Biblion Bible Commentary
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The Burden of Egypt
Isaiah 19:1-15
1 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. · WEB
The Nile fails, and with it every trade that depended on it, and the advisers cannot think of anything.
Behold, Yahweh rides on a swift cloud, and comes to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at his presence Isaiah 19:1.
Riding on a cloud was the standard description of a storm god in the region's poetry, and it is used here of the God whose approach makes the local deities shake. The exodus is in the background of the whole chapter.
I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians, and they will fight everyone against his brother... city against city, and kingdom against kingdom Isaiah 19:2.
The first judgment is civil war, and it descends through four levels — brother, neighbor, city, kingdom. Egypt in this period was in fact divided among rival dynasties.
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 Isaiah 19:3.
When the thinking fails, the consultations begin — and the list is the same one the eighth chapter warned Judah about Isaiah 8:19. A nation that has lost its nerve looks for someone to tell it the future.
The waters will fail from the sea, and the river will be wasted and become dry Isaiah 19:5.
The Nile. Egypt had almost no rain and the entire country was the river's floodplain, so this single sentence is the end of everything, and the chapter follows the consequences trade by trade.
The fishermen will lament, and all those who fish in the Nile will mourn, and those who spread nets on the waters will languish. Moreover those who work in combed flax, and those who weave white cloth, will be confounded Isaiah 19:8–9.
Fishing, then linen — the two industries the river fed, and Egyptian linen was the finest in the world. All those who work for hire will be grieved in soul Isaiah 19:10. The wage-earners are named last and they are the ones with nothing put by.
The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish. The counsel of the wisest counselors of Pharaoh has become stupid Isaiah 19:11.
Egypt's court was famous for its wisdom tradition, and the oracle attacks it at precisely that point. How do you say to Pharaoh, "I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings"? — the qualification offered is inheritance, which is no qualification at all.
Where then are your wise men? Let them tell you now; and let them know what Yahweh of Armies has purposed concerning Egypt Isaiah 19:12.
The test is the one the book applies to the idols later: say what is going to happen.
Yahweh has mixed a spirit of perverseness in the middle of her... like a drunken man staggers in his vomit Isaiah 19:14.
The image is of a government that cannot walk in a straight line, and the chapter's judgment is that the confusion was administered rather than merely suffered.
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