Isaiah 19:19

"In that day shall there be an altar to Jehovah in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a pillar at the border thereof to Jehovah. And it shall be a sign for a witness unto Jehovah of hosts in the land of Egypt; for they shall cry unto Jehovah because of oppressors, and he will send them a saviour and a defender, and he will deliver them. And Jehovah shall be known to Egypt and, the Egyptians shall know Jehovah in that day; yea, they shall worship with sacrifice and oblation, and shall vow a vow unto Jehovah, and shall perform it. And Jehovah will smite Egypt, smiting and healing; and they shall return unto Jehovah, and he will be entreated of them, and will heal them."

Archer's understanding of this we believe to be correct. He wrote:

"There would even be an altar erected unto Jehovah (Isaiah 19:19) in Egypt. Such an altar was erected by a Jewish high priest named Onias in the reign of Ptolemy VI; and this was an earnest of the later conversion of Egyptians to Christianity. And God here promised to send them a saviour (Isaiah 19:20). Historically, this was first fulfilled when Alexander the Great freed the oppressed peoples from their yoke of Persian submission; but in the higher dimension, it stands for the coming of the divine Saviour who would free them from their sins."[17]

Regarding this temple (including an altar, of course) that Onias built in Alexandria, Josephus has this:

"This Onias resolved to send to king Ptolemy and queen Cleopatra, to ask leave of them that he might build a temple in Egypt like that in Jerusalem, and might order Levites and priests out of their own stock. The chief reason why he was so desirous to do this, was, that he relied upon the prophet Isaiah who lived about six hundred years earlier, and foretold that there was certainly to be a temple built to Almighty God in Egypt."[18]

In like manner, Isaiah 19:21,22, are doubtless references to the "Christianization" of Egypt (and the whole world) during the Messianic age. Egypt served God with sacrifice and oblation "in the same sense as the rest of the Church (Malachi 1:1)."[19] Isaiah, writing in the eighth century B.C., would of course, describe the worship of God in the only terms that the people of that time could understand.