Discovery BoxIsaiah 19:4-10 
Context19:4 I will hand Egypt over to a harsh master;
a powerful king will rule over them,”
says the sovereign master, 1 the Lord who commands armies.
19:5 The water of the sea will be dried up,
and the river will dry up and be empty. 2
19:6 The canals 3 will stink; 4
the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up;
the bulrushes and reeds will decay,
19:7 along with the plants by the mouth of the river. 5
All the cultivated land near the river
will turn to dust and be blown away. 6
19:8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,
all those who cast a fishhook into the river,
and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve. 7
19:9 Those who make clothes from combed flax will be embarrassed;
those who weave will turn pale. 8
19:10 Those who make cloth 9 will be demoralized; 10
all the hired workers will be depressed. 11
1 tn The Hebrew term translated “sovereign master” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).
2 tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.
3 tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”
4 tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa; the form in MT may be a so-called “mixed form,” reflecting the Hebrew Hiphil stem and the functionally corresponding Aramaic Aphel stem. See HALOT 276 s.v. I זנח.
5 tn Heb “the plants by the river, by the mouth of the river.”
6 tn Heb “will dry up, [being] scattered, and it will vanish.”
7 tn Or perhaps, “will disappear”; cf. TEV “will be useless.”
8 tn BDB 301 s.v. חוֹרִי suggests the meaning “white stuff” for חוֹרִי (khori); the Qumran scroll 1QIsaa has חָוֵרוּ (khaveru), probably a Qal perfect, third plural form of חוּר, (khur, “be white, pale”). See HALOT 299 s.v. I חור. The latter reading is assumed in the translation above.
9 tn Some interpret שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha) as “her foundations,” i.e., leaders, nobles. See BDB 1011 s.v. שָׁת. Others, on the basis of alleged cognates in Akkadian and Coptic, repoint the form שְׁתִיתֶיהָ (shÿtiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.
10 tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).
11 tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”
