Isaiah 30:5

5 but there's nothing to them. Anyone stupid enough to trust them will end up looking stupid - All show, no substance, an embarrassing farce."

Isaiah 30:5 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 30:5

They were all ashamed of a people [that] could not profit
them
The princes, the ambassadors that were sent unto them, and the king or people, or both, that sent them, who hoped for and expected great things from them, but, being disappointed, were filled with shame; because either the Egyptians, who are the people here meant, either could not help them, or would not, not daring to engage with so powerful an enemy as the Assyrian monarch, which is illustrated and confirmed by repeating the same, and using other words: nor be an help, nor profit, but a shame, and also a reproach:
so far from being of any advantage to them, by helping and assisting them against their enemy, wanting either inclination or capacity, or both, that it not only turned to their shame, but even was matter of reproach to them, that ever they made any application to them, or placed any confidence in them for help.

Isaiah 30:5 In-Context

3 Well, some protection Pharaoh will be! Some hideout, Egypt!

4 They look big and important, true, with officials strategically established in Zoan in the north and Hanes in the south,

5 but there's nothing to them. Anyone stupid enough to trust them will end up looking stupid - All show, no substance, an embarrassing farce."

6 And this note on the animals of the Negev encountered on the road to Egypt: A most dangerous, treacherous route, menaced by lions and deadly snakes. And you're going to lug all your stuff down there, your donkeys and camels loaded down with bribes, Thinking you can buy protection from that hollow farce of a nation?

7 Egypt is all show, no substance. My name for her is Toothless Dragon. This Is a Rebel Generation