Isaiah 19:15
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There is nothing Egypt can do— head or tail, palm or reed.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
As Assyria was a breaking rod to Judah, with which it was smitten, so Egypt was a broken reed, with which it was cheated; and therefore God had a quarrel with them both. We have before read the doom of the Assyrians; now here we have the burden of Egypt, a prophecy concerning that nation, I. That it should be greatly weakened and brought low, and should be as contemptible among the nations as now it was considerable, rendered so by a complication of judgments which God would bring upon them (v. 1-17). II. That at length God's holy religion should be brought into Egypt, and set up there, in part by the Jews that should flee thither for refuge, but more fully by the preachers of the gospel of Christ, through whose ministry churches should be planted in Egypt in the says of the Messiah (Isa 19:18-25), which would abundantly balance all the calamities here threatened.
Open source ↗19:15 There is nothing Egypt can do: No leader, idol, or conventional wisdom can stand against God’s judgment. • The head and the tail represented all of Egypt’s leaders from the greatest to the least important (see 9:14-15).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
Though the fig tree does not bud and no fruit is on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though the sheep are cut off from the fold and no cattle are in the stalls,
I have summoned a drought on the fields and on the mountains, on the grain, new wine, and oil, and on whatever the ground yields, on man and beast, and on all the labor of your hands.”
For when you eat the fruit of your labor, blessings and prosperity will be yours.
There is profit in all labor, but mere talk leads only to poverty.