Isaiah 19:4, commentary and pictures

Isaiah 19:4 belongs to the first thirty-nine chapters of Isaiah, which contain the prophecies and historical accounts from his active public work as God's messenger to rulers and people in national affairs. Those chapters consist of single distinct prophecies published at different times and on different occasions and afterward gathered into one collection. They stand apart from chapters 40 to 66, which come from his later years apart from public work, with contemplation turned wholly to the future, to deliverance from Babylonian captivity under a named monarch and to deliverance from sin and error through the Messiah.

The verse stands within the denunciation of Egypt in Isaiah 19:1-10 foretelling the drying up of its waters. That drying means destruction of Egypt as a habitable land to the same extent, because the whole land depends on the inundations of the Nile for irrigation. Failure or excess of its rise brings want and famine.

The verse predicts that the Egyptians will be given over into the hand of a cruel, harsh lord and ruled by a fierce king. It means Egypt would be invaded, conquered, spoiled, and kept under foreign strangers forever, becoming the basest of kingdoms. This was so although Egypt was ancient and powerful and most defensible by the Red Sea, the desert, its navy, and the Nile.

Its fulfillment extends over more than twenty-four centuries through successive foreign domination. Egypt fell to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, afterward to the Persians under Cambyses, and to the Macedonians under Alexander the Great. After his death it was governed for nearly three centuries by the Ptolemies, then about thirty years before the Christian era came under the Roman yoke, and since has been ruled successively by Saracens, Mamelukes, and Turks.

The prophecy has already been fulfilled in Egypt, though only part of the chapter's fulfillment is established on that ground. Its judgment was fulfilled following Egypt's failure as a nation to turn to the Lord despite earlier witnesses and calamities intended to lead it to seek him. The prophecy concerning Egypt was fulfilled in New Testament times in the preaching of the Gospel both in Egypt and Assyria. It concerns an ancient judgment on Egypt that was probably fulfilled centuries ago and does not apply to modern times. The verse's language of fierce and cruel rule also characterizes Rome as a strong, oppressive, overmastering power.