The prophetic writings of the Bible not only foresee an end-time restoration of the state of Israel, but also announce a restoration of Israel's neighbouring countries.
A visit to Egypt can open Christians' eyes to the amazing things G-d is doing there. He has great plans for this ancient nation, also with regard to Israel.
After Israel, Egypt is mentioned more often than any other nation in the Bible. It is a special country whose culture has had a far-reaching influence and dates back even further than the history of Israel. Alongside Babylon, Egypt was the first world empire to emerge after the Flood. In the centuries that followed, it was to have a strong influence on Jewish history. The Exodus from Egypt shaped Israel's national identity more than any other event. Egypt was also the only country besides Israel where Jesus lived. Accordingly, it has a rich church history. The Coptic Church is possibly the oldest existing church in the world. Its name comes from the Arabic word for Egypt, qubt, signifying the native Egyptian Christians. No wonder, then, that the Hebrew prophets predict a glorious end-time story for Egypt.
But let's start at the beginning.
The biblical history of Egypt begins immediately after the Flood. Egypt (or Mizraim) is introduced as one of Noah's grandsons and the son of Ham (Genesis 10:6). When G-d called Abram out of Ur of the Chaldeans, he travelled to the Promised Land. But shortly afterwards, a famine broke out in Canaan and Abram ‘
went down into Egypt’ (Genesis 12:10). The magnificent pyramids of Giza, the enormous stone structures that still puzzle engineers today, had already been built a few centuries before Abram's arrival. When Abram and Sarai left Egypt, they brought ‘
menservants, and maidservants’ back with them to Canaan (Genesis 12:16; 16:1). One of them handmaids was Hagar, who bore Abram a son, Ishmael. He was the most important progenitor of the Arab tribes in the Middle East.
Isaac was also tempted to flee famine in Egypt, but the Lord instructed him to remain in the land: ‘
I will be with thee, and will bless thee;’ (Genesis 26:3) But Isaac's son Jacob died in Egypt, as did the twelve patriarchs of the tribes of Israel. Joseph, one of these patriarchs, even became prime minister of the Egyptian empire. His wise rule saved not only his family, but the whole world.
In Egypt, Israel became a great nation with more than a million people. According to the rabbis, Israel only became a nation during the Exodus from Egypt, when G-d brought his people to Mount Sinai ‘
with an outstretched arm’. Because of its system of slavery and oppression, the Bible refers to Egypt from then on as a sinful nation representing human strength and endeavours that cannot help (Isa 31:1-3). The Book of Revelation refers to the fallen state of earthly Jerusalem as ‘
Sodom and Egypt’ (Rev 11:8).
Throughout history, there has always been a strong Jewish community in Egypt. The Bible reports that Jews fled to Egypt during the Babylonian occupation of Israel (Jer 40:6-8; 43:5-7). During the period of Greek rule, there are reports of a further influx of Jews into Egypt. When Alexander the Great founded the coastal city of Alexandria in 332 BCE, a significant portion of the population was Jewish. The historian Josephus reports that the Jewish population in Alexandria and throughout Egypt numbered up to one million. Their proportion was so large that Alexandria became a centre of Jewish thought and philosophy.
Philo (20 BCE-50 CE) was considered one of the most influential thinkers of his time. Josephus writes that Onia, the son of the high priest, even had a replica of the Jerusalem Temple built on the island of Elephantine in the Nile. The building was destroyed by Titus in 71 CE, shortly after the Herodian Temple in Jerusalem had been demolished, to prevent a new centre of Jewish worship from emerging.
In Alexandria, something else happened that contributed significantly to the spread of Christianity: the Tanakh (OT) was translated into another language for the first time, Greek. The Egyptian ruler Ptolemy II commissioned the translation because he believed that the Hebrew scriptures should be accessible in the legendary Library of Alexandria. The use of the Septuagint (LXX) was widespread in the early Church. Many cross-references to passages from the OT are quoted directly from the Septuagint in the NT, which was written in Greek. The significance of the Bible being translated into one of the most widely used languages cannot be overestimated. Perhaps only Luther's translation of the Bible into German almost 1800 years later can match this, a language that was also widely spoken at the time. The Septuagint, which originated in Egypt, was the book from which Paul and all the apostles preached as they travelled throughout the world.
When Jesus was born, he in a sense relived the history of Israel with Egypt. Like his ancestors, he had to flee to Egypt on the instructions of an angel and did not return until years later, thus fulfilling Hosea's prophecy: ‘
Out of Egypt have I called my son’ (Mt 2:15, quoting Hos 11:1). It is impressive to see the richness that Coptic tradition still associates with the various places where the Holy Family stayed and lived. Most of these places have a connection to the strong Jewish presence in ancient Egypt.
When the gospel spread throughout the world decades later, it quickly reached Egypt, because Jews from Egypt were also present when the unusual miracles of Pentecost occurred in Jerusalem, they were able to bear witness to the events (Acts 2:10). According to tradition, the evangelist Mark became bishop in Alexandria. He may even have been the founder of the world's very first ‘Christian’ Bible school. The oldest papyrus fragment containing texts from the NT was found in Egypt, the
Ryland P52 fragment, which may date from the first century. When the First Council of Nicaea later decided to change the Passover feast to Easter, it was the Church of the East, led by Alexandria, that resisted this new anti-Jewish law of Emperor Constantine the longest. But eventually Egypt too was infected by the anti-Semitic tendencies of the Church, and the Christian rulers of Alexandria expelled all Jews from the city.
All this suggests that G-d has uniquely placed His hand on the land of Egypt throughout history. Egypt became the means of salvation for Israel, but also experienced G-d's judgement because they so often mistreated G-d's people. Yet He always seemed to pay special attention to Egypt. Like no other prophet, Isaiah foresaw G-d's plans for Egypt in chapter 19 and thus for the entire Middle East.
