Isaiah 19:12

12 There's not a wise man or woman left in the country. If there were, one of them would tell you what God-of-the-Angel-Armies has in mind for Egypt.

Isaiah 19:12 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 19:12

Where [are] they? where [are] thy wise [men]?
&c.] The magicians and soothsayers, the diviners and astrologers, who pretended, by their magic art and skill in judicial astrology, to foretell things to come: this is an address to the king of Egypt, who had such persons about him, and encouraged them, by consulting them on occasion, and rewarding them:

and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the Lord of
hosts hath purposed upon Egypt;
or, "against it"; let them tell, if they can, and make known unto thee the purposes of God's heart, the things he has resolved upon, even the calamities and punishments he will shortly inflict upon the Egyptians, of which he has given notice by his prophets.

Isaiah 19:12 In-Context

10 Dispirited, depressed in their forced idleness - everyone who works for a living, jobless.

11 The princes of Zoan are fools, the advisors of Pharaoh stupid. How could any of you dare tell Pharaoh, "Trust me: I'm wise. I know what's going on. Why, I'm descended from the old wisdom of Egypt"?

12 There's not a wise man or woman left in the country. If there were, one of them would tell you what God-of-the-Angel-Armies has in mind for Egypt.

13 As it is, the princes of Zoan are all fools and the princes of Memphis, dunces. The honored pillars of your society have led Egypt into detours and dead ends.

14 God has scrambled their brains, Egypt's become a falling-down-in-his-own-vomit drunk.