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Isaiah

About this book
Chapter 20

1 The Lord revealed the following message during the year in which King Sargon of Assyria sent his commanding general to Ashdod, and he fought against it and captured it. 2 At that time the Lord announced through Isaiah son of Amoz: “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off your feet.” He did as instructed and walked around in undergarments and barefoot.⁠ 3 Later the Lord explained, “In the same way that my servant Isaiah has walked around in undergarments and barefoot for the past three years, as an object lesson and omen pertaining to Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old. They will be in undergarments and barefoot, with the buttocks exposed; the Egyptians will be publicly humiliated. 5 Those who put their hope in Cush and took pride in Egypt will be afraid and embarrassed. 6 At that time those who live on this coast will say, ‘Look what has happened to our source of hope to whom we fled for help, expecting to be rescued from the king of Assyria! How can we escape now?’”

Texts in conversation

Compare Isaiah 20:3 and Micah 1:8

Hebrew Bible

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Summary

Isaiah and Micah both walk around stripped and barefoot as a prophetic sign, the only two prophets in the Hebrew Bible to do so. Isaiah acts out the coming defeat of Egypt and Cush, while Micah acts out the exile of his own people.

Passages

Isaiah 20:3

Hebrew Bible
2 At that time the Lord announced through Isaiah son of Amoz: “Go, remove the sackcloth from your waist and take your sandals off your feet.” He did as instructed and walked around in undergarments and barefoot. 3 Later the Lord explained, “In the same way that my servant Isaiah has walked around in undergarments and barefoot for the past three years, as an object lesson and omen pertaining to Egypt and Cush, 4 so the king of Assyria will lead away the captives of Egypt and the exiles of Cush, both young and old. They will be in undergarments and barefoot, with the buttocks exposed; the Egyptians will be publicly humiliated.
740–450 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Isaiah

Micah 1:8

Hebrew Bible
7 All her carved idols will be smashed to pieces; all her metal cult statues will be destroyed by fire. I will make a waste heap of all her images. Since she gathered the metal as a prostitute collects her wages, the idols will become a prostitute’s wages again.” 8 For this reason I will mourn and wail; I will walk around barefoot and without my outer garments. I will howl like a jackal and screech like an ostrich.33 9 For Samaria’s disease is incurable. It has infected Judah; it has spread to the leadership of my people and even to Jerusalem!
600–501 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Micah

References

"... For Isaiah 20:2, readers should therefore probably imagine that the prophet was concerned with repentance or mourning, which would not be surprising given the situation of his people from a prophetic point of view. Thus, Isaiah's nakedness and barefootedness can be seen as an intensification of his lamentation, paralleling Micah's lament over Samaria's destruction in Micah 1:8-9: 'So I will wail and howl, I will go barefoot and naked, I will make a howling like the jackals and a moaning like the ostriches.' ..."
Andrea Beyer, “Nudity and Captivity in Isa. 20 in Light of Iconographic Evidence,” in Clothing and Nudity in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Christoph Berner, Manuel Schäfer, Martin Schott, Sarah Schulz, and Martina Weingärtner (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 495.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

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Isaiah 20:3 and Micah 1:8

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