Isaiah 19:6

And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(6) And they shall turn the rivers far away.—Better, the river shall stagnate; i.e., in consequence of the Nile’s inundation failing.

The brooks of defence.—The latter noun (Heb., matzor) is better treated as a proper name, the singular of the dual form Mitsraim, commonly used for Egypt. Here it would seem to be used for Lower Egypt, the region of Zoan and Memphis, as distinct from Upper Egypt or the Thebaid. The same form occurs in Isaiah 37:25; 2Kings 19:24; Micah 7:12. Its primary meaning is that of a fortified land. The “flags” are strictly the papyrus of the Nile; the “brooks” are the canals or Nile-branches of the Delta.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

19:1-17 God shall come into Egypt with his judgments. He will raise up the causes of their destruction from among themselves. When ungodly men escape danger, they are apt to think themselves secure; but evil pursues sinners, and will speedily overtake them, except they repent. The Egyptians will be given over into the hand of one who shall rule them with rigour, as was shortly after fulfilled. The Egyptians were renowned for wisdom and science; yet the Lord would give them up to their own perverse schemes, and to quarrel, till their land would be brought by their contests to become an object of contempt and pity. He renders sinners afraid of those whom they have despised and oppressed; and the Lord of hosts will make the workers of iniquity a terror to themselves, and to each other; and every object around a terror to them.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And they shall turn the rivers far away - (האזיּחוּ he'ezenı̂ychû), probably from זנח 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 (διὼρυχες diōruches) of the river, and all the assembling (συναγωγή sunagōgē) waters shall be dried up.'

And the brooks of defense - Hebrew, 'The rivers of מצור mâtsôr. The word מצור mâtsôr often means "straitness, affliction;" then a siege, a wall, a bulwark, a fortification. But, probably, it here means "Egypt," or the same as מצרים mı̂tserayı̂m (compare Isaiah 37:25; 2 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)

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6. they shall turn the rivers—rather, "the streams shall become putrid"; that is, the artificial streams made for irrigation shall become stagnant and offensive when the waters fail [Maurer]. Horsley, with the Septuagint, translates, "And waters from the sea shall be drunk"; by the failure of the river water they shall be reduced to sea water.

brooks of defence—rather, "canals of Egypt"; "canals," literally, "Niles," Nile canals, the plural of the Egyptian term for the great river. The same Hebrew word, Matzor, whence comes Mitzraim, expresses Egypt, and a place of "defense." Horsley, as English Version translates it, "embanked canals,"

reeds … flags—the papyrus. "Reed and rush"; utter withering.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They shall turn the rivers far away; which is to be taken impersonally, as such expressions are very frequently, for, the rivers (those small rivulets by which the waters of Nilus were conveyed and distributed into several parts of the land)

shall be turned far away, as they must needs be, when the greater river Nilus, which fed them, was dried up.

The brooks of defence; the several branches of the river Nilus, which were a great defence to Egypt, as is well known.

The reeds and flags; which were very useful to them for making their boats, which were absolutely necessary in that country, and divers other things.

Shall wither; as they commonly do for want of water.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And they shall turn the rivers far away,.... The river Nile, called "rivers", the plural for the singular, because of the abundance of water in it; or its seven streams, with other rivulets, derived from it. Some make the "they" here to refer to the kings of Egypt, and interpret the words of some projects of theirs, by which the course of the river was turned to great disadvantage; particularly they understand it of the twelve tyrants that reigned after Sethon, to whom they ascribe the digging of the vast lake of Moeris, the two pyramids built in the midst of it, and a labyrinth near it, though only the labyrinth was made by them (b); and as for the lake, it was made by Moeris, a king of Egypt, from whom it had its name, some hundred years before; and, besides, was of service, and not disservice, to the Nile; for it received its waters when it overflowed too much, and it furnished it with water by an outlet when it failed: rather therefore this passage may be illustrated by the attempt which Necus, the son of Psammiticus, whom the Scripture calls Pharaohnecho, made, to join the Nile and the Red Sea together, by making a canal from the one to the other; in which work he lost a hundred and twenty thousand men, and desisted from it without finishing it (c); but it is thought hereby the river was greatly weakened:

and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up; as the river of Nile and its streams were the defence of the land of Egypt, as well as made for the fruitfulness of it, for these must make it less accessible to a foreign enemy; and besides, here lay their shipping, which were their protection; and moreover, from hence brooks and courses of water might be derived and carried about their fortified cities, which added to the strength of them. The Targum renders it deep brooks or rivers; and Kimchi interprets it the brooks of Egypt, taking Matzor to signify Egypt, a word in sound near to Mitzraim, the common word used for Egypt. It looks, by this and other expressions in the context, as if more were designed than the above instance or instances will account for:

the reeds and flags shall wither; which grew in the brooks, and near them; and therefore much more the grass and corn, and other trees, which were at a distance; besides, these are mentioned, bemuse of the great usefulness they were of; for of these they made ships, barks, and boats, and mats for bedding, and nets fishing; as also paper to write on, as follows, and which was a staple commodity with them; See Gill on Isaiah 18:2.

(b) Herodot. l. 2. c. 148, 149. (c) Ib. c. 158.

Geneva Study Bible

And they shall turn the {f} rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.

(f) For the Nile ran into the sea by seven streams, as though they were many rivers.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

6. The verse reads: And the streams shall stink, the canals of Egypt shall become feeble and dry up, &c. The word for “stink” is an anomalous form in Hebr. That rendered in A.V. “defence” is a rare name for Egypt (Maçôr, cf. Assyr. Muṣur, Arab. Miṣr), found also in ch. Isaiah 37:25; 2 Kings 19:24; Micah 7:12. “Canals” (A.V. “brooks”) is literally “Niles” (cf. Isaiah 7:18).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 6. - And they shall turn the rivers far away; rather, and the rivers shall stagnate (Cheyne). Probably the canals are intended, as in Exodus 7:19 (see 'Pulpit Commentary,' ad loc.). The brooks of defense shall be emptied. Some render this "brooks of Egypt," regarding matsor as here used for "Mitsraim;" but our translation is more forcible, and may well stand. The "brooks of defense" are those which had hitherto formed the moats round walled cities (comp. Isaiah 37:25; Nahum 3:8). The reeds and flags shall wither. Reeds, flags, rushes, and water-plants of all kinds abound in the backwaters of the Nile, and the numerous ponds and marshes connected with its overflow (see the 'Pulpit Commentary' on Exodus 2:3, p. 24). These forms of vegetation would be the first to wither on the occurrence of a deficient inundation. Isaiah 19:6

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The prophet then proceeds to foretell another misfortune which was coming upon Egypt: the Nile dries up, and with this the fertility of the land disappears. "And the waters will dry up from the sea, and the river is parched and dried. And the arms of the river spread a stench; the channels of Matzor become shallow and parched: reed and rush shrivel up. The meadows by the Nile, on the border of the Nile, and every corn-field of the Nile, dries up, is scattered, and disappears. And the fishermen groan, and all who throw draw-nets into the Nile lament, and they that spread out the net upon the face of the waters languish away. And the workers of fine combed flax are confounded, and the weavers of cotton fabrics. And the pillars of the land are ground to powder; all that work for wages are troubled in mind." In Isaiah 19:5 the Nile is called yâm (a sea), just as Homer calls it Oceanus, which, as Diodorus observes, was the name given by the natives to the river (Egypt. oham). The White Nile is called bahr el-abyad (the White Sea), the Blue Nile bahr el-azrak, and the combined waters bahr eṅNil, or, in the language of the Besharn, as here in Isaiah, yām. And in the account of the creation, in Genesis 1, yammim is the collective name for great seas and rivers. But the Nile itself is more like an inland sea than a river, from the point at which the great bodies of water brought down by the Blue Nile and the White Nile, which rises a few weeks later, flow together; partly on account of its great breadth, and partly also because of its remaining stagnant throughout the dry season. It is not till the tropical rains commence that the swelling river begins to flow more rapidly, and the yâm becomes a nâhâr. But when, as is here threatened, the Nile sea and Nile river in Upper Egypt sink together and dry up (nisshethu, niphal either of shâthath equals nâshattu, to set, to grow shallow; or more probably from nâshath, to dry up, since Isaiah 41:17 and Jeremiah 51:30 warrant the assumption that there was such a verb), the mouths (or arms) of the Nile (nehâr), which flow through the Delta, and the many canals (ye'orim), by which the benefits of the overflow are conveyed to the Nile valley, are turned into stinking puddles (האזניחוּ, a hiphil, half substantive half verbal, unparalleled elsewhere,

(Note: It is not unparalleled as a hiph. denom. (compare הצהיר, oil, יצהר, to press, Job 24:11, Talm. התליע, to become worm-eaten, and many others of a similar kind); and as a mixed form (possibly a mixture of two readings, as Gesenius and Bttcher suppose, though it is not necessarily so), the language admitted of much that was strange, more especially in the vulgar tongue, which found its way here and there into written composition.)

signifying to spread a stench; possibly it may have been used in the place of הזניח, from אזנח or אזנח, stinking, to which a different application was given in ordinary use). In all probability it is not without intention that Isaiah uses the expression Mâtzor, inasmuch as he distinguishes Mâzort from Pathros (Isaiah 11:11), i.e., Lower from Upper Egypt (Egyp. sa-het, the low land, and sa-res, the higher land), the two together being Mitzrayim. And ye'orim (by the side of nehâroth) we are warranted in regarding as the name given of the Nile canals. The canal system in Egypt and the system of irrigation are older than the invasion of the Hyksos (vid., Lepsius, in Herzog's Cyclopaedia). On the other hand, ye'ōr in Isaiah 19:7 (where it is written three times plene, as it is also in Isaiah 19:8) is the Egyptian name of the Nile generally (yaro).

(Note: From the fact that aur in old Egyptian means the Nile, we may explain the Φρουορῶ ἤτοι Νεῖλος, with which the Laterculus of Eratosthenes closes.)

It is repeated emphatically three times, like Mitzrayim in Isaiah 19:1. Parallel to mizra‛, but yet different from it, is ערות, from ערה, to be naked or bare, which signifies, like many derivatives of the synonymous word in Arabic, either open spaces, or as here, grassy tracts by the water-side, i.e., meadows. Even the meadows, which lie close to the water-side (pi equals ora, as in Psalm 133:2, not ostium), and all the fields, become so parched, that they blow away like ashes.

Then the three leading sources from which Egypt derived its maintenance all fail: - viz. the fishing; the linen manufacture, which supplied dresses for the priests and bandages for mummies; and the cotton manufacture, by which all who were not priests were supplied with clothes. The Egyptian fishery was very important. In the Berlin Museum there is an Egyptian micmoreth with lead attached. The mode of working the flax by means of serikâh, pectinatio (compare סרוק, wool-combs, Kelim, 12, 2), is shown on the monuments. In the Berlin Museum there are also Egyptian combs of this description with which the flax was carded. The productions of the Egyptian looms were celebrated in antiquity: chōrây, lit., white cloth (singularet. with the old termination ay), is the general name for cotton fabrics, or the different kinds of byssus that were woven there (compare the βυσσίνων ὀθονίων of the Rosetta inscription). All the castes, from the highest to the lowest, are not thrown into agonies of despair. The shâthōth (an epithet that was probably suggested by the thought of shethi, a warp, Syr. 'ashti, to weave, through the natural association of ideas), i.e., the "pillars" of the land (with a suffix relating to Mitzrayim, see at Isaiah 3:8, and construed as a masculine as at Psalm 11:3), were the highest castes, who were the direct supporters of the state edifice; and שׂכר עשׂי cannot mean the citizens engaged in trade, i.e., the middle classes, but such of the people as hired themselves to the employers of labour, and therefore lived upon wages and not upon their own property (שׂכר is used here as in Proverbs 11:18, and not as equivalent to סכר, the dammers-up of the water for the purpose of catching the fish, like סכרין, Kelim, 23, 5).