Isaiah 19:1-15
Lexham English Bible
Oracle of Judgment on Egypt
19 An oracle of Egypt:
Look! Yahweh is riding on a swift cloud
and is coming to Egypt.
And the idols of Egypt will tremble in front of him,
and the heart of Egypt melts in his inner parts.
2 “And I will stir up Egyptians[a] against Egyptians,[b]
and each one will fight against his brother
and each one against his neighbor,
city against city, kingdom against kingdom.
3 And the spirit of the Egyptians[c] will be disturbed in his midst,
and I will confuse[d] his plans,[e]
and they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead,
and the ghosts and the spiritists.
4 And I will hand over the Egyptians[f] into the hand of a hard master,
and a powerful king will rule over them,”
declares[g] the Lord Yahweh of hosts.
5 And the waters will be dried up from the sea,
and the river will be parched and dry.
6 And the rivers will become foul-smelling;
the branches of the Nile of Egypt will become little and dry up;
reed and rush will wither.
7 Bare places by the Nile will be dried up,
by the edge of the Nile and all the sown land of the Nile;
it will be driven about, and it will be no more.[h]
8 And the fishers will mourn,
and all of those who cast fishhooks[i] in the Nile will lament,
and those who spread out fishing nets[j] on the surface[k] of the water will languish.
9 And the workers of combed flax will be ashamed,
and those who weave white linen.
10 And her weavers will be crushed;
all the hired workers[l] will be grieved of heart.
11 Surely the princes of Zoan are foolish;
the wise of the counselors of Pharaoh give senseless counsel.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
“I myself am a son of sages,
a descendant[m] of ancient kings”?
12 Where are your sages then?
Now, let them tell you,
and let them know what Yahweh of hosts has planned against Egypt.
13 The princes of Zoan have become foolish;
the princes of Memphis are deceived;
the leaders of her tribes have led Egypt astray.
14 Yahweh has mixed a spirit of confusion into her midst,
and they have caused Egypt to stagger in all of its doings,
as when a drunkard staggers[n] in his vomit.
15 And there will be nothing for Egypt to do,[o]
head or tail, palm branch or reed.
Footnotes
- Isaiah 19:2 Literally “Egypt”
- Isaiah 19:2 Literally “Egypt”
- Isaiah 19:3 Literally “Egypt”
- Isaiah 19:3 Literally “engulf”
- Isaiah 19:3 Hebrew “plan”
- Isaiah 19:4 Literally “Egypt”
- Isaiah 19:4 Literally “declaration of”
- Isaiah 19:7 Literally “there is none of it”
- Isaiah 19:8 Hebrew “fishhook”
- Isaiah 19:8 Hebrew “net”
- Isaiah 19:8 Literally “face”
- Isaiah 19:10 Literally “workers of wage”
- Isaiah 19:11 Literally “son”
- Isaiah 19:14 Literally “the staggering of a drunkard”
- Isaiah 19:15 Literally “not it will be for Egypt a deed which he can do”
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.
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