Isaiah 19:12
Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt. Where are they? where are thy wise men? and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.
Isaiah 19:12 belongs to a prophecy of judgment concerning Egypt, forming part of announcements of God's judgments against various nations. It challenges Egypt's wise men to tell now and to know what the Lord of hosts has purposed upon Egypt, showing that human wisdom cannot disclose or overturn God's plans. The chapter evidently refers to the preaching of the gospel in Egypt and Assyria in New Testament times.
It belongs to a prophecy describing the revolutions and future state of Egypt, in which Isaiah 19:1-13 foretells the subjection of Egypt to the Macedonians under Alexander the Great as one stage in a long succession in which Egypt would be invaded, conquered, spoiled, fall into the hands of strangers forever, become the basest of kingdoms, and renounce idolatry. That succession was fulfilled when Egypt was invaded and subdued by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, afterward subjected by the Persians under Cambyses and by the Macedonians under Alexander. It was then governed nearly three centuries by the Ptolemies, brought about thirty years before the Christian era under the Roman yoke, and successively ruled by Saracens, Mamelukes, and Turks. The result left Egypt deprived of its natural proprietors, ruled by foreigners, without a prince of its own, with its idols cut off and its rivers drying up.
The chapter's prophecy has already been fulfilled in part. The verse has nothing to be fulfilled in modern times, for it was accomplished centuries ago.