Isaiah 19:1-15
New English Translation
The Lord Will Judge Egypt
19 This is an oracle[a] about Egypt:
Look, the Lord rides on a swift-moving cloud
and approaches Egypt.
The idols of Egypt tremble before him;
the Egyptians lose their courage.[b]
2 “I will provoke civil strife in Egypt:[c]
brothers will fight with one another,
as will neighbors,
cities, and kingdoms.[d]
3 The Egyptians will panic,[e]
and I will confuse their strategy.[f]
They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead,
from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians.[g]
4 I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master;
a powerful king will rule over them,”
says the Sovereign Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
5 The water of the sea will be dried up,
and the river will dry up and be empty.[h]
6 The canals[i] will stink;[j]
the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up;
the bulrushes and reeds will decay,
7 along with the plants by the mouth of the river.[k]
All the cultivated land near the river
will turn to dust and be blown away.[l]
8 The fishermen will mourn and lament;
all those who cast a fishhook into the river,
and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve.[m]
9 Those who make clothes from combed flax will be embarrassed;
those who weave will turn pale.[n]
10 Those who make cloth[o] will be demoralized;[p]
all the hired workers will be depressed.[q]
11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools;[r]
Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice.
How dare you say to Pharaoh,
“I am one of the sages,
one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?”[s]
12 But where, oh where, are your wise men?[t]
Let them tell you, let them find out
what the Lord of Heaven’s Armies has planned for Egypt.
13 The officials of Zoan are fools,
the officials of Memphis[u] are misled;
the rulers[v] of her tribes lead Egypt astray.
14 The Lord has made them undiscerning;[w]
they lead Egypt astray in all she does,
so that she is like a drunk sliding around in his own vomit.[x]
15 Egypt will not be able to do a thing,
head or tail, shoots or stalk.[y]
Footnotes
- Isaiah 19:1 tn See note at Isa 13:1.
- Isaiah 19:1 tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”
- Isaiah 19:2 tn Heb I will provoke Egypt against Egypt” (NAB similar).
- 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.
- Isaiah 19:3 tn Heb “and the spirit of Egypt will be laid waste in its midst.”
- 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.
- 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.
- Isaiah 19:5 tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.
- Isaiah 19:6 tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”
- Isaiah 19:6 tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa; 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.
- Isaiah 19:7 tn Heb “the plants by the river, by the mouth of the river.”
- Isaiah 19:7 tn Heb “will dry up, [being] scattered, and it will vanish.”
- Isaiah 19:8 tn Or perhaps, “will disappear”; cf. TEV “will be useless.”
- Isaiah 19:9 tn BDB 301 s.v. חוֹרִי suggests the meaning “white stuff” for חוֹרִי (khori); the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa 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.
- 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 (shetiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.
- Isaiah 19:10 tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).
- Isaiah 19:10 tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”
- Isaiah 19:11 tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”
- 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.
- 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.
- Isaiah 19:13 tn Heb “Noph” (so KJV); most recent English versions substitute the more familiar “Memphis.”
- Isaiah 19:13 tn Heb “the cornerstone.” The singular form should be emended to a plural.
- Isaiah 19:14 tn Heb “the Lord has mixed into her midst a spirit of blindness.”
- Isaiah 19:14 tn Heb “like the going astray of a drunkard in his vomit.”
- 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.
Isaiah 19:1-15
World English Bible
19 The burden of Egypt.
“Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence; and the heart of Egypt will melt within it. 2 I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they will fight everyone against his brother, and everyone against his neighbor; city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. 3 The spirit of the Egyptians will fail within them. I will destroy their counsel. They will seek the idols, the charmers, those who have familiar spirits, and the wizards. 4 I will give over the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel lord. A fierce king will rule over them,” says the Lord, Yahweh of Armies.
5 The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry. 6 The rivers will become foul. The streams of Egypt will be diminished and dried up. The reeds and flags will wither away. 7 The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, will become dry, be driven away, and be no more. 8 The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish. 9 Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, will be confounded. 10 The pillars will be broken in pieces. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul.
11 The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid. How do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?” 12 Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt. 13 The princes of Zoan have become fools. The princes of Memphis are deceived. They have caused Egypt to go astray, who are the cornerstone of her tribes. 14 Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the middle of her; and they have caused Egypt to go astray in all of its works, like a drunken man staggers in his vomit. 15 Neither shall there be any work for Egypt, which head or tail, palm branch or rush, may do.
Read full chapterNET Bible® copyright ©1996-2017 by Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C. http://netbible.com All rights reserved.
by Public Domain. The name "World English Bible" is trademarked.