Isaiah’s prophecies spanned events from his time through the Second Coming of Christ. His book has been called the fifth Gospel (alongside Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) because Jesus fulfilled many of his prophecies.

God gave Isaiah prophecies, for so many nations and times, that it’s like riding a roller coaster to read them. One set of prophecies might be for his own time, while the next set projects forward to the end of time and the return of Christ, and then back to sometime in between. You need a seatbelt to handle the turns!

Ethiopia, Isaiah 18:1-7

One of the most obscure prophecies in Isaiah, this passage is about Ethiopia, a world power at that time. Apparently Ethiopia sent envoys up to Israel to try and form an alliance against the Assyrians. God, however, told Ethiopia that Israel’s defense was in his hands.

The Lord was quietly watching and waiting for the right moment and when he acted against Assyria, wild animals would feed on the bodies of dead soldiers for months. 

“All you who live on the earth, when a banner is raised on the mountains, you will see it, and when a trumpet sounds, you will hear it. This is what the Lord says to me: “I will remain quiet and will look on from my dwelling place, like shimmering heat in the sunshine, like a cloud of dew in the heat of harvest.”  

“For, before the harvest, when the blossom is gone and the flower becomes a ripening grape, he will cut off the shoots with pruning knives, and cut down and take away the spreading branches. They will all be left to the mountain birds of prey and to the wild animals; the birds will feed on them all summer, the wild animals all winter.” Isaiah 18:3-6

This prophecy was fulfilled later when God miraculously destroyed the Assyrian army as it laid siege to Jerusalem.

Good News for One Ethiopian

“At that time gifts will be brought to the Lord Almighty from a people tall and smooth-skinned, from a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers – the gifts will be brought to Mount Zion, the place of the Name of the Lord Almighty.” Isaiah 18:7

The prophecy that the Ethiopians would come to Jerusalem and pay tribute to God may have been fulfilled during Old Testament times. But it was also fulfilled seven hundred year later when an Ethiopian official came to worship God in Jerusalem. He acquired a copy of Isaiah’s writings and as he sat in his chariot reading Isaiah 53:7-8, God sent Philip to explain the passage and tell him the good news about Jesus. The Ethiopian accepted Christ as his savior and Philip baptized him before they parted. (Acts 8:26-40)

Some of Isaiah’s prophecies were fulfilled in local time, some were fulfilled after hundreds of years, and some are yet to be fulfilled.

Egypt, Isaiah 19:1-25

Egypt was an idolatrous land of many gods. The Lord battled those gods when he sent ten plagues on Egypt that proved their gods had no power. Now he expressed his sovereignty over Egypt again.

In Isaiah 19:2-4 God describes how he would cause the Egyptians to turn against each other and lose direction. In the end they would be ruled by a cruel master – Assyria – who would make them part of its empire.

In Isaiah 19:5-10 God said he would send drought to dry up the Nile. So much of Egypt’s life depended upon the the Nile that when it dried up just about every industry in the nation suffered. Fishermen lamented the loss of their catches, reeds and rushes were no longer available as building materials, and the flax from which people wove their linen clothing was gone.

The Egyptians turned to their wise men and discovered they, too, had lost their way.

“The Lord has poured into them a spirit of dizziness; they make Egypt stagger in all that she does, as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit. There is nothing Egypt can do – head or tail, palm branch or reed.” Isaiah 19:14-15

Egypt’s Future

But a day was coming when Egypt would return to the Lord. In Isaiah 19:16-25 God told the Egyptians that someday they would fear his power and build an altar to him. They were going to cry out to him and he would send them a savior.

“So the Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the Lord. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the Lord and keep them.” Isaiah 19:21

This prophecy ends with an astounding prediction that someday Egypt, Assyria, and Israel will join together to serve God and be a blessing to the earth.

“The Lord Almighty will bless them, saying, ‘Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.” Isaiah 19:25

That great day has yet to come.

Sadly, soon after this prophecy, Assyria invaded both Egypt and Ethiopia and defeated and humiliated them. Their defeat further convinced the other nations that forming alliances against Assyria at this time was fruitless.

Babylon, Isaiah 21:1-10

God now let Isaiah look down the road into the future and see that the Babylonian Empire was eventually going to fall to the Persians. Babylon hadn’t even risen as a world power yet; Assyria was the great oppressor of Isaiah’s time. But in the time to come Babylon was going to defeat Assyria, and then Persia would defeat Babylon.

The vision of these empires falling was so powerful Isaiah felt it in his body.

“At this my body is racked with pain, pangs seize me, like those of a woman in labor; I am staggered by what I hear, I am bewildered by what I see.” Isaiah 21:3

Babylon was going to be the undoing of Judah, but Babylon itself was also going to fall.

“Look! Here comes a man in a chariot with a team of horses. And he gives back the answer: ‘Babylon has fallen, has fallen! All the images of its gods lie shattered on the ground!’ My people [Judah] who are crushed on the threshing floor, I tell you what I have heard from the Lord Almighty, from the God of Israel.” Isaiah 21:9-10

Edom, Arabia, and Tyre

The prophecies in Isaiah 21:11-17 and Isaiah 22:15 – 23:18 were for some of the smaller nations that surrounded Israel. They were all going to be crushed under the power of Assyria.

Tyre and Sidon in the region of Lebanon must have found it hard to believe they would ever fall to Assyria. They were situated on a powerful and wealthy seaport and if they could not buy their way out of trouble, they should be able to sail away and escape. The island of Cyprus was not very far away and their friends the Phoenicians would surely come to their aid.

But God told Tyre and Sidon that their harbor was going to be destroyed and even their long-time allies would not be able to help them. They should look at what the Assyrians had done in other places if they wanted to know what lay ahead for them.

“The Assyrians have made it a place for desert creatures; they raised up their siege towers, they stripped its fortresses bare and turned it into a ruin.” Isaiah 23:13

For seventy years after the Assyrian assault Tyre was going to be desolate, then it would revive and return to its old ways of commerce and trade. God compared Tyre to a prostitute coming back to work, which tells us a lot about the society Tyre and Sidon cultivated.

Tyre did revive and Jesus actually visited that region during his lifetime. He healed the daughter of a woman who came to him begging for help. His disciples considered her unworthy of Jesus’ attention, but Jesus admired her faith and blessed her. (Matthew 15:21-18)

Prophecy Against the Valley of Vision

Isaiah lived in Jerusalem, in the valley just below the mountain where the temple stood. God gave him prophetic visions there so Isaiah referred to Jerusalem as the Valley of Vision. Tragically, Isaiah saw visions of the fall of Jerusalem just as he had seen the fall of other places.

The walls of the City of David were going to be torn down. The king would try to defend Jerusalem, strengthening the walls with materials ripped from buildings in the city. He would store water for his people and try to deliver them, but Isaiah also saw the fatal mistake Jerusalem would make: They were going to ignore God who called them to repentance.

“The Lord, the Lord Almighty, called you on that day to weep and wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth. But see, there is joy and revelry . . . ‘Let us eat and drink,’ you say, ‘for tomorrow we die!’” Isaiah 21:12-13

Are people any different today?

The Old Testament is a great way to learn about God, but also about the mistakes people make. If we learn from them, we may be able to avoid the consequences they experienced.