Isaiah 19:20
And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them. And it shall be for a sign and for a witness unto the LORD of hosts in the land of Egypt: for they shall cry unto the LORD because of the oppressors, and he shall send them a saviour, and a great one, and he shall deliver them.
The altar and the pillar in the land of Egypt stand as a sign and as a witness to the Lord of hosts. They are not the great pyramid, not a stone pyramid built by Egypt's heathen kings, and not the Great Pyramid of Cheops with its passages, stairways, and chambers serving as types of different periods and phases of the gospel dispensation. The altar is a center of devotion and worship where people gathered. The pillar is the living truth of God, which will win people in Egypt to the Lord.
The prophecy belongs to the spread of God's truth and its fruits in Egypt. Its setting included many Jews living in Egypt, the translation of Scripture into Greek there about 300 years before Christ, and favors extended to the Jewish people, so that knowledge of God helped make Egypt a center of Christian churches and worship. Egypt's distress under oppressors is the means by which its people cry to the Lord, and when they cry to him because of their oppressors he sends a powerful, mighty, great savior to deliver them.
The chapter shows the revolutions and state of Egypt: though ancient, powerful, populous, and naturally defensible by sea, desert, navy, and the Nile, it would be invaded, conquered, spoiled, and fall permanently into the hand of strangers, become the basest of the kingdoms and no more rule over the nations, and renounce idolatry. This was fulfilled when Egypt was invaded and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, afterward subjected by the Persians under Cambyses and by the Macedonians under Alexander the Great, then ruled by the Ptolemies, then brought under the Roman yoke, then successively ruled by Saracens, Mamelukes, and Turks with no native prince. It was left in slavery, tyranny, methodical oppression, poverty, vermin and disease, with idols and images caused to cease out of Noph and rivers drying up.
The verse refers to the preaching of the gospel in Egypt and Assyria in New Testament times. It is applied to Egypt becoming a refuge for Joseph, Mary, and Jesus when they fled Herod, and to the later turning of Egyptians toward God through the gospel. A great part of the prophecy had already been fulfilled in Egypt, with its fulfillment described as partly complete and partly dependent on whether certain requirements are met. The chapter concerns events that were probably all fulfilled centuries ago, with nothing in it remaining to be fulfilled in modern times.
The verse also points to a fuller future revelation in which the Egyptians will know the Lord. It gives Egypt's witness of Jehovah and the message of a Saviour who delivers people from the oppression of sin. The Lord sends a great Savior to deliver those who cry to him; Jesus is that great Savior, able to save even those burdened by great sin, so there is hope for everyone in him. The verse strengthens confidence that God is a faithful helper and deliverer when lonely and beset by the powers of darkness.