Isaiah 19:4

And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) Into the hand of a cruel lord.—The later history of Egypt presents so many pictures of oppressive government, that it is hard to say to which of them the picture thus drawn bears most resemblance. Sargon, or Esarhaddon, or Psammetichus, who became king of Egypt on the breaking up of the dodecarchy, or Nebuchadnezzar, or Cambyses, has, each in his turn, been identified as presenting the features of the “cruel lord.”

Benson Commentary

Isaiah 19:4. The Egyptians will I give into the hand of a cruel lord, &c. — This is the second calamity here threatened, and the most essential part of the prophecy; and “it may with great truth and propriety be understood of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, whose dominion was very grievous to the conquered nations: but with the greatest propriety and justice may be applied to the Persians, and especially to Cambyses and Ochus; one of whom put the yoke upon the neck of the Egyptians, and the other riveted it there, and who are both branded in history for cruel tyrants and monsters of men.” — Bishop Newton.

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 the Egyptians - The Egyptian nation; the entire people, though divided into factions and contending with each other.

Will I give over - Margin, 'Shut up.' The Hebrew word (סכר sākar) usually has the sense of shutting up, or closing. Here it means that these contentions would be "closed" or concluded by their being delivered to of a single master. The Septuagint renders it, Παραδώσω Paradōsō - 'I will surrender.'

Into the hands of a cruel lord - Hebrew, 'Lords of cruelty, or severity.' The word rendered 'lord,' meaning master, is in the Hebrew in the plural number (אדנים 'ădônı̂y). It is, however, generally supposed that it is pluralis excellentiae - denoting majesty and dignity, and applicable to a "single" monarch. The connection requires this, for the state here described would be different from that where "many" rule, and it seems to suppose that "one" should succeed to the many who had been contending. In the parallel member, also, a name in the singular number is used - 'a fierce king;' and as this evidently denotes the same, it follows that the word here is used to denote a single monarch. The plural form is often thus used in the Hebrew (see Psalm 7:10; Ezekiel 29:3; Hosea 12:1). God here claims jurisdiction over the nation, and says that "he" will do it - a most striking illustration of the power which he asserts over contending people to deliver them to whomsoever he will.

Dr. Newton supposes that this was Nebuchadnezzar, or more properly Cambyses, by whom Egypt was made subject to the authority of Persia, and who was eminently a cruel man, a madman. But the more probable interpretation is that which refers it to Psammetichus. twelve kings were in contention, of whom he was one. He called in the aid of the Arabians, the pirates of Caria and Iona (Herodot. ii. 152; see the Analysis of the chapter; Diod. i. 66). This was in the twentieth year of the reign of Manasseh. Psammetichus reigned fifty-four years and was succeeded by Nechus his son, called in Scripture Pharaoh-Necho, and often mentioned under that name. Psammetichus, during a considerable part of his reign, was engaged in wars with Assyria and Palestine. He is here called a 'cruel lord;' that is, an oppressive monarch, probably because he secured the kingdom by bringing in to his aid foreign mercenaries - robbers and pirates, and because his wars made his government oppressive and burdensome.

A fierce king - Hebrew, 'A king of strength' - a description particularly applicable to one who, like Psammetichus, had subdued eleven rivals, and who had obtained the kingdom by conquest.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4. cruel lord—"Sargon," in Hebrew it is lords; but plural is often used to express greatness, where, one alone is meant (Ge 39:2). The parallel word "king" (singular) proves it. Newton makes the general reference to be to Nebuchadnezzar, and a particular reference to Cambyses, son of Cyrus (who killed the Egyptian god, Apis), and Ochus, Persian conquerors of Egypt, noted for their "fierce cruelty." Gesenius refers it to Psammetichus, who had brought into Egypt Greek and other foreign mercenaries to subdue the other eleven princes of the dodecarchy.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

A fierce king; either,

1. The king of Assyria or Chaldea; or,

2. Those twelve petty kings, the singular number being put for the plural; or,

3. Psammetichus, who being at first one of those twelve kings, waged war with the rest, and subdued them, and conquered all the land of Egypt, and ruled it with rigour.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

And the Egyptians will I give over into the hands of a cruel lord,.... Not of Sennacherib king of Assyria, which way go many interpreters, both Christian and Jewish, as Aben Ezra, Jarchi, and Kimchi; nor of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, as in Jeremiah 46:25 but either of the twelve tyrants that rose up after the death of Sethon above mentioned; for the word is in the plural number, "lords", though the adjective rendered "cruel" is singular; or else Psammiticus, the father of Pharaohnecho, that slew Josiah; and who conquered the other eleven tyrants, and ruled alone, for the space of fifty four years, with great rigour; and the same is designed in the next clause:

and a fierce king shall rule over them; it is reported of Psammiticus, that he gave such offence to his subjects, that two hundred thousand of his soldiers left him, and went into Ethiopia (a). Vitringa interprets this of the Persian emperors, into whose hands Egypt fell, as Cambyses and Ochus; and who, according to historians, were very cruel princes. That there might be no doubt of the sure and certain accomplishment of this prophecy, it is added,

saith the Lord, the Lord of hosts; of the armies above and below; and who does what he pleases among the kings and kingdoms of the earth.

(a) See Raleigh's History of the World, B. 2. c. 27. sect. 3. p. 357.

Geneva Study Bible

And the Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord; and a fierce king shall rule over them, saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. R.V. And I will give over (lit. “shut up”) the Egyptians into the hand of a cruel (“hard”) lord (in Hebr. plur. of majesty), &c. The words suggest a foreign ruler and are quite applicable to any Assyrian monarch likely to undertake the conquest of Egypt. Esarhaddon in 672 and again Asshurbanipal in 662 ravaged the country as far as Thebes; the Empire was broken up into twenty petty principalities, and all attempts at revolt were sternly suppressed until 645, when Psammetichus, one of the native princes, succeeded in shaking off the Assyrian yoke and uniting Egypt under his own sway.

the Lord, the Lord of hosts] here, as always, in confirmation of a threat. See on Isaiah 1:24.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - The Egyptians will I give over into the hand of a cruel lord. It has been observed above that Piankhi will not answer to this description. It will, however, well suit Esarhaddon. Esarhaddon, soon after his accession, cut off the heads of Abdi-Milkut, King of Sidon, and of Sanduarri, King of Kundi, and hung them round the necks of two of their chief officers (G. Smith, 'Eponym Canon,' pp. 137-139). In an expedition which he made into Arabia, he slew eight of the sovereigns, two of them being women ('Records of the Past,' vol. 3. pp. 106, 107). On conquering Egypt he treated it with extreme severity. Not only did he divide up the country into twenty governments, but he changed the names of the towns, and assigned to his twenty governors, as their main duty, that they were "to slay, plunder, and spoil" their subjects (G. Smith, 'History of Asshur-bani-pal,' p. 37, 1. 7; comp. p. 16, 1. 7). He certainly well deserved the appellations of "a cruel lord," "a fierce king." Isaiah 19:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

"And I spur Egypt against Egypt: and they go to war, every one with his brother, and every one with his neighbour; city against city, kingdom against kingdom. And the spirit of Egypt is emptied out within it: and I swallow up its ready counsel; and they go to the idols to inquire, and to the mutterers, and to the oracle-spirits, and to the soothsayers. And I shut up Egypt in the hand of a hard rule; and a fierce king will reign over them, saith the Lord, Jehovah of hosts." Civil war will rage in Egypt (on sicsēc, see at Isaiah 9:10). The people once so shrewd are now at their wits' end; their spirit is quite poured out נבקה, with the reduplication removed, for נבקּה, according to Ges. 68, Anm. 11 - as, for example, in Genesis 11:7; Ezekiel 41:7), so that there is nothing left of either intelligence or resolution. Then (and this is also part of the judgment) they turn for help, in counsel and action, where no help is to be found, viz., to their "nothings" of gods, and the manifold demoniacal arts, of which Egypt could boast of being the primary seat. On the names of the practisers of the black art, see Isaiah 8:19; 'ittim, the mutterers, is from 'âtat, to squeak (used of a camel-saddle, especially when new), or to rumble (used of an empty stomach): see Lane's Lexicon. But all this is of no avail: Jehovah gives them up (סכּר, syn. הסגּיר, συγκλείειν to be ruled over by a hard-hearted and cruel king. The prophecy does not relate to a foreign conqueror, so as to lead us to think of Sargon (Knobel) or Cambyses (Luzzatto), but to a native despot. In comparing the prophecy with the fulfilment, we must bear in mind that Isaiah 19:2 relates to the national revolution which broke out in Sais, and resulted in the overthrow of the Ethiopian rule, and to the federal dodekarchy to which the rising of the nation led. "Kingdom against kingdom:" this exactly suits those twelve small kingdoms into which Egypt was split up after the overthrow of the Ethiopian dynasty in the year 695, until Psammetichus, the dodekarch of Sais, succeeded in the year 670 in comprehending these twelve states once more under a single monarchy. This very Psammetichus (and the royal house of Psammetichus generally) is the hard ruler, the reckless despot. He succeeded in gaining the battle at Momemphis, by which he established himself in the monarchy, through having first of all strengthened himself with mercenary troops from Ionia, Caria, and Greece. From his time downwards, the true Egyptian character was destroyed by the admixture of foreign elements;

(Note: See Leo, Universalgesch. i. 152, and what Brugsch says in his Histoire d'Egypte, i. 250, with regard to the brusques changements that Egypt endured under Psammetichus.)

and this occasioned the emigration of a large portion of the military caste to Meroe. The Egyptian nation very soon came to feel how oppressive this new dynasty was, when Necho (616-597), the son and successor of Psammetichus, renewed the project of Ramses-Miamun, to construct a Suez canal, and tore away 120,000 of the natives of the land from their homes, sending them to wear out their lives in forced labour of the most wearisome kind. A revolt on the part of the native troops, who had been sent against the rising Cyrene, and driven back into the desert, led to the overthrow of Hophra, the grandson of Necho (570), and put an end to the hateful government of the family of Psammetichus.