millions of Christians around the globe who that is exactly what they believe. And I don't think they're crazy. Anyway, let's keep moving. In that day, there will be an altar to the Lord in the heart of Egypt and a monument to the Lord at its borders. It will be a sign and witness to the Lord Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the Lord because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender and he will rescue them. Okay, so what is going to happen, man, if this is written prior to 7744, somewhere between 744 and 732 BC well, what we know from history is that in 586 BC not only is the obviously the northern kingdom of Israel is going to fall in 722 BC but the southern kingdom of Judah is going to fall in 586 BC and when that happens, there's going to be a group of Jews that are scared that Nebuchadnezzar is going to come back for more retribution. So they flee. Where? To Egypt. And they bring a very reluctant Jeremiah with them. So the book of Lamentations is all about, like, Jeremiah being forced to go to Egypt, and he doesn't want to, but they form a Jewish colony in a city known as Alexandria. And about 250 years before the birth of Jesus, these Jews in Alexandria, I actually have one of the largest Jewish populations outside of Israel. And they produce a little thing called the Septuagint. The Septuagint is the Greek translation of the Hebrew. Tanakh. The Tanakh. The Hebrew scriptures. Okay. They are going to produce the first translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into the Greek language. And that is the Bible that Jesus is going to read. That is the Bible that Jesus is going to be holding. The Septuagint. The Paul and the rest of the apostles are going to be familiar with the Septuagint. This small group of Jews who leave Israel in 586 BC are actually going to establish a temple and an altar on an island called Elephantine in Egypt. And so these prophecies that Isaiah is uttering somewhere between 7:44 and 7:32 B.C. they come true. And where do Mary and Joseph take baby Jesus but to this Jewish population living in Alexandria, the same Jewish population that produced the Septuagint, Mary and Joseph aren't just going to Egypt because it's a random place to go to. They're going to Egypt because there's a large contingency of Jews that live in Egypt. So they flee to Egypt because they got family there. They flee to Egypt because the family that they have there, thousands of people are, have actually produced a translation of the Scriptures that have become the authoritative translation of the Scriptures. And what we probably don't realize is that in the same way that, like English, when Americans travel, we can typically find English speakers everywhere because English is the lingua franca. It's the language of the day. It's the most popular language. If you go just move around the globe in the same way, Greek was the lingua franca of the day. So the reason that the Jews decided to translate the Bible into the Greek language is because Alexander the Great had conquered the known world and he had spread the Greek language all over the world. And so the Greek language was the la franca of the day. Okay, so the New Testament Scriptures are written in Greek and the Old Testament scriptures get translated into Greek because of the fulfillment of this prophecy. Chilling right here in Isaiah, chapter 19. And I just think that that is really, really, really, really, really cool. Okay, last thing. Isaiah, chapter 19, verse 1 starts out with these words. Okay? See, the Lord rides on a swift cloud and is coming to Egypt. Jesus is going to use this language. If we look at Mark, chapter 13, verse 26. Mark, chapter 13, verse 26 says this. And then they will see the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. So Jesus is adopting the exact same language from Isaiah, chapter 19 to describe how he is going to come to the earth and how judgment is gonna get enacted. So I know there's a lot of people who wanna interpret this literally, but in Isaiah, God coming on the clouds was not literal. It meant that the Assyrian army was going to come to attack Egypt. So it wasn't literal. In Isaiah, Jesus is going to adopt this language. And so maybe in the second coming of Jesus, he's going to be riding on clouds. Or maybe it means something that is figurative. I'll leave that up to your interpretive genius. Okay. Timeless truth, even judgment is laced with grace. Even judgment is laced with promise, as we've seen with this judgment in Isaiah chapter 19. Although there is judgment, there is also a promise. And this is actually a pattern that has began all the way back in Genesis. There's a punishment that God gives to Eve into Adam and curse given to the serpent for rebelling against him. But in laced in that judgment that there's going to be pain and childbearing laced in the judgment that there's going to be sweat, blood and tears that go into work. Laced in that judgment is also a promise that there will be a son that will crush the head of the serpent. And so God doesn't give judgment without the promise of restoration because he's merciful and he's good and he's gracious. And he's always more gracious than I think we even think he is. Tomorrow we got day 198 will be in the book of Isaiah again, obviously, but chapters 20 to 23, it's going to be great. I'm proud of you, especially if you're on a streak. I'll see you right here tomorrow as we trek through Isaiah chapter 20 to 23. I think it's going to bless your life. See you tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department Podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at the Bible Department and on Instagram. Hebibledepartment if you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.