Footnotes

1. Isaiah 19:1 tn See note at Isa 13:1.
2. Isaiah 19:1 tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”
3. Isaiah 19:2 tn Heb I will provoke Egypt against Egypt” (NAB similar).
4. Isaiah 19:2 tn Heb “and they will fight, a man against his brother, and a man against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.” Civil strife will extend all the way from the domestic level to the provincial arena.
5. Isaiah 19:3 tn Heb “and the spirit of Egypt will be laid waste in its midst.”
6. Isaiah 19:3 tn The verb בָּלַע (balaʿ, “confuse”) is a homonym of the more common בָּלַע (balaʿ, “swallow”); see HALOT 135 s.v. I בלע.
7. Isaiah 19:3 tn Heb “they will inquire of the idols and of the spirits of the dead and of the ritual pits and of the magicians.” Hebrew אוֹב (ʾov, “ritual pit”) refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. See the note on “incantations” in 8:19.
8. Isaiah 19:5 tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.
9. Isaiah 19:6 tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”
10. Isaiah 19:6 tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a; the form in MT may be a so-called “mixed form,” reflecting the Hebrew Hiphil stem and the functionally corresponding Aramaic Aphel stem. See HALOT 276 s.v. I זנח.
11. Isaiah 19:7 tn Heb “the plants by the river, by the mouth of the river.”
12. Isaiah 19:7 tn Heb “will dry up, [being] scattered, and it will vanish.”
13. Isaiah 19:8 tn Or perhaps, “will disappear”; cf. TEV “will be useless.”
14. Isaiah 19:9 tn BDB 301 s.v. חוֹרִי suggests the meaning “white stuff” for חוֹרִי (khori); the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חָוֵרוּ (khaveru), probably a Qal perfect, third plural form of חוּר, (khur, “be white, pale”). See HALOT 299 s.v. I חור. The latter reading is assumed in the translation above.
15. Isaiah 19:10 tn Some interpret שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha) as “her foundations,” i.e., leaders, nobles. See BDB 1011 s.v. שָׁת. Others, on the basis of alleged cognates in Akkadian and Coptic, repoint the form שְׁתִיתֶיהָ (sh^etiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.
16. Isaiah 19:10 tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).
17. Isaiah 19:10 tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”
18. Isaiah 19:11 tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”
19. Isaiah 19:11 tn Heb “A son of wise men am I, a son of ancient kings.” The term בֶּן (ben, “son of”) could refer to literal descent, but many understand the word, at least in the first line, in its idiomatic sense of “member [of a guild].” See HALOT 138 s.v. בֶּן and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:371. If this is the case, then one can take the word in a figurative sense in the second line as well, the “son of ancient kings” being one devoted to their memory as preserved in their literature.
20. Isaiah 19:12 tn Heb “Where are they? Where are your wise men?” The juxtaposition of the interrogative pronouns is emphatic. See HALOT 38 s.v. אֶי.
21. Isaiah 19:13 tn Heb “Noph” (so KJV); most recent English versions substitute the more familiar “Memphis.”
22. Isaiah 19:13 tn Heb “the cornerstone.” The singular form should be emended to a plural.
23. Isaiah 19:14 tn Heb “the Lord has mixed into her midst a spirit of blindness.”
24. Isaiah 19:14 tn Heb “like the going astray of a drunkard in his vomit.”
25. Isaiah 19:15 tn Heb “And there will not be for Egypt a deed, which head and tail, shoot and stalk, can do.” In 9:14-15 the phrase “head or tail” refers to leaders and prophets, respectively. This interpretation makes good sense in this context, where both leaders and advisers (probably including prophets and diviners) are mentioned (vv. 11-14). Here, as in 9:14, “shoots or stalk” picture a reed, which symbolizes the leadership of the nation in its entirety.