Isaiah 19:17

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹This is an oracle concerning Egypt: Behold, the LORD rides on a swift cloud; He is coming to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble before Him, and the hearts of the Egyptians will melt within them. ²"So I will incite Egyptian against Egyptian; brother will fight against brother, neighbor against neighbor, city against city, and kingdom against kingdom. ³Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be emptied out from among them, and I will frustrate their plans, so that they will resort to idols and spirits of the dead, to mediums and spiritists. ⁴I will deliver the Egyptians into the hands of harsh masters, and a fierce king will rule over them," declares the Lord GOD of Hosts. ⁵The waters of the Nile will dry up, and the riverbed will be parched and empty. ⁶The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up; the reeds and rushes will wither. ⁷The bulrushes by the Nile, by the mouth of the river, and all the fields sown along the Nile, will wither, blow away, and be no more. ⁸Then the fishermen will mourn, all who cast hooks into the Nile will lament, and those who spread nets on the water will grieve. ⁹Those who work with flax will be dismayed, and the weavers of fine linen will turn pale. ¹⁰The workers in cloth will be dejected, and all the wage earners will be sick at heart.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

the land: Isaiah 36:1, Jeremiah 25:19, Jeremiah 25:27-31, Jeremiah 43:8-13, Jeremiah 44:28-30, Ezekiel 29:6, Ezekiel 29:7

because: Isaiah 14:24, Isaiah 14:26, Isaiah 14:27, Isaiah 20:2-5, Isaiah 46:10, Isaiah 46:11, Daniel 4:35

Reciprocal: Isaiah 10:6 - against Ezekiel 29:2 - against all Ezekiel 30:4 - pain Ezekiel 30:9 - great Obadiah 1:9 - thy

Cross-References

Genesis 13:10
And Lot looked out and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan, all the way to Zoar, was well watered like the garden of the LORD, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the LORD destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.)

Genesis 18:22
And the two men turned away and went toward Sodom, but Abraham remained standing before the LORD.

Genesis 19:13
because we are about to destroy this place. For the outcry to the LORD against its people is so great that He has sent us to destroy it."

Genesis 19:14
So Lot went out and spoke to the sons-in-law who were pledged in marriage to his daughters. "Get up," he said. "Get out of this place, for the LORD is about to destroy the city!" But his sons-in-law thought he was joking.

Genesis 19:15
At daybreak the angels hurried Lot along, saying, "Get up! Take your wife and your two daughters who are here, or you will be swept away in the punishment of the city."

Genesis 19:16
But when Lot hesitated, the men grabbed his hand and the hands of his wife and his two daughters. And they led them safely out of the city, because of the LORD's compassion for them.

Genesis 19:18
But Lot replied, "No, my lords, please!

Genesis 19:22
Hurry! Run there quickly, for I cannot do anything until you reach it." That is why the town was called Zoar.

Genesis 19:26
But Lot's wife looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

Genesis 19:31
One day the older daughter said to the younger, "Our father is old, and there is no man in the land to sleep with us, as is the custom over all the earth.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt,.... Not by reason of war breaking out between them, they being in strict alliance with each other at this time; but on account of what they should hear had befallen the land of Judea, and the cities of it, by the invasion of Sennacherib's army, which had taken and laid them waste; the tidings of which being brought them a panic would seize them, fearing that they should next fall a sacrifice to them, because of their alliance with them, and nearness to them, there being only the land of the Philistines between them and Egypt; and Judea being invaded and overrun, the way was open for the Assyrian army into their country; and besides they might reflect, that if the judgments of God fell so heavy on his own people, what might they not expect? and the rather, as they had been the means of drawing them into idolatry, which had provoked the Lord to come out against them; as well as at the remembrance of the injuries they had formerly done them. Jarchi and Kimchi understand this of the fall and ruin of Sennacherib's army, at the siege of Jerusalem, the rumour of which reaching, Egypt would fill them with terror; or as fearing that the hand of the Lord, which was seen in that affair, would be next lifted up against them; which sense is not probable; the former is best. The word used for terror signifies "dancing", such as is not through joy, but fear, see Psalms 107:27:

everyone that maketh mention thereof; or calls to mind, or thinks of it, or speaks of it to others, what was done in the land of Judea by the Assyrian army:

shall be afraid in himself; that this will be their case quickly in Egypt:

because of the counsel of the Lord of hosts, which he hath determined against it; or "upon it", or "concerning it" x; meaning either Judea, which was known by the prophets he sent unto it; or Egypt, who might conclude this from what happened to a neighbouring nation.

x עליו επ' αυτην, Sept.; "supra eum", V. L.; "super eum", Pagninus, Montanus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And the land of Judah - The fear and consternation of Egypt shall be increased when they learn what events are occurring there, and what Yahweh has purposed in regard to it.

Shall be a terror - This cannot be understood to mean that they were in danger from an invasion by the Jews, for at that time they were not at war, and Judah had no power to overrun Egypt. Jarchi and Kimchi suppose that the passage means that the Egyptians would hear what had occurred to the army of Sennacherib on its overthrow, and that they would be alarmed as if a similar fate was about to come upon them. But the more probable interpretation is that which refers it to the “invasion” of Judah by Sennacherib. The Egyptians would know of that. Indeed, the leading design of Sennacherib was to invade Egypt, and Judah and Jerusalem were to be destroyed only “in the way” to Egypt. And when the Egyptians heard of the great preparations of Sennacherib, and of his advance upon Judah (see Isaiah 10:28-31), and knew that his design was to invade them, ‘the land of Judah’ would be ‘a terror,’ because they apprehended that he would make a rapid descent upon them. Vitringa, however, supposes that the sense is, that the Egyptians in their calamities would remember the prophecies of Jeremiah and others, of which they had heard, respecting their punishment; that they would remember that the prophecies respecting Judah had been fulfilled, and that thus Judah would be a terror to them “because” those predictions had come out of Judah. This is plausible, and it may be the correct explanation.

Which he hath determined against it - Either against Judah, or Egypt. The Hebrew will bear either. It may mean that they were alarmed at the counsel which had been formed by Yahweh against Judah, and which was apparently about to be executed by the invasion of Sennacherib, and that thus they feared an invasion themselves, or that they learned that a purpose of destruction was formed by Yahweh against themselves, and that Judah became thus an object of terror, because the prophecies which were spoken there were certain of being fulfilled. The latter is the interpretation given by Vitringa, and perhaps is the moss probable.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 19:17. And the land of Judah — The threatening hand of God will be held out and shaken over Egypt, from the side of Judea; through which the Assyrians will march to invade it. It signifies that kind of terror that drives one to his wit's end, that causes him to reel like a drunken man, to be giddy through astonishment. Such is the import of חג chag, and חגה chagah. Five MSS. and two editions have לחגה lechagah.