Did Isaiah Really Walk Naked for Three Years?
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Did God really command Isaiah to walk around completely naked for three years?
Last month, in our reverse questions and answers session, one of the questions was, “Who did God command to walk around naked for three years?” The answer was Isaiah. This story is found in Isaiah 20:2-3. It says, “At the same time the Lord spoke by Isaiah the son of Amoz, saying, ‘Go, and remove the sackcloth from your body, and take your sandals off your feet.’ And he did so, walking naked and barefoot. Then the Lord said, ‘Just as My servant Isaiah has walked naked and barefoot three years for a sign and a wonder against Egypt and Ethiopia.’” After I mentioned this, someone asked me whether Isaiah was completely naked or not. So, I looked into it, and I would like to make a couple of clarifications and observations about this text.
First, God did not explicitly command Isaiah to walk naked. The command that God gave was “Go, and remove the sackcloth from your body, and take your sandals off your feet.” Isaiah had been wearing sackcloth. This was a symbol of mourning. We do not know why he was wearing it, though. Some have suggested he was mourning the loss of the northern tribes. Maybe it was part of an earlier prophecy about Zion (Isaiah 3:24). Maybe it was the clothing of poor people. In Isaiah 20, God gives the command to Isaiah to take the sackcloth off to illustrate that Egypt would be conquered by Assyria and taken into captivity. Verse four says, “so shall the king of Assyria lead away the Egyptians as prisoners and the Ethiopians as captives, young and old, naked and barefoot, with their buttocks uncovered, to the shame of Egypt.”
Second, did God’s command for Isaiah to take off the sackcloth reduce Isaiah to complete nakedness? Several commentators that I read suggested that underneath the sackcloth Isaiah had on another layer of clothing similar to undergarments. Isaiah may not have been completely nude as a result, but the people of that day would consider him naked since all that he had on were his undergarments. Some commentators suggested that God would not command someone to do this because it would be immodest. However, it would be immodest for Isaiah to walk around in his underwear too! One commentator, Edward Young, said, “If Isaiah, however, were to go about naked, would he not be conducting himself dishonorably? Would he not be doing something shameful that would cast despite upon his prophetic influence? In answer, we can only say that acting in obedience to God can never be a thing of shame” (Young, The Book of Isaiah: A Commentary, Eerdman’s, 1969, V.2, p.54-55). He goes on to explain that Isaiah probably had on undergarments.
Third, we should note that sometimes God commands people to do things that are different to the standard set of moral commands that He gives human beings. God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his Son, Isaac (Genesis 22:2). God commanded the Israelites to kill all the Canaanites (Deuteronomy 20:16-18). God put a lying spirit into the mouth of King Ahab’s false prophets (1 Kings 22:23). God commanded Hosea to marry a harlot (Hosea 1:2). These are unusual commands. They were special situations where God exercised His divine prerogative for specific reasons. God’s command to Isaiah falls into this category. We need to be careful that we do not judge God by the same standards that God judges us. He is not a human. Job tried to do this and God rebuked him for it because, in the words of Elihu, “God is greater than man” (Job 33:12).