Reading Isaiah

Acts 8:26-40

Good morning! Today we continue our series in the book of Acts, finishing chapter 8. We started this journey back in January, and very early in the series we read and discussed the following verses:

Then they [the disciples] gathered around Him and asked Him, “Lord, are You at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” After He said this, He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid Him from their sight. – Acts 1:6-9 

 

And in those early chapters of Acts, we saw how the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, and they did indeed receive power, the power to perform miracles like Jesus, and more importantly, the power to understand and speak boldly about Jesus. This all began in Jerusalem, just as Jesus had said. The Jews who first heard the gospel message were located at the time in Jerusalem, but they came from throughout Judea, and even beyond. In that initial event with the Holy Spirit, God made it so that people heard the message of God in their own language, even though the disciples had no natural ability in those languages. 

 

The number of believers in Jerusalem grew rapidly, despite some early episodes of persecution (or, perhaps, even because of those episodes). Among the early Jews believing in Jesus were some Jews of Greek (Hellenistic) background, and due to some complaints about the administration of food to the widows from this background, seven well-respected men were chosen to help oversee this process, among which were a man named Stephen and a man named Philip (a different Philip than the disciple Philip). 

 

These men did more than administer food to the Hellenistic Jews – Stephen, in particular, was highlighted for his being filled with the Spirit and his performing miraculous signs and wonders among them. This drew attention from another group of Hellenistic Jews, members of the perhaps misnamed “Synagogue of the Freedmen,” misnamed because, being non-believing Jews opposed to the gospel, they in fact remained imprisoned by their sin. This group opposed what Stephen and the other believers were doing, and seized Stephen and brought him before the Sanhedrin, leading to a trial against him. In this trial, Stephen gave a true but unflattering presentation of the history of Israel, culminating in a condemnation of their opposition to God at this present time. Stephen had a vision of heaven and “saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.” (Acts 7:55). He told them of his vision, and at this the crowd went berserk, dragging him out of the city, where they stoned him to death. A young Pharisee named Saul presided over this murderous event. 

 

Saul then began a great persecution against the church, the Jewish believers in Christ. He went from house to house and arrested both men and women who believed. This led to many believers scattering away from Jerusalem, either to their home locations, if they had come from somewhere else, or to new locations away from home, if they resided in Jerusalem. This caused the gospel to spread beyond Jerusalem throughout Judea, as Jesus had promised. 

 

Last week we learned about how Philip went to a city in Samaria and preached the gospel there as well as performing miraculous signs, healing the sick, and casting out evil spirits. Many came to faith. Hearing of this news, the disciples sent Peter and John, who upon arriving prayed for them and they received the Holy Spirit as the believers in Jerusalem had. 

 

Today, I do not believe it is necessary, or even normative, for there to be a separation in time between when someone repents and believes in Christ and when they receive the Holy Spirit; I believe that receipt of the Holy Spirit occurs when people become believers. But throughout Acts, we see this separation multiple times that the gospel first has its effect among a people. The separation seems to be God’s way of confirming that indeed, this new people’s coming to Christ is genuine and is approved of, or blessed, by God. 

 

I also do not believe that the signs and wonders associated with each of these “first” encounters of a people group with Christ are normative today, especially among groups among which the gospel has been spreading for a long time. But I think it can still happen in true “first” encounters among people groups that are almost entirely unreached. There are many reports of Moslems in countries with almost no believers in Christ having specific dreams about Jesus or about the people who bring the gospel to them even today, for example. And there are also accounts of dreams among Jewish people in Israel and elsewhere. 

 

Last week’s passage ended with these words: 

 

After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the gospel in many Samaritan villages. – Acts 8:25 

 

And so the gospel now spread even further, fulfilling Jesus’ words about Samaria. What about the “ends of the earth”? This brings us to today’s passage.    

 

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” – Acts 8:26-29 

 

So there is a lot to talk about here. The first thing to note is that Philip immediately obeys. There is no sign that he asks questions, or seeks assurances, or anything of the sort. The angel says “go”, so Philip went. 

 

Now I like that this translation keeps things pretty literal – the Greek word translated as Ethiopian is a Greek word that sounds like this, and the term Kandake is straight from the Greek. Some translations say something like “the treasury of Candace,” implying that Candace is a specific person. In fact, Kandake is a title and a name, and so there are a lot of Kandakes over time, just as there are multiple Herods. 

 

But what is this Ethiopian term refer to? From ancient manuscripts and archaeology we know that it refers to the kingdom of Cush. And the Kandakes were queens who ruled Cush from a period of about 300 BC to 300 AD from the capital city of Meroe. The center of Cush at that time is the modern-day country of Sudan, which is in northern Africa directly south of Egypt. The modern-day country of Ethiopia is adjacent to Sudan, to the southeast. These boundaries have of course moved throughout the ages, and so the Greek term of Ethiopia to describe this larger kingdom and people makes a lot of sense. 

 

Now the kingdom of Cush is mentioned more than 50 times in the Bible, often describing individuals in the Old Testament, but also as a country that God planned to punish in multiple prophecies. The land of Cush is mentioned all the way back in Genesis 2, as a region by which one of the rivers flowed that split off from the river flowing out of Eden. Cush son of Ham (Cush the person) is mentioned in Genesis 10 as one of the grandsons of Noah. The people and nation of Cush are described like the various nations around Israel – following idols, people that the Israelites should be separate from. And they are people that Israel fights at various times in the time period of the kings of Judah and Israel, the times of the split kingdom. 

 

But there are also individuals of Cush who served under the people of Israel and were given positions of significant responsibility. One example is Ebed-Melek, who is described in Jeremiah as a Cushite official in the royal palace in Jerusalem. It is because of him that the prophet Jeremiah is rescued from the cistern. And later, when Jerusalem is about to fall to the Babylonians, God gives a prophecy to Jeremiah that is for Ebed-Melek, that God will rescue him from what will come. 

 

We aren’t told the fulfillment of this prophecy, but surely it came to pass. And I wonder if maybe Ebed-Melek went back to Cush, and told others of how God had delivered him, and as a result a God-believing community began to take hold and grow in Cush from that time on. In any case, a group of Ethiopians who believed in God definitely did form, and they identified themselves as Jewish. A couple decades ago, Israel even allowed them to immigrate to Israel under Aliyah, the Law of Return, which not only gives Jews the ability to immigrate and obtain citizenship, but also provides for them initially in many ways. 

 

I want to say a bit more about the Cushite kingdom. Initially, the Cushite people were strongly dominated by Egypt, and they adopted many Egyptian practices and beliefs. But the Cushite kingdom grew in strength as Egypt weakened, and Cushite kings eventually became some of the Pharaohs of Egypt.  Their incursion and control of Egypt was broken when the Assyrians conquered Egypt, but they retreated into their own territory and continued to thrive. 

 

Starting around 300 BC, Cush began to use females as their rulers. They were called Kandake, just as the passage in Acts says. They always appeared in public with male escorts, but the Kandake truly ruled and were not led or controlled by these men. Those who worked closely with the queen were made eunuchs so that they could be trusted to be alone around her. By the way, God was opposed to this practice. You can look up Deuteronomy 23:1 to learn about that. 

 

Why did women become rulers? We are not certain. Interestingly, when Cush came into its own, it developed its own culture apart from Egypt, and this included leaving behind the Egyptian hieroglyphics form of writing and developing their own written alphabet-based language. We have been able to learn how to, at least approximately, pronounce this writing, as specialists in this type of thing have identified the names of locations that we know how to pronounce. But apart from this we have not yet been able to decipher the language. We don’t have an artifact written in multiple languages including the Cush language to be able to use as a translation starting point. So there are lots of details about the Cush people that we do not know. What we do know is limited to what we have found that has been written by other people groups about them.   

 

One theory as to why the women became the rulers is that their husbands were to be venerated by the people as divine beings, and it was thought that they were too sacred to be involved in such a demeaning thing as leadership. It also appears that there were periods between 300 BC and 300 AD where there was no husband present – he may have died young. When this happened, his wife just kept on leading the country. 

 

Around 30 BC, Rome defeated Egypt. A few years later, in 27 AD, Augustus Caesar became the sole leader of Rome, and this event marks the end of the Roman Republic and the beginning of the Roman Empire. That same year, Augustus pursued Cush. The Romans installed a local leader as they had done in so many other places, and demanded tribute be paid to Rome. But the Cushites resisted and raided multiple Roman cities, throwing down the statues of Augustus. The Romans fought back, capturing multiple cities and taking many people as slaves. The Cushites continued to raid Roman cities, taking loot and in one case a bronze head of Caesar. They took this head to their capitol city and buried it at the entrance to one of their main temples. It has been suggested that they did this so that the people of Cush could “walk over the head of Caesar” in contempt. This statue has been discovered buried at this exact location.    

 

Around 24 BC, a woman leader from Cush began to negotiate with Rome, holding to a requirement that they get more favorable terms than pretty much any other country subject to Rome. The Romans attacked the city where she was, forcing her to flee, but fierce resistance forced the Romans to again negotiate. In the end, Cush received pretty much everything they had asked for, and Rome even remitted the tributes that they had previously imposed. What followed was 300 years of peace with Rome along with flourishing trade. 

 

With this background, let us reread this passage from Acts: 

 

Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.” – Acts 8:26-29 

 

Hopefully with this background you can understand how important this person had to be, from a worldly perspective. In addition, I believe that this man was Jewish. He had gone to Jerusalem to worship, after all, and he was reading Isaiah. If he was non-Jewish, I doubt the Jews would have even talked to him, let alone allowed him to obtain a scroll of Isaiah. 

 

Would the Kandake allow her officials to worship the God of the Jews? I believe so. We know that there were a minority of Cushite people who viewed themselves as Jewish even many, many centuries later. The Cushites had many gods, some of the Egyptian gods, and some of their own, and like the Greeks and Romans, generally didn’t mind you choosing which gods you wanted to worship. It was only when the Romans insisted that you worship someone in particular that the Jews rebelled. We know that the Nubians were the same way. Their act of burying the Caesar head was very much an act of religious defiance. They were refusing to bow to the Emperor as God, and their final negotiations allowed them to not have to do any such thing. 

 

And God, behind the scenes, has set up this amazing meeting between a powerful representative of a foreign nation, and if I am correct, a man who was also a devout follower of the God of the Hebrews. Now up until this point, Philip did not know why he was even going down this road. But now the Spirit (and notice this is the Spirit, not the angel mentioned earlier) prompts Philip to go to the chariot and stay near it. 

 

Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked. “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. – Acts 8:30-31 

 

First of all, I love how Philip doesn’t walk but runs to the chariot. No hesitation, no “are you sure, God?” Now, was the chariot moving? We don’t know for sure, but I wonder if maybe it was, and so the Holy Spirit’s instruction to “stay near it” meant to keep up with it. That makes a lot of sense to me. And so Philip ran because otherwise it would keep on moving away from him. 

 

Now I also wonder exactly what the man was reading. Was he reading the Hebrew out loud? Or was he reading a Greek translation? Interestingly, the Ethiopian Jews who made Aliyah to Israel did know Hebrew. They had a unique pronunciation of the vowels, but that makes sense, as people who study languages will tell you that vowel pronunciations are the first thing that shifts. Even if you look at the various dialects in America, the difference is in the vowels. For example, do you say “why-er” or “war” (for wire)? So have no problem believing that this scroll was in Hebrew. But it is also possible that it was in Greek. We know with certainty that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, was already written by this time. And we also know that Philip knew Greek – as he was one of the Greek-speaking Jews chosen to help with the distribution of food for the Greek widows. Would the “Ethiopian” man know Greek? Very possibly. The Cushites had people who knew both Greek and Latin, and this is how they negotiated their very favorable settlement with Rome. An important person like this man would be just the kind of person who would be trained in multiple languages. We also know that the male leader who instituted the precursors of the female Kandakes (around 300 BC) instituted many reforms based on Greek philosophy (including the rejection of the Egyptian priesthood in Cush, which he achieved by slaughtering all the priests). He was such a huge influence on the changes in Cush that it makes sense to me that many people there would continue to learn Greek. And pragmatically, it was also important for trade. 

 

In any case, Philip and the man are now up in the chariot together, reading from perhaps the Old Testament book that points to Christ more frequently and more blatantly than any other. 

 

There is an interesting contrast between this eunuch and the man named Simon in the previous chapter. What did Simon want? Personal power. He wanted to be able to perform the miracles that the disciples could do. He wanted people to look up to him, to see him as some kind of holy, special man above other men. He was rebuked for this ungodly desire. 

 

But what did the eunuch desire? The truth. To understand and know God.  He was rewarded for his desire. He had no idea how great the reward truly was! He did not know that an angel was involved by setting Philip down this significant journey to meet him. He did not know that the Holy Spirit was involved by having Philip approach this foreign envoy, something he would have never done without the prompting of the Holy Spirit. 

 

This has important lessons for today. Those who approach the things of God only hoping to get something great out of them (and I might include those who hunger for the message of the false prosperity gospel in this category) are likely to find that God remains distant to them. But those who seek the truth, who seek God, will find the desire of their souls. I am reminded of the words in Revelation 3:20: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with Me.” 

 

(As an aside, I am very tempted to ask this question now in our Isaiah Bible study at 9:45, to ask, “Do you understand what you are reading?” just to see if anyone responds with “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?”) 

 

This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading: “He was led like a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before its shearer is silent, so He did not open his mouth. In His humiliation He was deprived of justice. Who can speak of His descendants? For His life was taken from the earth.” The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus. – Acts 8:32-35 

 

Wow, what an amazing coincidence that he was reading such a perfect passage! Do you believe that was coincidence? Neither do I. That was the Holy Spirit’s timing. Talk about the perfect setup for sharing the gospel! 

 

This passage is from Isaiah 53. Here is the entire chapter. (There is much more we could look at in the previous chapter as well.) 

 

Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed? He grew up before Him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him. He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces He was despised, and we held Him in low esteem. Surely He took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered Him punished by God, stricken by Him, and afflicted. – Isaiah 53:1-4 

 

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.  He was oppressed and afflicted, yet He did not open His mouth; He was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so He did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment He was taken away. Yet who of His generation protested? For He was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of My people He was punished. – Isaiah 53:5-8 

 

He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death, though He had done no violence, nor was any deceit in His mouth. Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush Him and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life an offering for sin, He will see his offspring and prolong His days, and the will of the Lord will prosper in His hand. After He has suffered, He will see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge My righteous servant will justify many, and He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I will give Him a portion among the great, and He will divide the spoils with the strong, because He poured out His life unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors. – Isaiah 53:9-12 

 

To go through this passage properly would require another entire message. But we see in the first four verses the idea that He was rejected, even despised, but He somehow bore our suffering. And we saw Him as punished by God. In the next four verses, we see that He somehow died for our sin, and because of him we are somehow healed, restored. And it says that he remained silent in His suffering, and we know that Jesus stopped answering the questions of those who questioned Him. And we see that nobody spoke up on His behalf. We know that even the disciples did not speak up, and Peter even denied knowing Him. And then in the last four verses we see that He was without sin, yet given the punishment of the greatest sinner, and He was put in a rich man’s tomb. And somehow His life was an offering for the sin of others, and He died, yet somehow He lives. And God’s will will be carried out through Him, and many will be “justified,” declared righteous, and He will bear their sins somehow. And then God will honor Him because of what He has done. It’s the gospel, plain and simple. And so Philip began with this passage and told Him the good news, which is what “gospel” means, about Jesus. 

 

As they traveled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptized?” And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and traveled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea. – Acts 8:36-40 

 

The previous portion of the passage did not make it clear whether the eunuch became a believer in Christ, but this portion makes it quite clear. The man wants to be baptized, and he is rejoicing. He has believed the gospel! And he wants to demonstrate his belief through baptism. I believe this was also God’s provision. Didn’t the passage earlier say Philip was to go on a desert path? 

 

God desires that all believers confirm their belief through baptism. Baptism does not equal salvation, but it is a step of obedience to the Lord, a step of showing that if God desires that you do something, that you are willing to do it. Baptism is called an “ordinance” of the church. The word “ordinance” is not a word we use often. Its origin is in the Latin word ordināre which means to arrange. An ordinance is something that God has arranged for us to do. Like communion, which is remembering the sacrifice of Jesus through partaking of the bread and cup, ordinances are things that God has arranged for our benefit. Communion is to our benefit because it helps us to actively remember what God has done – it brings it to the front of our thoughts. And likewise, baptism is for our benefit because it symbolizes death in going into the water and resurrection when coming out of it. Christ died and rose again as a kind of firstfruits of what will happen to those who have put their faith in Christ. And even the act of repenting and putting your faith in Christ is a kind of death, a death to the former self-directed life that we used to live, and it is a resurrection into a new life, a life directed and empowered by God. Jesus describes this new life as “born again”, and baptism is certainly a powerful symbol of being born again. And baptism is also to our benefit in that it is public. It is important to God that we identify with Christ publicly. Being a Christian is not meant to be something we do so secretly that nobody knows that we have done it. We are to be witnesses of what God has done from the first moment that we put our faith in Him. Nowadays, we tend to wait months or even longer before participating in baptism. I love this account in Acts because baptism is immediate. And I would encourage new believers to get baptized as soon as they possibly can. Again, it is for our good that we do this! 

 

Now, what in the world happened to Philip? All I know is what you and I read. He disappeared and reappeared some miles away. I can imagine Philip saying “Woah. That was weird. Where am I?” And so he asks someone. And then when he finds out, he shrugs and says, “By the way, do you know about Jesus?” 

 

What did that little magic trick of God do for the eunuch? It showed him that God loved him. He probably did not previously learn about all that had transpired so that Philip “just happened” to be there to lead him to Christ. And so it confirmed to him that this wasn’t just the musings of some random fanatic guy – God was real, and He truly did love this man, even though he wasn’t a “traditional” Jew, even though he worked for people who likely worshiped idols, even though he himself had undergone an irreversible procedure that God was strongly opposed to. Despite all this, God loved him and wanted him to be one of His followers forever. Whatever he believed in the past, whatever he had chosen to do, how he had lived, was in the past. From this point forward, he was a beloved child of God. And of course, that is true today as well. God’s invitation is open to everyone, no matter what they have believed or done. You may not get to experience the miracles that the Ethiopian experienced, but that does not make God’s love for you any less real. May we all go on our way rejoicing – and telling others about the suffering Messiah who died and yet lives in honor forever.