One of the most unusual behaviors of a man of God, ever!

Isaiah 20 supplies our Text today: “At the same time spake the LORD by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, Go and loose the sackcloth from off thy loins, and put off thy shoe from thy foot. And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. ” (Isaiah 20:2-3)

If I take my King James Bible literally, Isaiah here removes all his clothes. Not without reason mind you. His object-lesson sermon illustrates “hard times” coming for the Egyptians and Ethiopians!

Watch the Text … God is speaking to people through Isaiah’s unique act! (Micah the Prophet, did this same thing … grieving over coming judgment! “Therefore I will wail and howl, I will go stripped and naked: I will make a wailing like the dragons, and mourning as the owls.” Micah 1:8)

Wow!

But WHY this specific act, this bizarre procedure … “walking naked and barefoot?”

Watch. God is telling some folks (again, the Egyptians and Ethiopians) of coming doom. Of attack from their arch-enemy (the Assyrian army) who will take them captive! And most ancient (aggressive) nations violently mistreated (persecuted, tortured) the people they conquered! (Assyria being among the worst!)

Read now with me verse 4 of our Text: “So shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians prisoners, and the Ethiopians captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, even with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.” (Clearly Isaiah’s inspired prophecy came true, happened, was fulfilled. And literally so.)

Now here (in two ways) we may have some help interpreting Isaiah’s “action sermon.”

First … the Assyrians would have stripped naked (stark naked in many cases, both men and women) the people they had just overcome. And (forcibly) marched them the many hundreds of miles back to the homeland of the attackers! (Hundreds of miles in this case!)

So Isaiah is just forewarning some people God loves (Egypt and Ethiopia) of coming disaster.

Second … verse 4 (above) may be helping us to interpret this whole idea of going “naked.” It seems to equate it with “uncovered buttocks.” (Still an act of great shame and embarrassment in any Ancient Near East culture.)

We should be impressed with the length with which God will go to save a people from judgment! Isaiah being commanded to “dress” (“undress’) this way for quite some time.

Of course, come to think of it, Jesus hung in shame on the Cross six long hours, either naked on close to it! Making possible our redemption through his precious Blood! (Normally the Romans never considered clothing a crucifixion victim! Such mistreatment added to the condemned person’s agony, shame, exposure to the elements.)

And how long did Isaiah pursue this “sermon,” act (dress) in this fashion? Verse 3 … “three years!”

Thus Isiah (along with Ezekiel and Jeremiah) becomes a Prophet known for what he does as well as what he says!

I just though you all would like to know about the depth to which Isaiah would go (the totality of his obedience) … serving the God he loved so dearly.

Wow!

— Dr. Mike Bagwell

And our obedience, what can be said about that?