191 A Message concerning Egypt: Watch this! God riding on a fast-moving cloud, moving in on Egypt! The god-idols of Egypt shudder and shake, Egyptians paralyzed by panic. 2 God says, "I'll make Egyptian fight Egyptian, brother fight brother, neighbor fight neighbor, City fight city, kingdom fight kingdom - anarchy and chaos and killing! 3 I'll knock the wind out of the Egyptians. They won't know coming from going. They'll go to their god-idols for answers; they'll conjure ghosts and hold sZances, desperate for answers. 4 But I'll turn the Egyptians over to a tyrant most cruel. I'll put them under the rule of a mean, merciless king." Decree of the Master, God-of-the-Angel-Armies. 5 The River Nile will dry up, the riverbed baked dry in the sun. 6 The canals will become stagnant and stink, every stream touching the Nile dry up. River vegetation will rot away 7 the banks of the Nile-baked clay, The riverbed hard and smooth, river grasses dried up and gone with the wind. 8 Fishermen will complain that the fishing's been ruined. 9 Textile workers will be out of work, all weavers and workers in linen and cotton and wool 10 Dispirited, depressed in their forced idleness - everyone who works for a living, jobless. 11 The princes of Zoan are fools, the advisors of Pharaoh stupid. How could any of you dare tell Pharaoh, "Trust me: I'm wise. I know what's going on. Why, I'm descended from the old wisdom of Egypt"? 12 There's not a wise man or woman left in the country. If there were, one of them would tell you what God-of-the-Angel-Armies has in mind for Egypt. 13 As it is, the princes of Zoan are all fools and the princes of Memphis, dunces. The honored pillars of your society have led Egypt into detours and dead ends. 14 God has scrambled their brains, Egypt's become a falling-down-in-his-own-vomit drunk. 15 Egypt's hopeless, past helping, a senile, doddering old fool. 16 On that Day, Egyptians will be like hysterical schoolgirls, screaming at the first hint of action from God-of-the-Angel-Armies. 17 Little Judah will strike terror in Egyptians! Say "Judah" to an Egyptian and see panic. The word triggers fear of the God-of-the-Angel-Armies' plan against Egypt.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 19:1-17
Commentary on Isaiah 19:1-17
(Read Isaiah 19:1-17)
God shall come into Egypt with his judgments. He will raise up the causes of their destruction from among themselves. When ungodly men escape danger, they are apt to think themselves secure; but evil pursues sinners, and will speedily overtake them, except they repent. The Egyptians will be given over into the hand of one who shall rule them with rigour, as was shortly after fulfilled. The Egyptians were renowned for wisdom and science; yet the Lord would give them up to their own perverse schemes, and to quarrel, till their land would be brought by their contests to become an object of contempt and pity. He renders sinners afraid of those whom they have despised and oppressed; and the Lord of hosts will make the workers of iniquity a terror to themselves, and to each other; and every object around a terror to them.