Isaiah 19:1-15--An Oracle Concerning Egypt

Isaiah 19:1-15
English Standard Version

An Oracle Concerning Egypt
19 An oracle concerning Egypt.
Behold, the LORD is riding on a swift cloud
    and comes to Egypt;
and the idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence,
    and the heart of the Egyptians will melt within them.
2 And I will stir up Egyptians against Egyptians,
    and they will fight, each against another
    and each against his neighbor,
    city against city, kingdom against kingdom;
3 and the spirit of the Egyptians within them will be emptied out,
    and I will confound their counsel;
and they will inquire of the idols and the sorcerers,
    and the mediums and the necromancers;
4 and I will give over the Egyptians
    into the hand of a hard master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,
    declares the Lord God of hosts.

5 And the waters of the sea will be dried up,
    and the river will be dry and parched,
6 and its canals will become foul,
    and the branches of Egypt's Nile will diminish and dry up,
    reeds and rushes will rot away.
7 There will be bare places by the Nile,
    on the brink of the Nile,
and all that is sown by the Nile will be parched,
    will be driven away, and will be no more.
8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,
    all who cast a hook in the Nile;
and they will languish
    who spread nets on the water.
9 The workers in combed flax will be in despair,
    and the weavers of white cotton.
10 Those who are the pillars of the land will be crushed,
    and all who work for pay will be grieved.

11 The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish;
    the wisest counselors of Pharaoh give stupid counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
    “I am a son of the wise,
    a son of ancient kings”?
12 Where then are your wise men?
    Let them tell you
    that they might know what the LORD of hosts has purposed against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have become fools,
    and the princes of Memphis are deluded;
those who are the cornerstones of her tribes
    have made Egypt stagger.
14 The LORD has mingled within her a spirit of confusion,
and they will make Egypt stagger in all its deeds,
    as a drunken man staggers in his vomit.
15 And there will be nothing for Egypt
    that head or tail, palm branch or reed, may do.

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The LORD is coming to make war with Egypt.  He will use forces that seem natural in a supernatural way, as He controls heaven and earth and all that is in them--including the weather.  All the idols that the Egyptians trust in will be impotent to do anything to save them from the wrath of God.  The Egyptians would be the ones taken as slaves and given over to slave masters and treated in the same kind of way that they treated the children of Israel.

Egypt was known for the Nile River and its flood plains and tributaries that made a fertile land in the middle of a desert area.  The LORD said he would cause the rivers and streams and other water sources to dry up so that there would be no life-giving water for them.  They would not catch any fish when they cast their hook in the waters of the Nile River, and the reeds that gave them the papyrus they were so known for would dry up and die.  Everything that made them famous and wealthy would waste away and they would become a people in poverty and starving to death.  Their gods will not and cannot save them.  Will they call on the LORD to help them? You'll have to come back next time for that answer.

God now condemns the princes of Zoan (presumably advisors to Pharoah--maybe some of his wise men) who have told Pharaoh that he is a god on par with YHWH and that Pharoah can somehow outsmart or trick the LORD.  The LORD calls their wisdom foolishness and tells the princes of Memphis that they are deluded.  The LORD has caused their foolishness and delusions to increase so that Pharoah will not receive wise counsel and will be judged exactly as the LORD sats he and his nation will be.  Nothing will stop the LORD from judging them for their hundreds of years of iniquities.