All through this period of prophecy, Isaiah’s voice is aggressively raised against the folly of trusting Egypt. His protest is, “Since God redeemed us once from bondage in that land, why put ourselves back again under their yoke?”
The princes replied in some such terms as this: “The objection is o. k. in principle; as a basic thesis we will admit that it is safe to trust in God. But right now we need real help and we need it in a hurry.”
The prophet cried out in response, “God will send the help that you need!”
The natural question was “Whence? Syria and Egypt are the only two powers near us. One is arrayed against us and the help of the other you forbid us to seek. Whence then is the aid that God will send?”
The prophet’s reply was short and terse, “God will send aid from very far off.”
The reluctant court agreed to take a chance on Isaiah’s insistence, and so to trust their cause to the God of Israel. Quickly, then, upon the heels of this decision, as we learn from the records of archeology, there came one of the earlier battles that were fought at Charchemish.
The rising power of Assyria first made itself felt in that engagement. As a result, Syria was shattered and Israel made captive. The help that God had promised did come, and now the definite prophecy of Isaiah, in chapters seven and eight, may be correlated into this simple summary; and against this background we can understand the vehemence of Isaiah in crying out against an alliance with Egypt.
It is not too much to say, as we shall later show in detail, that in our present possession there is sufficient knowledge derived from the monuments and records of antiquity to authenticate every prophecy that Isaiah made concerning Egypt, Israel, Syria, and Assyria. Thus the text of the Old Testament is illumined, and a floodlight of understanding thrown upon its prophetic utterance by the findings in this field.
Even more striking is the contribution of archeology in the second field, that of evidence in defense of the accepted text. The museums, monuments, and libraries of the world are teeming with such evidences, and it shall be the purpose of this volume to condense, epitomize, and present much of that evidence in a simple and readable form, divorced from technical obscurities. Right here, however, we offer just one simple illustration under each of the subdivisions suggested in the paragraph above.
To demonstrate the evidence of the Bible’s historicity, we shall offer the illustration made famous by the late Dr. Robert Dick Wilson, as to the record of the forty-seven kings of antiquity. It is probably known to the reader that the historical sections of the Old Testament contain the names of forty-seven kings, aside from the rulers of Israel and Judah. These foreign, or Gentile kings, have been known by name for many centuries to every reader of the Old Testament.