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19. Prophecy About Egypt

¹ A prophecy against Egypt:

   See, the LORD rides on a swift cloud
   and is coming to Egypt.
The idols of Egypt tremble before him,
   and the hearts of the Egyptians melt with fear.

    ² “I will stir up Egyptian against Egyptian—
   brother will fight against brother,
   neighbor against neighbor,
   city against city,
   kingdom against kingdom.
³ The Egyptians will lose heart,
   and I will bring their plans to nothing;
they will consult the idols and the spirits of the dead,
   the mediums and the spiritists.
⁴ I will hand the Egyptians over
   to the power of a cruel master,
and a fierce king will rule over them,”
   declares the Lord, the LORD Almighty.

    ⁵ The waters of the river will dry up,
   and the riverbed will be parched and dry.
⁶ The canals will stink;
   the streams of Egypt will dwindle and dry up.
The reeds and rushes will wither,
    ⁷ also the plants along the Nile,
   at the mouth of the river.
Every sown field along the Nile
   will become parched, will blow away and be no more.
⁸ The fishermen will groan and lament,
   all who cast hooks into the Nile;
those who throw nets on the water
   will pine away.
⁹ Those who work with combed flax will despair,
   the weavers of fine linen will lose hope.
¹⁰ The workers in cloth will be dejected,
   and all the wage earners will be sick at heart.

    ¹¹ The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools;
   the wise counselors of Pharaoh give senseless advice.
How can you say to Pharaoh,
   “I am one of the wise men,
   a disciple of the ancient kings”?

    ¹² Where are your wise men now?
   Let them show you and make known
what the LORD Almighty
   has planned against Egypt.
¹³ The officials of Zoan have become fools,
   the leaders of Memphis are deceived;
the cornerstones of her peoples
   have led Egypt astray.
¹⁴ The LORD has poured into them
   a spirit of dizziness;
they make Egypt stagger in all that she does,
   as a drunkard staggers around in his vomit.
¹⁵ There is nothing Egypt can do—
   head or tail, palm branch or reed.

¹⁶ In that day the Egyptians will become weaklings. They will shudder with fear at the uplifted hand that the LORD Almighty raises against them. ¹⁷ And the land of Judah will bring terror to the Egyptians; everyone to whom Judah is mentioned will be terrified, because of what the LORD Almighty is planning against them.

¹⁸ In that day five cities in Egypt will speak the language of Canaan and swear allegiance to the LORD Almighty. One of them will be called the City of the Sun. Some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Dead Sea Scrolls, Symmachus and Vulgate; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text City of Destruction

¹⁹ In that day there will be an altar to the LORD in the heart of Egypt, and a monument to the LORD at its border. ²⁰ It will be a sign and witness to the LORD Almighty in the land of Egypt. When they cry out to the LORD because of their oppressors, he will send them a savior and defender, and he will rescue them. ²¹ So the LORD will make himself known to the Egyptians, and in that day they will acknowledge the LORD. They will worship with sacrifices and grain offerings; they will make vows to the LORD and keep them. ²² The LORD will strike Egypt with a plague; he will strike them and heal them. They will turn to the LORD, and he will respond to their pleas and heal them.

²³ In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. ²⁴ In that day Israel will be the third, along with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing Or Assyria, whose names will be used in blessings (see Gen. 48:20); or Assyria, who will be seen by others as blessed on the earth. ²⁵ The LORD Almighty will bless them, saying, “Blessed be Egypt my people, Assyria my handiwork, and Israel my inheritance.”

4. And I will deliver the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master. ²⁸²⁸ {Bogus footnote} He now shews what will happen to the Egyptians, after having lost courage and been deprived of understanding. Nothing will be left for them but to be reduced to slavery; for a nation destitute of these must fall of its own accord, even though it were not violently attacked by any enemy. Of such aids, therefore, God deprives those on whom he determines to take vengeance, and shuts them out from every method of upholding their liberty. Yet the Prophet threatens what is still more shocking, that not only will the empire of which the Egyptians proudly vaunted fall down, but the inhabitants also will undergo hard bondage. Though the adjective קשה, (kāshĕh,) cruel, is in the singular number, yet he says in the plural number, that they shall be subject to lords, which is harder to endure than if there had been but one lord to whom they were subject.

And a powerful king ²⁹²⁹ {Bogus footnote} shall rule over them. He means that the power of the tyrant to whom he will subject them shall be so great, that it will not be easy to restore them to liberty. Historians shew that various changes occurred in many countries, which they who subdued them were unable to hold and retain; for to keep what has been obtained is often more difficult than to conquer. But the Prophet intimates that this condition will not be easily changed, and that the bondage of the Egyptians shall be of long duration, because no one will dare to enter the lists with an exceedingly powerful conqueror. We may also understand the meaning to be, that the princes of smaller nations will deal more gently with their people than more powerful monarchs, who, relying on their greatness, allow themselves to do whatever they please; for, reckoning their power to be unlimited, they set no bounds to their freedom of action, and rush forward, without restraint, wherever their passions drive them. Whether the one view or the other be adopted, it will amount to this, that the Egyptians, who consider themselves to be the highest and most distinguished of all men, shall fall under the power of another, and shall be oppressed by hard bondage, that is, by the bondage of a powerful king, whom no one will dare to oppose. Hence we see how great is the folly of men who are desirous to have a powerful and wealthy king reigning over them, and how justly they are punished for their ambition, though it cannot be corrected by the experience of every day, which is everywhere to be seen in the world. France and Spain, at the present day, boast that they are governed by mighty princes, but feel to their cost how little advantage they derive from that which dazzles them by a false pretense of honor. But on this subject we have spoken formerly in another place. ³⁰³⁰ {Bogus footnote} (Isaiah 8:6,7.)