Isaiah 19:6

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4 And the Egyptians I will give
^aInto the hand of a cruel master,
And a fierce king will rule over them,”
Says the Lord, the Lord of hosts.

5 ^aThe waters will fail from the sea,
And the river will be wasted and dried up.

6 The rivers will turn foul;
The brooks ^aof defense will be emptied and dried up;
The reeds and rushes will wither.

7 The papyrus reeds by¹ the River, by the mouth of the River,
And everything sown by the River,
Will wither, be driven away, and be no more.

8 The fishermen also will mourn;
All those will lament who cast hooks into the River,
And they will languish who spread nets on the waters.

9 Moreover those who work in ^afine flax
And those who weave fine fabric will be ashamed;

10 And its foundations will be broken.
All who make wages will be troubled of soul.

11 Surely the princes of ^aZoan are fools;
Pharaoh’s wise counselors give foolish counsel.
^bHow do you say to Pharaoh, “I am the son of the wise,
The son of ancient kings?”

Commentaries:

Barnes' Notes

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Isaiah 19:6

And they shall turn the rivers far away - ( ּּ he'ez^e nı̂ychû ), probably from zânach , "to have an offensive smell; to be rancid, or putrid." The word in this form occurs nowhere else. It is in the Hiphil conjugation, and is probably a form made from a mixture with the Chaldee. The sense is not doubtful. It means ' the rivers shall become putrid - or have an offensive smell;' that is, shall become stagnant, and send forth unwholesome "miasmata" producing sickness, as stagnant waters often do. The Vulgate renders it, ' And the rivers shall fail.' The Septuagint, ' And the Egyptians shall drink the waters from the sea, but the river shall fail, and be dried up, and the rivers shall fail, and the streams ( ̀ diōruches ) of the river, and all the assembling ( ́ sunagōgē ) waters shall be dried up.'

And the brooks of defense - Hebrew, ' The rivers of mâtsôr . The word mâtsôr often means "straitness, affliction;" then a siege, a wall, a bulwark, a fortification. But, probably, it here means "Egypt," or the same as mı̂ts^e rayı̂m (compare Isaiah 37:25; II Kings 18:24; Mark 7:12). Perhaps the Hebrews may have thought of Egypt as a strongly fortified place, and thus have given the name to it; or possibly this may have been a modification of the name "Mitsraim."

The reeds and flags - Which grew on the banks of the Nile - the papyrus, etc. (see the note at Isaiah 18:2)

**Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Isaiah 19:6:**

Genesis 10:6-20
Psalms 43:2
Isaiah 7:18
Isaiah 19:1
Isaiah 19:18
Isaiah 19:22
Isaiah 37:25
Isaiah 37:25

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Isaiah 19:7 >>

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