Yesaya 19:1-17
Konteks19:1 Here is a message about Egypt:
Look, the Lord rides on a swift-moving cloud
and approaches Egypt.
The idols of Egypt tremble before him;
the Egyptians lose their courage. 1
19:2 “I will provoke civil strife in Egypt, 2
brothers will fight with each other,
as will neighbors,
cities, and kingdoms. 3
19:3 The Egyptians will panic, 4
and I will confuse their strategy. 5
They will seek guidance from the idols and from the spirits of the dead,
from the pits used to conjure up underworld spirits, and from the magicians. 6
19:4 I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master;
a powerful king will rule over them,”
says the sovereign master, 7 the Lord who commands armies.
19:5 The water of the sea will be dried up,
and the river will dry up and be empty. 8
19:6 The canals 9 will stink; 10
the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up;
the bulrushes and reeds will decay,
19:7 along with the plants by the mouth of the river. 11
All the cultivated land near the river
will turn to dust and be blown away. 12
19:8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,
all those who cast a fishhook into the river,
and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve. 13
19:9 Those who make clothes from combed flax will be embarrassed;
those who weave will turn pale. 14
19:10 Those who make cloth 15 will be demoralized; 16
all the hired workers will be depressed. 17
19:11 The officials of Zoan are nothing but fools; 18
Pharaoh’s wise advisers give stupid advice.
How dare you say to Pharaoh,
“I am one of the sages,
one well-versed in the writings of the ancient kings?” 19
19:12 But where, oh where, are your wise men? 20
Let them tell you, let them find out
what the Lord who commands armies has planned for Egypt.
19:13 The officials of Zoan are fools,
the officials of Memphis 21 are misled;
the rulers 22 of her tribes lead Egypt astray.
19:14 The Lord has made them undiscerning; 23
they lead Egypt astray in all she does,
so that she is like a drunk sliding around in his own vomit. 24
19:15 Egypt will not be able to do a thing,
head or tail, shoots and stalk. 25
19:16 At that time 26 the Egyptians 27 will be like women. 28 They will tremble and fear because the Lord who commands armies brandishes his fist against them. 29 19:17 The land of Judah will humiliate Egypt. Everyone who hears about Judah will be afraid because of what the Lord who commands armies is planning to do to them. 30
Yeremia 46:2
Konteks46:2 He spoke about Egypt and the army of Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt which was encamped along the Euphrates River at Carchemish. Now this was the army that King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon defeated in the fourth year that Jehoiakim son of Josiah was ruling 31 over Judah. 32
Yehezkiel 30:1-26
Konteks30:1 The word of the Lord came to me: 30:2 “Son of man, prophesy and say, ‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
“‘Wail, “Alas, the day is here!” 33
30:3 For the day is near,
the day of the Lord is near;
it will be a day of storm clouds, 34
it will be a time of judgment 35 for the nations.
30:4 A sword will come against Egypt
and panic will overtake Ethiopia
when the slain fall in Egypt
and they carry away her wealth
and dismantle her foundations.
30:5 Ethiopia, Put, Lud, all the foreigners, 36 Libya, and the people 37 of the covenant land 38 will die by the sword along with them.
30:6 “‘This is what the Lord says:
Egypt’s supporters will fall;
her confident pride will crumble. 39
From Migdol to Syene 40 they will die by the sword within her,
declares the sovereign Lord.
30:7 They will be desolate among desolate lands,
and their cities will be among ruined cities.
30:8 They will know that I am the Lord
when I ignite a fire in Egypt
and all her allies are defeated. 41
30:9 On that day messengers will go out from me in ships to frighten overly confident Ethiopia; panic will overtake them on the day of Egypt’s doom; 42 for beware – it is coming!
30:10 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
I will put an end to the hordes of Egypt,
by the hand of King Nebuchadrezzar 43 of Babylon.
30:11 He and his people with him,
the most terrifying of the nations, 44
will be brought there to destroy the land.
They will draw their swords against Egypt,
and fill the land with corpses.
30:12 I will dry up the waterways
and hand the land over to 45 evil men.
I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners.
I, the Lord, have spoken!
30:13 “‘This is what the sovereign Lord says:
I will destroy the idols,
and put an end to the gods of Memphis.
There will no longer be a prince from the land of Egypt;
so I will make the land of Egypt fearful. 46
30:14 I will desolate Pathros,
I will ignite a fire in Zoan,
and I will execute judgments on Thebes.
30:15 I will pour out my anger upon Pelusium, 47
the stronghold of Egypt;
I will cut off 48 the hordes of Thebes.
30:16 I will ignite a fire in Egypt;
Syene 49 will writhe in agony,
Thebes will be broken down,
and Memphis will face enemies every day.
30:17 The young men of On and of Pi-beseth 50 will die by the sword;
and the cities will go 51 into captivity.
30:18 In Tahpanhes the day will be dark 52
when I break the yoke of Egypt there.
Her confident pride will cease within her;
a cloud will cover her, and her daughters will go into captivity.
30:19 I will execute judgments on Egypt.
Then they will know that I am the Lord.’”
30:20 In the eleventh year, in the first month, on the seventh day of the month, 53 the word of the Lord came to me: 30:21 “Son of man, I have broken the arm 54 of Pharaoh king of Egypt. 55 Look, it has not been bandaged for healing or set with a dressing so that it might become strong enough to grasp a sword. 30:22 Therefore this is what the sovereign Lord says: Look, 56 I am against 57 Pharaoh king of Egypt, and I will break his arms, the strong arm and the broken one, and I will make the sword drop from his hand. 30:23 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations, and disperse them among foreign countries. 30:24 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, and I will place my sword in his hand, but I will break the arms of Pharaoh, and he will groan like the fatally wounded before the king of Babylon. 58 30:25 I will strengthen the arms of the king of Babylon, but the arms of Pharaoh will fall limp. Then they will know that I am the Lord when I place my sword in the hand of the king of Babylon and he extends it against the land of Egypt. 30:26 I will scatter the Egyptians among the nations and disperse them among foreign countries. Then they will know that I am the Lord.”
[19:1] 1 tn Heb “and the heart of Egypt melts within it.”
[19:2] 2 tn Heb I will provoke Egypt against Egypt” (NAB similar).
[19:2] 3 tn Heb “and they will fight, a man against his brother, and a man against his neighbor, city against city, kingdom against kingdom.” Civil strife will extend all the way from the domestic level to the provincial arena.
[19:3] 4 tn Heb “and the spirit of Egypt will be laid waste in its midst.”
[19:3] 5 tn The verb בָּלַע (bala’, “confuse”) is a homonym of the more common בָּלַע (bala’, “swallow”); see HALOT 135 s.v. I בלע.
[19:3] 6 tn Heb “they will inquire of the idols and of the spirits of the dead and of the ritual pits and of the magicians.” Hebrew אוֹב (’ov, “ritual pit”) refers to a pit used by a magician to conjure up underworld spirits. See the note on “incantations” in 8:19.
[19:4] 7 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
[19:5] 8 tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.
[19:6] 9 tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”
[19:6] 10 tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa; the form in MT may be a so-called “mixed form,” reflecting the Hebrew Hiphil stem and the functionally corresponding Aramaic Aphel stem. See HALOT 276 s.v. I זנח.
[19:7] 11 tn Heb “the plants by the river, by the mouth of the river.”
[19:7] 12 tn Heb “will dry up, [being] scattered, and it will vanish.”
[19:8] 13 tn Or perhaps, “will disappear”; cf. TEV “will be useless.”
[19:9] 14 tn BDB 301 s.v. חוֹרִי suggests the meaning “white stuff” for חוֹרִי (khori); the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has חָוֵרוּ (khaveru), probably a Qal perfect, third plural form of חוּר, (khur, “be white, pale”). See HALOT 299 s.v. I חור. The latter reading is assumed in the translation above.
[19:10] 15 tn Some interpret שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha) as “her foundations,” i.e., leaders, nobles. See BDB 1011 s.v. שָׁת. Others, on the basis of alleged cognates in Akkadian and Coptic, repoint the form שְׁתִיתֶיהָ (shÿtiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.
[19:10] 16 tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).
[19:10] 17 tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”
[19:11] 18 tn Or “certainly the officials of Zoan are fools.” אַךְ (’akh) can carry the sense, “only, nothing but,” or “certainly, surely.”
[19:11] 19 tn Heb “A son of wise men am I, a son of ancient kings.” The term בֶּן (ben, “son of”) could refer to literal descent, but many understand the word, at least in the first line, in its idiomatic sense of “member [of a guild].” See HALOT 138 s.v. בֶּן and J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:371. If this is the case, then one can take the word in a figurative sense in the second line as well, the “son of ancient kings” being one devoted to their memory as preserved in their literature.
[19:12] 20 tn Heb “Where are they? Where are your wise men?” The juxtaposition of the interrogative pronouns is emphatic. See HALOT 38 s.v. אֶי.
[19:13] 21 tn Heb “Noph” (so KJV); most recent English versions substitute the more familiar “Memphis.”
[19:13] 22 tn Heb “the cornerstone.” The singular form should be emended to a plural.
[19:14] 23 tn Heb “the Lord has mixed into her midst a spirit of blindness.”
[19:14] 24 tn Heb “like the going astray of a drunkard in his vomit.”
[19:15] 25 tn Heb “And there will not be for Egypt a deed, which head and tail, shoot and stalk can do.” In 9:14-15 the phrase “head or tail” refers to leaders and prophets, respectively. This interpretation makes good sense in this context, where both leaders and advisers (probably including prophets and diviners) are mentioned (vv. 11-14). Here, as in 9:14, “shoots and stalk” picture a reed, which symbolizes the leadership of the nation in its entirety.
[19:16] 26 tn Heb “in that day” (so KJV), likewise at the beginning of vv. 18 and 19.
[19:16] 27 tn Heb “Egypt,” which stands by metonymy for the country’s inhabitants.
[19:16] 28 sn As the rest of the verse indicates, the point of the simile is that the Egyptians will be relatively weak physically and will wilt in fear before the Lord’s onslaught.
[19:16] 29 tn Heb “and he will tremble and be afraid because of the brandishing of the hand of the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts], which he brandishes against him.” Since according to the imagery here the Lord’s “hand” is raised as a weapon against the Egyptians, the term “fist” has been used in the translation.
[19:17] 30 tn Heb “and the land of Judah will become [a source of] shame to Egypt, everyone to whom one mentions it [i.e., the land of Judah] will fear because of the plan of the Lord who commands armies [traditionally, the Lord of hosts] which he is planning against him.”
[46:2] 31 sn The fourth year of Jehoiakim’s reign proved very significant in the prophecies of Jeremiah. It was in that same year that he issued the prophecies against the foreign nations recorded in Jer 25 (and probably the prophecies recorded here in Jer 46-51) and that he had Baruch record and read to the people gathered in the temple all the prophecies he had uttered against Judah and Jerusalem up to that point in the hopes that they would repent and the nation would be spared. The fourth year of Jehoiakim (605
[46:2] 32 tn Heb “Concerning Egypt: Concerning the army of Pharaoh Necho king of Egypt which was beside the Euphrates River at Carchemish which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon defeated in the fourth year of Jehoiakim son of Josiah king of Judah.” The sentence has been broken up, restructured, and introductory words supplied in the translation to make the sentences better conform with contemporary English style. The dating formula is placed in brackets because the passage is prophetic about the battle, but the bracketed words were superscription or introduction and thus were added after the outcome was known.
[30:2] 33 tn Heb “Alas for the day.”
[30:3] 34 tn Heb “a day of clouds.” The expression occurs also in Joel 2:2 and Zeph 1:15; it recalls the appearance of God at Mount Sinai (Exod 19:9, 16, 18).
[30:3] 35 tn Heb “a time.” The words “of judgment” have been added in the translation for clarification (see the following verses).
[30:5] 36 tn The same expression appears in Exod 12:38; Jer 25:20; 50:37; Neh 13:3. It may refer to foreign mercenaries serving in the armies of the nations listed here.
[30:5] 38 tn The expression “sons of the covenant land” possibly refers to Jews living in Egypt (Jer 44).
[30:6] 40 sn Syene is known as Aswan today.
[30:8] 41 tn Heb “all who aid her are broken.”
[30:9] 42 tn Heb “in the day of Egypt.” The word “doom” has been added in the translation to clarify the nature of this day.
[30:10] 43 tn Heb “Nebuchadrezzar” is a variant and more correct spelling of Nebuchadnezzar, as the Babylonian name Nabu-kudurri-usur has an “r” rather than an “n.”
[30:11] 44 tn The Babylonians were known for their cruelty (2 Kgs 25:7).
[30:12] 45 tn Heb “and I will sell the land into the hand of.”
[30:13] 46 tn Heb “I will put fear in the land of Egypt.”
[30:15] 47 tn Heb “Sin” (so KJV, NASB), a city commonly identified with Pelusium, a fortress on Egypt’s northeastern frontier.
[30:16] 49 tc The LXX reads “Syene,” which is Aswan in the south. The MT reads Sin, which has already been mentioned in v. 15.
[30:17] 50 sn On and Pi-beseth are generally identified with the Egyptian cities of Heliopolis and Bubastis.
[30:17] 51 tn Heb “they will go.” The pronoun and verb are feminine plural, indicating that the cities just mentioned are the antecedent of the pronoun and the subject of the verb. The translation makes this clear by stating the subject as “the cities.”
[30:18] 52 sn In Zeph 1:15 darkness is associated with the day of the
[30:20] 53 tn April 29, 587
[30:21] 54 sn The expression “breaking the arm” indicates the removal of power (Ps 10:15; 37:17; Job 38:15; Jer 48:25).
[30:21] 55 sn This may refer to the event recorded in Jer 37:5.
[30:22] 56 tn The word h!nn@h indicates becoming aware of something and has been translated here as a verb.
[30:22] 57 tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.
[30:24] 58 tn Heb “him”; the referent has been specified in the translation for clarity.
