If God foretold “the end from the beginning” and commanded the prophet Isaiah to “write it in a book for the end-time,” then where in his prophecies does he talk about America? Wouldn’t we assume that America would play a huge role in any end-of-the-world scenario just as it did, for example, in the first and second world wars? Is there a key we have missed that unseals this and other mysteries in this enigmatic book that can make everything plain to our understanding?
Let’s see how the Hebrews perceived human history. To them, history wasn’t linear but cyclical. In other words, history repeats itself but on an ever-bigger scale as the human race multiplies. What happens at the end of the world must therefore have had a precedent or series of precedents in the past. As the writer of Ecclesiastes says, “What has been, it is what shall be; that which has been done, it is what shall be done. There’s nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9).
Inevitably, America participates in all end-time events. But which nation in the past do we suppose set a precedent for America’s role in the world’s coming countdown to destruction on the one hand and deliverance on the other? Was there a world superpower in the past that typifies end-time America? Yes, there’s one nation in the Book of Isaiah that matches America—Egypt. As the great superpower of the ancient world, Egypt set a perfect precedent for America today.
Isaiah’s depiction of ancient Egypt as a type of America, however, doesn’t bode well for people expecting only good news—those who live in self-deception, unwilling or no longer capable of discerning the truth. Isaiah has a habit of giving the bad news first and then the good news. So it is with America under its codename “Egypt.” To make it easier, try superimposing “America,” its capital Washington and president on Isaiah’s Egypt and their equivalent and you be the judge.
Isaiah 19:11–15
The ministers of Zoan are utter fools;
the wisest of Pharaoh’s advisers give absurd counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
We ourselves are as wise as the first rulers?
Where are your wise men indeed?
Let them please tell you, if they can discern it,
what the Lord of Hosts has in mind for Egypt!
The ministers of Zoan have been foolish,
the officials of Noph deluded;
the heads of state have led Egypt astray.
The Lord has permeated them
with a spirit of confusion;
they have misled Egypt in all that it does,
causing it to stagger like a drunkard into his vomit.
And there shall be nothing the Egyptians
can do about it,
neither head nor tail, palm top or reed.
Political ineptitude by Egypt’s heads of state brings the nation into anarchy and civil war:
Isaiah 19:2–3
I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians;
they will fight brother against brother
and neighbor against neighbor,
city against city and state against state.
Egypt’s spirit shall be drained from within;
I will frustrate their plans,
and they will resort to the idols and to spiritists,
to mediums and witchcraft.
A dictatorial ruler or kingman will take the reins of government and oppress the nation:
Isaiah 19:4
Then will I deliver the Egyptians
into the hand of a cruel master;
a harsh ruler will subject them,
says the Lord, the Lord of Hosts.
Collapsing within, Egypt faces an end-time king of Assyria—God’s hand of punishment:
Isaiah 19:16
In that day the Egyptians will be as women,
fearful and afraid at the brandishing hand
the Lord of Hosts wields over them.
Still unrepentant, the nation of Egypt suffers destruction from the sky that is God’s doing:
Isaiah 19:1
When the Lord enters Egypt riding on swift clouds,
the idols of Egypt will rock at his presence
and the Egyptians’ hearts melt within them.
Once relied upon for its military might, in the end Egypt proves to be of no help to others:
Isaiah 31:1–3
Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
relying on horses,
putting their trust in immense numbers
of chariots and vast forces of horsemen,
but who do not look to the Holy One of Israel,
nor inquire of the Lord!
Yet he too is shrewd
and will bring disaster [upon them],
and not retract his words.
He will rise up against the brood of miscreants
and allies of evildoers.
The Egyptians are human, not divine;
their horses are flesh, not spirit:
when the Lord stretches out his hand,
those who help them will stumble
and those helped will fall;
both shall come to an end together.
Isaiah 30:2–5
They are bent on going down to Egypt—
but have not inquired at my mouth—
on seeking protection in Pharaoh’s forces,
on taking shelter in Egypt’s shadow.
But Pharaoh’s protection shall turn to your shame,
shelter in Egypt’s shadow to embarrassment.
For all their officials at Zoan,
and their envoys’ travels to Hanes,
they shall be utterly disgusted
with a people who will avail them nothing;
[they shall be] of no help or benefit,
but a humiliation and disgrace.
But there’s a redeeming side to the story. To his people who call on him, God sends help:
Isaiah 19:20
When they cry out to the Lord because of the oppressors,
he will send them a savior,
who will take up their cause and deliver them.
To those who offer an acceptable sacrifice by covenant, he shows himself, healing them:
Isaiah 19:21–22
The Lord will make himself known to the Egyptians,
and the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day.
They will worship by sacrifice and offerings,
and make vows to the Lord and fulfill them.
The Lord will smite Egypt, and by smiting heal [it]:
they will turn back to the Lord,
and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.
In the end, Egypt’s covenanters succeed in converting many to the Lord, the God of Israel:
Isaiah 19:23–25
In that day there shall be a highway from Egypt to Assyria.
Assyrians shall come to Egypt and Egyptians go to Assyria,
and the Egyptians shall labor with the Assyrians.
In that day Israel shall be the third party to Egypt and to Assyria,
a blessing in the midst of the earth.
The Lord of Hosts will bless them, saying,
Blessed be Egypt my people,
Assyria the work of my hands,
and Israel my inheritance.
