Isaiah chapter 20 - Proverbs

Chapter twenty of Isaiah has six verses, few enough to print the entire chapter right here.

“In the year that Tartan came unto Ashdod, (when Sargon the king of Assyria sent him,) and fought against Ashdod, and took it; 2) 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. 3) And the LORD said, Like as my servant Isaiah hath walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and wonder upon Egypt and upon Ethiopia; 4) 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. 5) And they shall be afraid and ashamed of Ethiopia their expectation, and of Egypt their glory. 6) And the inhabitant of this isle shall say in that day, Behold, such is our expectation, whither we flee for help to be delivered from the king of Assyria: and how shall we escape?” (Isaiah chapter 20)

As a warning to Israel, God told Isaiah to take off his clothes and walk around naked and barefoot for three years. It was to be a picture of what the future held for Israel. That’s it; six verses and an interesting story; not much detail; not many words. How could such a story connect with the book of Proverbs? Would there be a similar prophecy tucked away in Proverbs? Hardly! Would there be something in there about Isaiah? Not once is his name to be found in the Proverbs. How could the two possibly be connected?

I prepared a list of sixteen words, mostly nouns, that are found in the above passage. It isn’t a long list. Some of them occur more than once in the six verses. Here they are, and the number of times the occur is indicated as 2X for two occurrences, 3X for three occurrences and so on.

And all of these occur just one time in Isaiah twenty
expectation 2X shame afraid old glory
king 3X young flee escape delivered
Egypt 3X ashamed three years servant foot

There are many other words in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah, but since they don’t show up in Proverbs, I haven’t included them in the above list. As for the book of Proverbs, the above words occur many more times than they do in Isaiah, as you might expect.

expectation 5X shame 14X afraid 3X old 6X glory 9X
king (numerous) young 4X flee 2X escape 1X delivered 4X
Egypt 1X ashamed 1X three 4X years 4X servant 10X
foot 6X

Perhaps this is boring, (no question about that) but after finding out where each of these words were located, it was possible to see if any of them occurred in the same CHAPTER of Proverbs. After that, it was possible to see if any of them occurred in the same VERSE in Proverbs, and guess what? ‘Shame’ and ‘servant’ appear in the same verse in the book of Proverbs, not once, but twice, but they also appear in the same verse in some other books. Here they are anyway.

“The king's favour is toward a wise servant: but his wrath is against him that causeth shame.” (Proverbs 14:35)

“A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance among the brethren.” (Proverbs 17:2)

“Shame” and “glory” show up in the same verse of Proverbs 3:35, and they don’t show up in the same verse of any other book in the Bible.

“The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools.”
(Proverbs 3:35)

“Old” and “glory” occur in the same verse of Proverbs 17, and they don’t show up in the same verse of any other book in the Bible.

“Children's children are the crown of old men; and the glory of children are their fathers.” (Proverbs 17:6)

But, the best connection to Isaiah chapter twenty is Proverbs 20:29. Nowhere else in the Bible do THREE words in our list from Isaiah chapter twenty occur in the same verse.

“The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head.” (Proverbs 20:29)

I once tried to outline the book of Proverbs in order to teach a Sunday school class on it. Impossible! Practically every verse deals with a new subject. Finding any connection between the Psalms and Isaiah chapter 20 is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack. [The pun is absolutely intended.]

Is it just a coincidence that the above verse from the twentieth book of the Bible has a verse in it that has three words in the verse that are also in the twentieth chapter of Isaiah, a chapter with only six verses of its own? And, is it just a coincidence that no other verse in the Bible has those same three word in it? No. Proverbs is connected to Isaiah’s twentieth chapter. And what is also interesting is that the number of the chapter of Proverbs is also, twenty.