The Naked Prophet and the Paper Tiger Text: Isaiah 20:1-6
Introduction: Divine Street Theater
We live in an age that prizes respectability above all else. We want our religion to be reasonable, our politics to be palatable, and our prophets to be polished. We want a God who makes good sense in a board meeting, a God who would never do anything to make the evening news for the wrong reasons. But the God of Scripture is not a tame God. He is not a respectable God. He is a living God, and His methods are often wild, shocking, and profoundly offensive to our delicate sensibilities. He is the kind of God who would tell His prophet to walk around naked for three years.
This is precisely what we encounter in Isaiah 20. This is not a chapter for the faint of heart or for those who prefer their religion to be a tidy, intellectual affair. This is divine street theater. This is a prophetic sign-act, a living, breathing, walking sermon designed to be so jarring, so unavoidable, that no one could possibly miss the point. God is not simply whispering a warning; He is shouting it through the most scandalous public display imaginable.
The historical backdrop is crucial. The world power of the day was Assyria, a brutal and relentless empire. The smaller nations of the Levant, including Judah, were constantly trying to play geopolitical chess to survive. They were always looking for a counterweight to Assyria, and the most obvious candidate was the ancient and formidable power to the south, Egypt, along with its ally Ethiopia. To the men of Judah, this was just smart foreign policy. You don't put all your eggs in one basket. You hedge your bets. You make alliances. You trust in the strength of horses, chariots, and the long-standing reputation of a world power.
But God sees this "smart" foreign policy for what it is: idolatry. It is a fundamental distrust of His promises and His power. Judah was looking to Egypt as their hope and their boast. They were trusting in a paper tiger. And so, God commands Isaiah to become a walking, naked picture of what happens when your idols fail you. This prophecy is a direct assault on the pragmatic unbelief that so often masquerades as political wisdom. It is a warning that any hope placed in the arm of the flesh will ultimately leave you stripped, shamed, and asking the hopeless question, "How shall we escape?"
The Text
In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, at that time Yahweh spoke by the hand of Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, “Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.” And he did so, going naked and barefoot. And Yahweh said, “Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt. Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Ethiopia their hope and Egypt their boast. So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?’ ”
(Isaiah 20:1-6 LSB)
The Scandalous Commission (v. 1-2)
The prophecy is grounded in a specific, historical moment.
"In the year that the commander came to Ashdod, when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him and he fought against Ashdod and captured it, at that time Yahweh spoke by the hand of Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, 'Go and loosen the sackcloth from your hips and take your shoes off your feet.' And he did so, going naked and barefoot." (Isaiah 20:1-2)
The year is about 711 B.C. Ashdod, a major Philistine city, was a ringleader in a rebellion against Assyria, a rebellion that Egypt had likely encouraged. King Sargon of Assyria sends his commander, his Tartan, to crush this uprising, and he does so efficiently. This event was a shot across the bow for the entire region. It was a demonstration of Assyrian power and a warning to anyone, like Judah, who might be thinking of joining an anti-Assyrian coalition backed by Egypt.
It is precisely at this moment of political tension that God speaks. His timing is always perfect. He tells Isaiah to perform a shocking act. He is to remove his "sackcloth," which was the customary garment of a prophet, a symbol of his office and his message of repentance. He is to take off his sandals. He is to go "naked and barefoot." Now, this likely does not mean he was stark naked, but rather stripped down to a loincloth, the basic undergarment. But in a culture where public nakedness was a profound source of shame, the effect was the same. He was stripped of his prophetic dignity, his social standing, and his basic human respectability.
And Isaiah's response is simple and immediate: "And he did so." There is no record of argument, no questioning of the command. This is the raw nerve of obedience. A true prophet does not just speak God's message; he embodies it. He is the message. Isaiah's personal comfort, his reputation, his dignity, were all secondary to the absolute authority of the Word of the Lord. He was willing to become a spectacle, a fool in the eyes of the world, in order to be faithful.
The Prophetic Picture Explained (v. 3-4)
For three years, Isaiah is a walking billboard of coming judgment. God then provides the divine interpretation.
"And Yahweh said, 'Even as My servant Isaiah has gone naked and barefoot three years as a sign and wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia, so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Ethiopia, young and old, naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.'" (Isaiah 20:3-4)
The three-year duration is significant. This was not a momentary lapse in judgment. It was a sustained, relentless, unavoidable sermon. For three years, every time someone saw Isaiah, they saw a preview of God's coming attractions. He was a "sign and wonder," a living portent of what was to come. And the target of this sign was not Judah directly, but the nations Judah was tempted to trust: Egypt and Ethiopia.
The prophecy is brutally specific. Just as Isaiah was stripped, so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of these great southern powers. Notice the totality of it: "young and old." No one is exempt. And the description is graphic: "naked and barefoot with buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt." This was the standard operating procedure for Assyrian conquerors. They didn't just defeat their enemies; they humiliated them. They stripped them of their humanity. The very thing Isaiah had been acting out in pantomime would be the literal fate of the soldiers and citizens of the nation that Judah saw as its great hope.
This is the end of all human pride. Egypt was a civilization that dripped with gold, power, and millennia of cultural arrogance. They built pyramids to defy death and deified their kings. But before the sovereign God of Israel, their glory is nothing. He will allow a pagan king to march them away like cattle, with their backsides exposed to the world. This is what happens when you make yourself a rival to God. He will not just defeat you; He will disgrace you. The shame of Egypt is the inevitable outcome of the pride of Egypt.
The Collapse of False Hope (v. 5-6)
The final verses describe the psychological impact on those who were watching and waiting, those who had placed their bets on Egypt.
"Then they will be dismayed and ashamed because of Ethiopia their hope and Egypt their boast. So the inhabitants of this coastland will say in that day, ‘Behold, such is our hope, where we fled for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria; and we, how shall we escape?’" (Isaiah 20:5-6)
The reaction is twofold: dismay and shame. They will be dismayed because their pragmatic calculations were all wrong. Their savior has been crushed. They will be ashamed because their trust was so profoundly misplaced. The text explicitly calls Ethiopia their "hope" and Egypt their "boast." These are religious terms. Hope is what you rely on for your future. A boast is what you glory in for your present identity. Judah had made a political alliance into an idol.
This is a timeless spiritual lesson. Whatever you trust in other than God will eventually become your shame. If you boast in your money, you will be shamed by poverty. If you boast in your intellect, you will be shamed by folly. If you boast in your political party, you will be shamed by its corruption and impotence. God is a jealous God, and He will not give His glory to another. He will systematically dismantle and disgrace every idol we erect, especially the respectable, political ones.
This leads to the final, devastating question from the "inhabitants of this coastland," which certainly includes Judah. "Behold, such is our hope... how shall we escape?" When your savior fails, you have nowhere left to turn. This is the dead end of all humanistic striving. This is the bankruptcy of trusting in the arm of the flesh. The question hangs in the air, unanswered in this chapter, because there is no political or military answer. The escape cannot come from another human power. The escape must come from God.
The Naked Christ and the Clothed Christian
This strange and scandalous chapter is a sign and a wonder that points far beyond the fall of Egypt. It points to the cross of Jesus Christ. If Isaiah's stripping was shameful, how much more the shame of the Son of God? On the cross, Jesus was stripped naked, a public spectacle of humiliation (Psalm 22:17-18). He was paraded before the world, mocked by the political and religious powers of His day. He endured the ultimate shame, the ultimate exposure, the ultimate disgrace.
Why? He became naked that we might be clothed. He endured the shame of Egypt, the shame of our sin, so that we would never have to. Our natural state before God is one of utter shame. We are spiritually naked, exposed, and without hope. Like the inhabitants of the coastland, our idols have failed us, and we are left asking, "how shall we escape?"
The answer is that we do not escape. We are rescued. The God-man who hung naked on that cross took our shame upon Himself, and in exchange, He offers us His robe of perfect righteousness (Isaiah 61:10). We are clothed in Christ. Our boast is no longer in Egypt, no longer in our own strength or wisdom or political savvy. Our boast is in the Lord (1 Corinthians 1:31). Our hope is not in the crumbling empires of this world, but in the unshakable kingdom of our God.
Therefore, the message of the naked prophet comes to us today with full force. Where is your hope? In what do you boast? Are you looking to Washington D.C. as your Egypt? Are you trusting in a political candidate, a Supreme Court decision, or a cultural movement to be your savior? God warns us through Isaiah that all such hopes will end in dismay and shame. They will be led away captive, with their buttocks uncovered, for all the world to see their weakness.
Let us be those who have seen the folly of the world's hopes. Let us be those who have fled for refuge not to a foreign power, but to the cross. For it is only there, at the site of the ultimate shame, that we find our ultimate glory. It is only in the naked Christ that we find ourselves fully and forever clothed.