Isaiah30chapter 30

The road to Egypt is described by a man who had seen it. It runs south through the Negev, and Isaiah calls it the land of trouble and anguish, of the lioness and the roaring lion, of the viper and the flying serpent — the last being the local name for a fast-striking desert snake. Along it go donkeys with treasure on their backs and camels with valuables on their humps, all of it going to a people who cannot help. That treasure was Judah's gold, on its way to buy a promise.

Isaiah gives Egypt a nickname: Rahab who sits still, or roughly, the loud monster who does nothing. Egypt in these years talked a great deal about what it would do against Assyria and delivered very little.

He is told to write it on a tablet and inscribe it in a book so it will last for the time to come, as a witness forever. Two media, one message — the durable public notice and the archive copy. Prophets did this so that when the thing happened, the date on the record could not be argued with.

The public's request is quoted directly, and it is the most modern-sounding line in the book: do not prophesy to us right things; speak to us smooth things, prophesy deceits, get out of the way, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel. That was said out loud, to a preacher's face.

The chapter ends with two burnings. The idols get thrown away like a filthy rag — the plated images with their gold and silver overlay, discarded with disgust. And Topheth is prepared for the king: the burning place in the valley on the south side of Jerusalem, where children had once been offered in fire, now described with its fire pit deep and wide and the breath of the LORD kindling it.