Isaiah 19:25

Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(25) Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless . . .—In this tripartite holy alliance Israel is to retain the spiritual supremacy. Egypt, once alien, becomes the people of the Lord. (Comp. Hosea 1:9-10.) Assyria is recognised as the instrument which He has made to do His work (comp. Isaiah 10:15; Isaiah 37:26); but Israel has the proud pre-eminence of being His “inheritance.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:18-25 The words, In that day, do not always refer to the passage just before. At a time which was to come, the Egyptians shall speak the holy language, the Scripture language; not only understand it, but use it. Converting grace, by changing the heart, changes the language; for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. So many Jews shall come to Egypt, that they shall soon fill five cities. Where the sun was worshipped, a place infamous for idolatry, even there shall be a wonderful reformation. Christ, the great Altar, who sanctifies every gift, shall be owned, and the gospel sacrifices of prayer and praise shall be offered up. Let the broken-hearted and afflicted, whom the Lord has wounded, and thus taught to return to, and call upon him, take courage; for He will heal their souls, and turn their sorrowing supplications into joyful praises. The Gentile nations shall not only unite with each other in the gospel fold under Christ, the great Shepherd, but they shall all be united with the Jews. They shall be owned together by him; they shall all share in one and the same blessing. Meeting at the same throne of grace, and serving with each other in the same business of religion, should end all disputes, and unite the hearts of believers to each other in holy love.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

whom the Lord of hosts shall bless - That is, which united country he shall acknowledge as truly worshipping him, and on which he shall bestow his favors as his favored people.

Assyria the work of my hands - This is synonymous with the expression 'my people.' It means that the arrangements by which the true religion would be established among them, were the work of God. Conversion to God is everywhere in the Scriptures spoken of as his work, or creation; see Ephesians 2:10 : 'For we are his workmanship; created in Christ Jesus unto good works' (compare 2 Corinthians 5:17; Psalm 100:3).

Israel mine inheritance - The land and people which is especially my own - a name not unfrequently given to Israel. For a learned examination of the various hypotheses in regard to the fulfillment of this prophecy, see Vitringa. He himself applies it to the times succeeding Alexander the Great. Alexander he regards as the 'saviour' mentioned in Isaiah 19:20; and the establishment of the true religion referred to by the prophet as that which would take place under the Ptolemies. Vitringa has proved - what indeed is known to all who have the slightest knowledge of history that there were large numbers of Jews under the Ptolemies in Egypt, and that multitudes became proselytes to the Jewish faith.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

25. Whom—rather, "Which," namely, "the land," or "earth," that is, the people of it [Maurer].

my people—the peculiar designation of Israel, the elect people, here applied to Egypt to express its entire admission to religious privileges (Ro 9:24-26; 1Pe 2:9, 10).

work of my hands—spiritually (Ho 2:23; Eph 2:10).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless; whom, i.e. which people, to wit, Israel, Egypt, and Assyria, expressed both in the foregoing verse, and in the following clause of this verse; of whom he speaks as of one people, in the singular number, because they are all united into one body and church. Or, For or because (as this particle is taken, 1 Samuel 15:15, and elsewhere) the Lord of hosts shall bless him or them. So this is added as a reason why he said Israel should be a blessing to them all. My people: this title, and those which follow, that were peculiar to the people of Israel, shall now be given to these and all other nations of the world.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless,.... Not only Israel, but Egypt and Assyria, even all his chosen ones, whether among Jews or Gentiles:

saying, blessed be Egypt my people; as they must needs be blessed who are the Lord's covenant people; for he being their covenant God, his blessing is upon them, even life for evermore; they are blessed with all the blessings of the covenant, even all the spiritual blessings which are in Christ; they are secure of his love, and may depend upon his power and protection; they are happy here, and will be so hereafter:

and Assyria the work of my hands; not as creatures only, but new creatures, having the good work of grace wrought in their hearts, of which God is the author; and therefore are called his workmanship, Ephesians 2:10 and who must be blessed, because, by this work of grace upon them, they appear to be the chosen of God, and precious, to be his children, and dear unto him, whom he will not forsake, and who are formed for himself, and for heaven, and happiness:

and Israel mine inheritance; chosen by him to be so, and given to Christ as such; and who must be happy, because, as they are the Lord's inheritance, portion, and peculiar treasure, so he has provided an inheritance for them, incorruptible, undefiled, which fades not away, reserved in the heavens. The Targum interprets all this of Israel, thus,

"blessed be my people, whom I brought out of Egypt; and because they sinned before me, I carried them captive into Assyria; and when they are turned, they are called my people, and mine inheritance, Israel.''

Geneva Study Bible

Whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel mine inheritance.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

25. whom the Lord of hosts shall bless] R.V. for that the Lord of hosts hath blessed him (Israel). A better sense than either is given by the LXX. “(the earth;) which Jehovah … hath blessed.” But the masculine suffix is opposed to this.

my people and the work of my hands are titles elsewhere confined to Israel, but here accorded to Egypt and Assyria, the still dearer epithet mine inheritance being reserved for Israel,—as it were the ancestral estate of the one true God.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 25. - Whom the Lord of hosts bless; rather, forasmuch as the Lord of hosts hath blessed him. "Him" must be understood collectively, of the threefold Israel, spread through the three countries, which all partake of the blessing. The three countries are able to be a blessing to the world at large, because God's blessing rests upon them. Egypt my people. Egypt's great work in Jewish times, by which she became a blessing to the world, was her translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, commanded by Egyptian kings, and executed at Alexandria, the Egyptian capital. Neo-Platonism certainly owed much to this source. Stoicism probably something. Assyria the work of my hands. Assyria did no such work as Egypt. Neither the Targum of Onkelos nor the Babylonian Talmud can be compared for a moment with the Septuagint. Still the Mesopotamian Jews were a blessing to their neighbors. They kept alive in the East the notion of one true and spiritual God; they elevated the tone of men's thoughts; they were a perpetual protest against idolatry, with all its horrors. They, no doubt, prepared the way for that acceptance of Christianity by large masses of the population in Syria, Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and even in Persia, of which we have evidence in the ecclesiastical history of the first seven centuries. Israel mine inheritance (comp. Isaiah 47:6; Isaiah 63:17).



Isaiah 19:25

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Thus is the way prepared for the highest point of all, which the prophet foretells in Isaiah 19:24, Isaiah 19:25 : "In that day will Israel be the third part to Egypt and Asshur, a blessing in the midst of the earth, since Jehovah of hosts blesseth them thus: Blessed be thou, my people Egypt; and thou Asshur, the work of my hands; and thou Israel, mine inheritance." Israel is added to the covenant between Egypt and Asshur, so that it becomes a tripartite covenant in which Israel forms the "third part" (sheilshiyyâh, tertia pars, like ‛ası̄ryyâh, decima pars, in Isaiah 6:13). Israel has now reached the great end of its calling - to be a blessing in "the midst of the earth" (b'kereb hâ'âretz, in the whole circuit of the earth), all nations being here represented by Egypt and Assyria. Hitherto it had been only to the disadvantage of Israel to be situated between Egypt and Assyria. The history of the Ephraimitish kingdom, as well as that of Judah, clearly proves this. If Israel relied upon Egypt, it deceived itself, and was deceived; and if it relied on Assyria, it only became the slave of Assyria, and had Egypt for a foe. Thus Israel was in a most painful vise between the two great powers of the earth, the western and the eastern powers. But how will all this be altered now! Egypt and Assyria become one in Jehovah, and Israel the third in the covenant. Israel is lo longer the only nation of God, the creation of God, the heir of God; but all this applies to Egypt and Assyria now, as well as to Israel. To give full expression to this, Israel's three titles of honour are mixed together, and each of the three nations receives one of the choice names - nachali, "my inheritance," being reserved for Israel, as pointing back to its earliest history. This essential equalization of the heathen nations and Israel is no degradation to the latter. For although from this time forward there is to be no essential difference between the nations in their relation to God, it is still the God of Israel who obtains this universal recognition, and the nation of Israel that has become, according to the promise, the medium of blessing to the world.

Thus has the second half of the prophecy ascended step by step from salvation to salvation, as the first descended step by step from judgment to judgment. The culminating point in Isaiah 19:25 answers to the lowest point in Isaiah 19:15. Every step in the ascending half is indicated by the expression "in that day." Six times do we find this sign-post to the future within the limits of Isaiah 19:16-25. This expression is almost as characteristic of Isaiah as the corresponding expression, "Behold, the days come" (hinneh yâm bâ'im), is of Jeremiah (compare, for example, Isaiah 7:18-25). And it is more particularly in the promising or Messianic portions of the prophecy that it is so favourite an introduction (Isaiah 11:10-11; Isaiah 12:1; compare Zech). Nevertheless, the genuineness of Isaiah 19:16-25 has recently been called in question, more especially by Hitzig. Sometimes this passage has not been found fanatical enough to have emanated from Isaiah, i.e., too free from hatred towards the heathen; whereas, on the other hand, Knobel adduces evidence that the prophet was no fanatic at all. Sometimes it is too fanatical; in reply to which we observe, that there never was a prophet of God in the world who did not appear to a "sound human understanding" to be beside himself, since, even assuming that this human understanding be sound, it is only within the four sides of its own peculiar province that it is so. Again, in Isaiah 19:18, Isaiah 19:19, a prophecy has been discovered which is too special to be Isaiah's, in opposition to which Knobel proves that it is not so special as is supposed. But it is quite special enough; and this can never astonish any one who can discern in the prophecy a revelation of the future communicated by God, whereas in itself it neither proves nor disproves the authorship of Isaiah. So far as the other arguments adduced against the genuineness are concerned, they have been answered exhaustively by Caspari, in a paper which he contributed on the subject to the Lutherische Zeitschrift, 1841, 3. Hvernick, in his Introduction, has not been able to do anything better than appropriate the arguments adduced by Caspari. And we will not repeat for a third time what has been said twice already. The two halves of the prophecy are like the two wings of a bird. And it is only through its second half that the prophecy becomes the significant centre of the Ethiopic and Egyptian trilogy. For chapter 19 predicts the saving effect that will be produced upon Egypt by the destruction of Assyria. And Isaiah 19:23. announces what will become of Assyria. Assyria will also pass through judgment to salvation. This eschatological conclusion to chapter 19, in which Egypt and Assyria are raised above themselves into representatives of the two halves of the heathen world, is the golden clasp which connects chapters 19 and Isaiah 20:1-6. We now turn to this third portion of the trilogy, which bears the same relation to chapter 19 as Isaiah 16:13-14 to Isaiah 15-16:12.