Isaiah 30:4

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹Woe to the rebellious children, declares the LORD, to those who carry out a plan, but not Mine, who form an alliance, but against My will, heaping up sin upon sin. ²They set out to go down to Egypt without asking My advice, to seek shelter under Pharaoh's protection and take refuge in the shade of Egypt. ³But Pharaoh's protection will become your shame, and the refuge of Egypt's shadow your disgrace. ⁴For though their princes are at Zoan and their envoys have arrived in Hanes,⁵everyone will be put to shame because of a people useless to them. They cannot be of help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach. ⁶This is an oracle concerning the animals of the Negev: Through a land of hardship and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people of no profit to them. ⁷Egypt's help is vain and empty; therefore I have called her, 'Rahab Who Just Sits Still.'

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

his princes: Isaiah 57:9, 2 Kings 17:4, Hosea 7:11, Hosea 7:12, Hosea 7:16

Zoan: Isaiah 19:11, Numbers 13:22, Ezekiel 30:14

Hanes: Jeremiah 43:7, Tahpanhes, Ezekiel 30:18, Tehaphnehes

Reciprocal: Jeremiah 49:14 - an ambassador Obadiah 1:1 - and an

Cross-References

Genesis 21:10
and she said to Abraham, "Expel the slave woman and her son, for the slave woman's son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac!"

Genesis 22:24
Moreover, his concubine, whose name was Reumah, bore Tebah, Gaham, Tahash, and Maacah.

Genesis 25:1
Now Abraham had taken another wife, named Keturah,

Genesis 25:6
But while he was still alive, Abraham gave gifts to the sons of his concubines and sent them away from his son Isaac to the land of the east.

Genesis 30:3
Then she said, "Here is my maidservant Bilhah. Sleep with her, and she will bear children for me, so that through her I too can build a family."

Genesis 30:4
So Rachel gave Jacob her servant Bilhah as his wife, and he slept with her,

Genesis 33:2
He put the maidservants and their children in front, Leah and her children next, and Rachel and Joseph at the rear.

Genesis 35:22
While Israel was living in that region, Reuben went in and slept with his father's concubine Bilhah, and Israel heard about it. Jacob had twelve sons:

2 Samuel 12:11
This is what the LORD says: 'I will raise up adversity against you from your own house. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to another, and he will lie with them in broad daylight.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For his princes were at Zoan,.... That is, the princes of the king of Judah, or of the people of Judah; though it can hardly be thought that princes should be sent ambassadors into Egypt, to enter into an alliance, or request help, without the knowledge, leave, and consent, and indeed order, of the king, under which character they went, as appears from the following clause:

and his ambassadors came to Hanes; these are the same with the princes, for such were sent on this embassy, both for the honour of the kingdom, and for the more easy obtaining of their end; the two places mentioned, to which they went, were two principal cities in Egypt, where probably the king of Egypt was, and his court kept, sometimes at one place, and sometimes at another. Zoan is the same with Tanis, the metropolis of one of the nomes or provinces of Egypt, called from it the Tanitic nome; and so the Targum here renders it, "Tanes": and the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, "Tanis"; :-. The Jews g say there is not a more excellent place in all Egypt than Zoan, because kings were brought up in it, as it is here said, "his princes were at Zoan"; the other, here called "Hanes", is the same with Tahapanes in Jeremiah 2:16 and Tahpanhes, Jeremiah 43:7 and so the Targum here calls it; it is thought to be the same with Daphnae Pelusiae; here Pharaoh had a house or palace; see

Jeremiah 43:9 and this is the reason of the ambassadors going thither.

g T. Bab. Cetubot, fol. 112. 1. & Sota, fol. 34. 2.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For his princes - The sense of this verse seems to be this. The prophet is stating the fact that the Jews would be ashamed of their attempted alliance with Egypt. In this verse, and the following, he states the manner in which they would be made sensible of their folly in seeking this alliance. He therefore enumerates several circumstances in regard to the manner in which the alliance had been sought, and the disappointment that would follow after all their vain confidence. He therefore states Isaiah 30:4, that the Jews had employed persons of the highest respectability and honor, even princes, to secure the alliance; that they had gone to Egypt with much difficulty - through a land where lions, and vipers, and fiery serpents abounded; that they had at much hazard taken their treasures down to Egypt in order to secure the alliance Isaiah 30:5-6, and that after all, the Egyptians could not aid them. The phrase ‘his princes,’ refers to the princes of Judah, the ambassadors that the Jews sent forth, and the idea is, that they regarded the alliance as of so much importance that they had employed their most honorable men - even their princes - to secure it.

Were at Zoan - Had come to Zoan, or were there on the business of their embassy. On the situation of Zoan, see the notes at Isaiah 19:11, Isaiah 19:13. It was the residence of the kings in Lower Egypt, and would be the place to which the ambassadors would naturally resort to negotiate an alliance.

Came to Hanes - Respecting the situation of this place there has been much diversity of opinion among interpreters. The Chaldee renders it by the more full word “Tahpanhes;” and Grotius supposes that the word is contracted from Tahpanhes Jeremiah 43:7-8, and that the name was sometimes abbreviated and written חנס chânēs. Vitringa supposes that it was Anusis, situated in the Delta of the Nile, and the residence of the king of the same name. Herodotus (ii. 137) mentions a city of that name, Ἄνυσίς Anusis. Anusis was a king of Egypt before the irruption of the Ethiopians, and it was not uncommon for a king to give his own name to a city. Probably Anusis is the city intended here; and the sense is, that they had come to the royal residence for the purpose of negotiating an alliance. It is known that in the time of Jeremiah (588 years before Christ) “Tahpanhes” was the capital of the nation (see Jeremiah 43:9).

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Isaiah 30:4. Hanes — Six MSS. of Kennicott's, and perhaps six others, with four of De Rossi's, read חנם chinnam, in vain, for הנס Hanes; and so also the Septuagint, who read likewise יגעו yageu, labored, for יגיעו yaggiu, arrived at.