4 I will hand Egypt over to a hard, cruel master. A fierce king will rule them," says the Lord, the Lord of Heaven's Armies. 5 The waters of the Nile will fail to rise and flood the fields. The riverbed will be parched and dry. 6 The canals of the Nile will dry up, and the streams of Egypt will stink with rotting reeds and rushes.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Isaiah 19:4-6
Commentary on Isaiah 19:1-17
(Read Isaiah 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.