Egypt in Old Testament prophecy

a reply to: enlightenedservant
They are, but I believe the prophets are normally writing about the communities of the time, not the geographical locations.

If someone had given a prophecy about "Germany will be defeated" in the middle of the Second World War, he would have been talking about the Third Reich specifically, not about every population that happened to occupy the same territory for thousands of years into the future.

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
The last time I read about Egypt in Scripture ....He loves Egypt and holds that bunch dear in the finality........

He loves the whole world, even the Egyptians.

originally posted by: Riffrafter
The one infinite creator.

He is called by many names. And "your" (that's a plural and collective your) belief is not required.

What is, is...


It's a truism...though....that He sends magic help and a great explanation in a book.....to send one to the top of reality......making this life a real loving learning sojourn.....as His friends and not servants......

Like my concrete foundation pour for my home being such a trial.......lately......but yesterday a truck came with free concrete.........4000 pound test concrete.."...

Free concrete......for the praying person!... Scripture states we are sojourners with Him in this walk......

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: enlightenedservant
They are, but I believe the prophets are normally writing about the communities of the time, not the geographical locations.

If someone had given a prophecy about "Germany will be defeated" in the middle of the Second World War, he would have been talking about the Third Reich specifically, not about every population that happened to occupy the same territory for thousands of years into the future.

Using that logic, you'd have to agree that the Prophets of the time were talking about the Egyptians & the Assyrians of the time. Yet the post I was responding to said the opposite:

I look at Assyria next time, but I'm inclined to see "Egypt and Assyria" as short-hand for "the Gentile world in general". It's a promise that one day the covenant with God will reach out beyond Israel to include the Gentiles. And guess what...

If they were talking about the literal Egyptians and Assyrians of that time period, how can they also be meaning all Gentiles thousands of years onward? But if they meant people from thousands of years onward, then why are the literal Egyptians and Assyrians of today not the ones they'd be talking about?

a reply to: enlightenedservant
Let me rephrase this, then.
"X will be destroyed, to stop them troubling you" is about the contemporary community of "X", because that's all that matters to the immediate audience. I wanted to stress that point, because those are exactly the prophecies that modern readers want to apply to the modern territories.
However, the prophecies I was looking at in the second post of this thread really were about the more distant future. These were talking about "return of the exiles from Gentile lands" and "Gentiles joining the Israelites in worship". They are looking forward to a time when the contemporary communities of those names would have ceased to exist. Indeed, when Zechariah is writing about the return "from Egypt and Assyria", those states had already ceased to exist. They were no longer, themselves, powers holding exiles. That is the kind of prophecy that I would want to generalise.

One good motive for generalising them is that they are true when generalised.
Take "return from exile", for example. When the prophet says that exiles will return from Egypt and Assyria, can he mean that they will be returning ONLY from those places? Surely not. We are led to expect, for other reasons, a return of exiles from the world at large. If the prophecy happens to be true about the world at large, then let us take that as the meaning.
Again, the promise that they would "worship the Lord". When the prophet says that God will be worshipped by Egypt and Assyria, can he mean that he will be worshipped ONLY in those places? Again, surely not. You and I are presumably not Egyptians and Assyrians, but the prophecy is just as true about us as it can be about them. So again I say, if the prophecy is true about the world at large, let us take that as the meaning.

My case is that there is no real point in limiting these "futuristic" prophecies to the literal Egypt and Assyria, because they don't actually say anything about Egypt and Assyria that isn't equally true about the rest of the world.

a reply to: DISRAELI

"From everlasting to everlasting, thou art God"!

originally posted by: DISRAELI

originally posted by: GBP/JPY
The last time I read about Egypt in Scripture ....He loves Egypt and holds that bunch dear in the finality........

He loves the whole world, even the Egyptians.

I'll stop harping on this point after this. I don't think any definition of love should include smiting your own children....no matter how patient you've been or how many ways you've tried to get their attention. If you are the creator of the entire universe (!) you SURELY can come up with another way to get the attention of those you "love" without resorting to suffering and violence! Hopefully God will understand that my perspective is limited as a human, and understand how I can't understand his contradictions regarding showing love. Hopefully he'll understand my bafflement, instead of accusing me of standing in moral judgement of him.

So, you are gung-ho with the Old Testament God's violent punishment of his people?

originally posted by: DISRAELI
a reply to: glend
I think you need to remember that Exodus is offering a story, not a travel guide. The pyramids etc. do not come into the basic story, so there is no reason why they should be mentioned. Nor is there any reason why the Israelites should have known much about metropolitan Egypt; the story has them dwelling at the eastern edge without venturing any further.
if you were taken to Niagara Falls when you were five years old, could you prove the fact by describing the architecture of New York?

Neverless DISRAELI, archaeologists in Israel have found a great many anomalies that question these biblical accounts here.

With inscriptions from multiple sites in Israel (~8BC) that tell of not one, but two Gods, Jehovah and his consort Asherah. Its very possible that monotheism was a more recent construct. With the stories of Abraham and Moses introduced to reinforce that construct. Which explains why the Torah doesn't mention the name of the Egyptian Pharaoh involved with the exodus.

If Ze'ev Herzog is correct in that Jews were possibly nomadic shepherds that sometimes lived on the outskirts of Egyptian controlled Palestine they could have well burrowed creation stories from other cultures that they came into contact with ....

4000 year old tablet found in Iraq that describes Noah's Ark. Interesting find, given that some sources tell that Noah was burried in Baalabak, Iraq.

a reply to: glend
I am not going to get beyond the topic of the thread, which is Egypt and prophecy.
Since we are talking about possibilities, I'm only interested in the possibility that Israelite ancestors spent time in the eastern fringes of Egypt- on which point, in fact, we agree.

a reply to: DISRAELI

Yes agreed.

Egypt is a Greek word found no where in the OT. Replace every greek or Anglish word with its MEANING and you might get somewhere.... The translators were idiots, okay?

The global pyramid grid was the tower of Babel which split the continents apart when activated (in an attempt to change earths orbit), so yes they are mentioned through your watered down children story version texts.


I swear, just leave the OT alone... The NT was written for you Gentiles of shallow imagination.

originally posted by: BigBangWasAnEcho
Egypt is a Greek word found no where in the OT.

What has that got to do with anythng? It is the current word used in current language for the nation that I'm talking about.
I'm not going to use the Hebrew or native Egyptian word all the time- that would just be pretentious, and would hamper communication.