Isaiah 19
The Lord's Judgment and Civil War 1–4
Economic Ruin: The Drying of the Nile 5–10
Failure of Egyptian Wisdom 11–15
Egypt's Fear of Judah 16–17
Future Conversion and Blessing for Egypt 18–25
Bible text: King James Version (1769 Blayney text) · Public domain
Study Notes for Isaiah 19
Verse 1
rideth upon a swift cloud — Qal, ‘swift’, is the word of the swift messengers of Cush (18:2). The LORD ‘maketh the clouds his chariot’ (Ps 104:3) and now comes in one. ‘Idols’ is elilim, ‘things of nothing’, moved ‘at his presence’; so at the first Passover he said, ‘against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment’ (Ex 12:12).
Verse 2
I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians — The LORD himself sets them at each other, as with Midian’s host, where he ‘set every man’s sword against his fellow’ (Judg 7:22). The strife runs from the household to the realm: ‘every one against his brother’, ‘neighbour’, ‘city against city’, ‘kingdom against kingdom’.
Verse 4
into the hand of a cruel lord — Sakar is to shut up, the verb of Ps 31:8, ‘hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy’: Egypt is shut up into one. The book names who took them, ‘the king of Assyria’ (Isa 20:4), and Ezekiel says the land is to be given ‘unto Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon’ (Ezek 29:19).
Verse 5
the river shall be wasted and dried up — The ‘sea’ and the ‘river’ are the Nile, with its branches (cf. Nah 3:8, where Egypt’s city sits ‘among the rivers’ with ‘the sea’ as its rampart). Pharaoh had said of it, ‘My river is mine own, and I have made it for myself’ (Ezek 29:3), and in Ex 7:20 it was the first water struck. Its drying removes what Egypt counted its own.
Verse 11
the princes of Zoan — Zoan was a royal seat: the LORD ‘wrought his signs in Egypt, and his wonders in the field of Zoan’ (Ps 78:43), and ‘his princes were at Zoan’ (Isa 30:4). Egypt’s wise men were famous (Gen 41:8; Acts 7:22), yet Pharaoh said of Joseph, ‘God hath shewed thee all this’ (Gen 41:39). Their ‘counsel’ (etsah) is what the LORD destroys in v.3.
Verse 14
a perverse spirit — Iw’im, perversity, is found only here. The LORD ‘hath mingled’ it like a cup: ‘Take the wine cup of this fury… and they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad’ (Jer 25:15–16), a cup Pharaoh also drinks (Jer 25:19). One verb, ta’ah, stands for both ‘err’ and ‘staggereth’: the leaders reel like a drunk man. Compare 1 Kgs 22:23.
Verse 16
like unto women — The figure is of fear, as with Babylon’s soldiers who ‘became as women’ (Jer 51:30) and with Nineveh’s people (Nah 3:13). The ‘shaking’ (tenuphah) is the word rendered ‘wave offering’ (Ex 29:24), from the verb of ‘he shaketh’ here; Isa 11:15 has ‘shall he shake his hand over the river’.
Verse 17
the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt — Chagga, ‘terror’, is found only here. The fear comes from ‘the counsel of the LORD of hosts, which he hath determined against it’. ‘Counsel’ (etsah) and the verb ‘determined’ (ya’ats, also ‘purposed’ in v.12) are the root of the ‘counsellors’ of v.11: his counsel outlasts theirs, as in Isa 14:24, ‘as I have purposed, so shall it stand’.
Verse 18
the language of Canaan — Five cities take up Israel’s speech and oath: they ‘speak the language’ (saphah, lip) of Canaan and ‘swear to the LORD of hosts’, as Moses commanded, ‘swear by his name’ (Deut 10:20). Zeph 3:9 foretells ‘a pure language’ for all peoples, and Jer 12:16 the nations taught ‘to swear by my name, The LORD liveth’.
Verse 19
an altar to the LORD in the midst of the land of Egypt — The ‘altar’ stands in the midst and the ‘pillar’ (matstsebah) at the border, the stone Jacob set up at Bethel (Gen 28:18). Both are ‘for a sign and for a witness’ (v.20), as the altar the eastern tribes raised by Jordan was ‘a witness between us’ (Josh 22:27).
Verse 20
he shall send them a saviour — The cry and the answer are those of Israel in Egypt: ‘the cry of the children of Israel is come unto me… the oppression wherewith the Egyptians oppress them’ (Ex 3:9), and of the Judges, ‘the LORD raised up a deliverer’ (Judg 3:9). Here the oppressed are Egyptians (lachats, the verb of Ex 3:9), and the ‘saviour’ (moshia) is called ‘a great one’.
Verse 22
he shall smite and heal it — The pattern is Moses’ own words, ‘I wound, and I heal’ (Deut 32:39), and Hosea’s call, ‘he hath torn, and he will heal us’ (Hos 6:1). ‘Intreated’ (atar) is what Pharaoh asked of Moses, ‘Intreat the LORD’ (Ex 8:8); now the LORD ‘shall be intreated of them’ himself.
Verse 23
a highway out of Egypt to Assyria — Ephraim had looked to both: ‘they call to Egypt, they go to Assyria’ (Hos 7:11). The ‘highway’ (mesillah) is the raised road of Isa 11:16, where it is for the remnant coming ‘from Assyria’, and of Isa 40:3, ‘a highway for our God’. Egypt and Assyria are joined in it as those who ‘serve’.
Verse 24
Israel be the third — The third in a line of three, and ‘a blessing in the midst of the land’. The word is that given to Abraham, ‘thou shalt be a blessing… and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed’ (Gen 12:2–3), which Paul says was ‘preached before the gospel’ to Abraham (Gal 3:8).
Verse 25
Blessed be Egypt my people — The titles are shared out: ‘my people’ for Egypt, ‘the work of my hands’ for Assyria, ‘mine inheritance’ for Israel. Israel’s children are ‘the work of mine hands’ in Isa 29:23 and Jacob ‘the lot of his inheritance’ in Deut 32:9, so the blessing gives the nations names the LORD had already given his own.