Listen to me, you who know righteousness,
you people who have my teaching in your hearts;
do not fear the reproach of others,
and do not be dismayed when they revile you.
For the moth will eat them up like a garment,
and the worm will eat them like wool;
but my deliverance will be forever,
and my salvation to all generations.
Awake, awake, put on strength,
O arm of the LORD!
Awake, as in days of old,
the generations of long ago!
Was it not you who cut Rahab in pieces,
who pierced the dragon?
Was it not you who dried up the sea,
the waters of the great deep;
who made the depths of the sea a way
for the redeemed to cross over?
So the ransomed of the LORD shall return,
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 51:7-11)

Criticism and problems are not forever. Your critics, those who trouble you: they’ll disappear like an old sweater in a closet without mothballs. Israel had nothing to fear: the Babylonians would someday be gone, just like their enemies in the past had gone away, too. God had taken care of the Egyptians, so why worry that God wouldn’t take care of the current bad guys, too?

Rahab was a mythological beast, a dragon in charge of chaos, that came to serve as a symbol for Egypt. It was often used in poetry, as it is here. In the myths, Rahab was chopped to bits by God allowing God to then create the universe. In a similar way, Egypt was overthrown by the plagues that God had sent against it, allowing God to make his people into a new nation. So the old myth was repurposed and applied to Egypt.

God promised his people that In the same way that God had delivered them from Egypt, so he would deliver them from the Assyrians and Babylonians who had taken them captive. The current oppressors would meet the same end as all those other oppressors who had dared to rise up against God’s people. God always wins and so do those on his side.

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