What can we learn from Isaiah’s naked wanderings? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
When we go to Isaiah 20, we find out it starts off with this:
In the year that the supreme commander, sent by Sargon king of Assyria, came to Ashdod and attacked and captured it— 2 at that time the Lord spoke through Isaiah son of Amoz. He said to him, “Take off the sackcloth from your body and the sandals from your feet.” And he did so, going around stripped and barefoot.
3 Then the Lord said, “Just as my servant Isaiah has gone stripped and barefoot for three years, as a sign and portent against Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away stripped and barefoot the Egyptian captives and Cushite exiles, young and old, with buttocks bared—to Egypt’s shame. 5 Those who trusted in Cush and boasted in Egypt will be dismayed and put to shame. 6 In that day the people who live on this coast will say, ‘See what has happened to those we relied on, those we fled to for help and deliverance from the king of Assyria! How then can we escape?’”
What does Frost have to say about this?
Again, I have scoured every commentator I could find on this passage and almost without exception every one of them is quick to insist that this passage surely cannot possibly mean what it plainly says.
Frost, Aaron. Christian Body: Modesty and the Bible (p. 97). UNKNOWN. Kindle Edition.
So I opened up my Logos to see what was said. I am keeping in mind Frost’s book was published in 2018 so I will only be using material that was available then.
(a) Isaiah went about in a sackcloth coat for an unstated period, perhaps because this was a prophet’s garb (2 Kgs. 1:8), or perhaps as a sign of mourning for events he prophesied;
(b) then three years ago, which would be the beginning of the independence movement, he cast off his sackcloth coat;
(c) for three years he has thus gone about at least coatless—no joke in a Jerusalem winter;
(d) just now the Assyrians’ defeat of Ashdod leads to the threat that Egypt and Cush (and other peoples associated with them) will also be transported.
John Goldingay, Isaiah (ed. W. Ward Gasque, Robert L. Hubbard Jr., and Robert K. Johnston; Understanding the Bible Commentary Series; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2012), 122.
This one could indicate nudity. Not for sure.
How about another one?
The date the “supreme commander” (cf. 2 Kgs 18:17) of Sargon’s army captured Ashdod was 711 BC. This date appears to be the year (v. 2 “at that time”) that God directed the prophet to perform a sign act of going naked for three years to warn his audience in Judah. Isaiah’s radical actions symbolically point out that the Assyrian defeat of Ashdod has serious implications for Judah. Ashdod’s reliance on the Egyptians for protection from Assyria should serve as a lesson for Judah’s future military policy (vv. 5–6).
Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1–39 (ed. E. Ray Clendenen; The New American Commentary; Nashville: B & H Publishing Group, 2007), 365.
Hmmmm. Smith didn’t seem to hesitate.
This one is from 2017, just a year before Frost wrote:
While the strongest pronouncement of these judgments is to Egypt herself, God is also sending a message to Judah and to any small nation that, threatened by the vicious Assyrian Empire, is tempted to rely on Egypt for help. Judah should know better, but Isaiah 30:1–7 clearly reveals emissaries traveling across the desert with money to buy an alliance with Egypt. We will speak more in due time about that sinful unbelief on Judah’s part. But other small nations in that region were also tempted to turn trembling to Egypt’s might for aid from the Assyrians. Isaiah 20, one of the strangest chapters in the whole book, shows God’s command to his prophet, Isaiah, to act out Egypt’s humiliation by going around naked and barefoot for three years as a sign against Egypt and Cush. The message was clear: Egypt is no refuge against the terror of the Assyrian Empire and its expansionist ambitions. Assyria will defeat Egypt and humiliate her completely. Then all the people will realize how foolish it is to rely on the strength of man and not on God.
Andrew M. Davis, Exalting Jesus in Isaiah (Nashville, TN: Holman Reference, 2017), 113.
He doesn’t say what Frost says.
Dr. Lange wrote in 1877. Maybe they were a bit more prudish then and he would hesitate to mention nudity.
1. In the year when the Tartan, i.e. commander-in-chief of king Sargon of Assyria, came against Ashdod to besiege the city—which he also took after a comparatively short siege,—Isaiah received commandment from the LORD to take off his garment made of bad sack linen and his sandals, and to go about naked and barefoot (vers. 1, 2). For the incredible thing shall happen that the Egyptians and Ethiopians, shall be compelled to go into captivity naked and barefoot, like Isaiah goes about, (vers. 3, 4). Thereupon all inhabitants of the sea-board of Palestine, will, with terror and shame, be sensible how wrong they were to confide in the power and glory of Ethiopia and Egypt (ver. 5). They will say: Thus it has gone with the power from whom we expected protection; how now shall it go with us? (ver. 6).
John Peter Lange et al., A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures: Isaiah (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2008), 231.
No. He seems to say that also…
I’m pretty sure Calvin wrote before 2018.
2. Go and loose the sackcloth from thy loins. In order to confirm this prophecy by the use of a symbol, the Lord commanded Isaiah to walk naked. If Isaiah had done this of his own accord, he would have been justly ridiculed; but when he does it by the command of the Lord, we perceive nothing but what is fitted to excite admiration and to strike awe. In this nakedness, and in the signs of a similar kind, something weighty is implied. Besides, the Lord does nothing either by himself or by his servants without likewise explaining the reason; and therefore the Prophet does not merely walk naked, but points out the design which the Lord had in view in ordering him to do so. In other respects false prophets imitate the true servants of God, and put on varied and imposing shapes, to dazzle the eyes of the multitude, and gain credit to themselves; but those symbols are worthless, because God is not the author of them.
John Calvin and William Pringle, Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Isaiah (vol. 2; Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 86.
I think this is sufficient to show that there are plenty of commentators who don’t hesitate to say that Isaiah was naked.
This seems to be much of Frost’s point, but then says God would not have commanded Isaiah to do this if it was something sinful. True enough, but at that point, Frost stops. He never asks the important question.
Why did God command Isaiah to do this?
The fact that Isaiah was commanded should show that this was not normative. “Isaiah. I command you do to that thing you always do where you walk around naked.” No. This was something unusual to the society so they would have noticed. What’s the point?
Isaiah was saying this is what is coming for them. They think what is happening to him is shameful. That same thing will happen to them! Indeed, it did. Captives were often led away naked just for the point of shaming them further. Again, Frost only seems to see either sinful or celebrated. He never sees anything else. I don’t think he has any understanding of honor and shame at all.
Well, we’ll see what he has to say next time.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)