Category Archives: Egypt

Daughter Egypt and “Her” – Assyria

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Questions. When studies collide, you get questions. Daughter, Egypt, and Assyria have generated studies and questions, and it seems they are doing it again. In 2026, I changed my Bible reading from going cover to cover to focusing on Psalms, Isaiah, and the New Testament. Quess what; I have been cover to cover because of looking up references. Some of the biggest question makers have been Isaiah reporting God’s thoughts on daughters, Egypt, and Assyria.

Isaiah was in the cohort of Prophets who lived and wrote during a time period when Assyria was bullying the Levant. Amos, Micah, Hosea, Nahum, and Jonah all witnessed their parts of the action in 2 Chronicles and 2 Kings from Jeroboam II and Uzziah/Azariah through the fall of the Northern Kingdom to the start of King Manasseh. These men came, spoke, and wrote God’s words and thoughts to Jacob’s children; yes, they are still speaking to us today. When you read Isaiah, it is good to remember what Assyria was doing to the nations.

  • Samaria had been defeated and carried off as slaves.
  • All the fortified cities of Judea had been captured and many people were deported.
  • The Philistines had called for Egypt to help them against Assyria. Egypt did not show up.
  • Jerusalem had an 11th hour event and faced destruction.
  • The nations around Israel (many of them enemies) were either defeated/crushed or ‘laid down and let Assyria walk on them’. (they made treaties and started paying them off) But literally, they laid on the ground, and the Assyrian king would walk on them.
  • Egypt could not help the ‘little guys’ because they were not strong enough to defeat Assyria.

Observations generate questions that lead to studies. An observation of Isaiah is that he refers to Daughter and Virgin Daughter Zion many times, he also writes about other nations as daughter. Does he refer to Daughter Egypt? No, that will be found in Jeremiah; who also talks about daughters many times. Daughter Zion and Daughter Zion #2 and Daughter Zion Observations cover a lot of ground and in those studies questions about our Father and daughters have come up; my study for this post started at least one more.

Daughter Egypt

Egypt and Assyria were not nice to Israel. But in God’s plan there is hope and redemption held out to them and the other nations that choose to serve and praise God. In God’s plan, as talked about by Isaiah, a Highway of Holiness will be made to link those nations to Jerusalem. Imagine how Isaiah must have felt when he got that word and wrote it down; then gave it to the people.

Jeremiah, with Baruch recording, also had much to say about Egypt. The main idea was simple, DO NOT GO TO EGYPT FOR HELP. In Jeremiah’s lifetime Babylon was the bully who beat Assyria and Egypt. Chapter 46 God addresses Egypt and other nations and here it reflects the fact He did not want Jerusalem thinking Egypt could help. 46:11 talks about Virgin Daughter Egypt going to Gilead (a part of Israel on the east bank of the Jordan) to get medicine for healing. The term ‘virgin’ here started another level of study. 46:19 speaks to what Babylon would do to Egypt and signals that they will be no help. Translators starting with the Geneva Bible arrange the thought here a little different. Jeremiah 46:19 Hebrew Text Analysis  46:24 continues with ‘they will be given to the people of the north’. On level one that would be Babylon, but on level two it talks to Greece and Rome. Don’t miss the      BIG takeaway, God calls Egypt daughter and virgin daughter; that may mess with some people’s theology.  My observation (not an answer) is that God has a bigger thought for that nation than we do.

Assyria

I am including Assyria to help me sort my thoughts on a very complicated topic. Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel are about 100 years after Isaiah, but the political climate had not changed much. Those men lived under the shadow of Egypt and Assyria and then felt the iron rod of Babylon. One thing I did not find was God saying Daughter Assyria. The best I could find was a reference to ‘her’ in Ezekiel 32:22,23. Your favorite translation may add some confusion here as the core of those verses talk about Assyria as a woman; except the GNV and KJV started talking about Asshur (Assyria) as a ‘him’. Yes, that was a name of the main male Assyrian god.

This opened up the fact that God refers to cities, regions, and nations as women. Not all cities and nations are called daughter, but He refers to them in female terms. I do not think that is a mistake and actually is very important. Well, you now can see a future study.

Egypt – Different Name Same Problem

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Egypt is an ancient country that has interacted with Abraham’s family for a very long time. That relationship changed throughout the Bible and when the prophecies in Isaiah are fulfilled it will change again. I think it is fair to say much of the time Egypt has not been nice to Abraham’s family through Jacob. The poetry and prophetic books in the Bible use several different names/symbols for the land along the Nile River, and that is what this post is about.

Psalms 105 and 106 are “Sabbath lessons” and part of those lessons include Egypt. Psalm 106 has a telling of the exodus from Egypt: verse 10 uses terms for ‘hand of one hating’ and ‘hand of the enemy’ to describe Egypt, verses 19-20 tell the story of the Golden Calf/Bull (a god of Egypt), and verse 21 uses the names Egypt and Ham (also in 105). Psalm 106 was written after Jeremiah because it includes ‘other foes’ who oppressed Israel (verse 41).

Ham

Ham is Noah’s son who had to tell on his father. For that unkind, embarrassing act he got cursed, especially his son Canaan. This story is found in Genesis 9 and 10. Another of Ham’s sons is Mizraim or Egypt. If you do a word search in the KJV you can find Mitsrayim and Egypt. If you use the Strong’s Concordance it is H2526. Ham appears to come from the word for hot. Ham is used in Psalms 78:51, 105:23 and 27, and 106:22 in connection with or for the land of Egypt.

Mitsrayim or Mizraim is H4714 in the Strong’s and is translated Egypt. It is the lands along the Nile River, both upper and lower Egypt.

Rahab is H7294 in the Strong’s and is another name used for Egypt. It means boaster or storm. When this name is used it is negative. See Psalm 87:4, 89:10, and Isaiah 51:9. PLEASE do not think that is the name of Jesus’ grandmother who helped the spies in Jericho; she is H7343 and her name means to be wide or spacious.  

Pharaoh is the title for the king of Egypt. See H6547. I am including it in this post because of Isaiah 30, where the people thought he would help them against Assyria. Pharaoh is often used as a symbol that Israel thought would help them, they seldom did. That Pharaoh did not help at all during the time of Isaiah.

What do Rahab, Pharaoh, and Mizraim have in common? They all contain RA or the Egyptian sun god. Yes, other words contain that set of Hebrew letters, but I thought it was funny. Strong’s Hebrew: 7451. רָע (ra’) — Evil, bad, wicked, harmful, unpleasant

Isaiah 30:6 refers to Egypt as ‘a people of no profit’ or Hebrew Concordance: yō·w·‘î·lū — 9 Occurrences  This was not a great time for Egypt and they were having problems. Assyria was the new power in the Levant to be reckoned with and they took the idea of being a bully to a whole new level.

Egypt

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Egypt. This topic has been in many of my posts. It played key roles in my Out of Egypt and Passover to Pentecost series. So, this is not really a new study as I have been laboring on this topic a long time and with this series I cannot see me exiting the subject of Egypt soon.

Egypt is one of the three major oppressors of Israel (Assyria and Babylon), and one of two of the longtime antagonists of Jacob and his children (Edom/Esau is the other). So, in reading/studying the Prophet Isaiah it was not surprising to find all of these players in that Book, but there are several massa and amar (God said or oracles) that Isaiah records that are surprising as to how Egypt and Assyria will act in God’s story. (I wanted to write Godstory instead of history. Well, I guess I did.)  

My study starts in Genesis 10:6 and instantly becomes a HOT mess; this is because of the name Egypt or Mitsrayim. 10:6 is a list of the children of Ham, Noah’s son. All of these children are associated with the Levant and Africa. The names Egypt or Mitsrayim are used in various places and translations, but both are the lands along the Nile River or Ham’s son. Explore these Bible Hub references.

All sorts of thoughts have flooded my brain because of Genesis 10 and the Tower of Babel. Archeology, history, and shared human experiences are not being ignored, but they are not my main subject in this post. I will put this down as an example, pyramids and ziggurats share a common shape, but academics do not like to state they may have a common origin. I have watched shows where the shared shape is mentioned and marveled at, but no one has said the Tower of Babel and a shared human activity. Why would they make a statement that points to the Bible.

God directs Terah (from Shem) to go to Canaan (from Ham), we are not told why he was to go but Terah never made it. Abram (Terah’s son) does go and the Godstory gets a new chapter entitled FAITH. So, in Genesis 12 we see a famine and Abram and company going to Egypt (from Ham). Egypt now is a place of refuge and this repeats with Joseph/Jacob and Jesus. The refuge changes into a place of problems and slavery.

With all of that in mind it is interesting that Jehovah warns Jacob’s children to NOT go back to Egypt for help. Israel responds to that degree with marriages, treaties, trade, looking to Egypt for military assistance, and running away from Babylon.    

In general, most references from Joshua to David, are references to what had happened and how God had done great things for Israel. From Solomon to Isaiah is a different story, and then comes the time of Babylon and bad things happened as the people thought Egypt would help them. Two very telling verses for the time from Joshua to David are: Joshua 24:14 and 1 Samuel 8:8; both paint the picture of the People forsaking God and worshipping and serving other gods.

Much has been and could be said about Joseph and Mary taking Jesus to Egypt. In God’s story it is a reset in the action to bring salvation to the world, and the Gentiles into the Family, and compares with Abraham and Issac, and then Moses/Joshua and the taking of the Promise Land.

Egypt had history before Abram and stayed a world power right into the time of Rome. The Bible does not record much of that history because it is a different story. One thing they were good at was fighting; they had major conflicts with the Hittites, the Sea People, Assyria, and then Babylon at the time of Josiah. Trade was another thing that Egypt did and it had an effect on the world around it.