Isaiah 30:5

5 "Everyone will be 1ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them, Who are 2not for help or profit, but for shame and also for reproach."

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 "Therefore the safety of Pharaoh will be your shame And the shelter in the shadow of Egypt, your humiliation.
4 "For their princes are at Zoan And their ambassadors arrive at Hanes.
5 "Everyone will be ashamed because of a people who cannot profit them, Who are not for help or profit, but for shame and also for reproach."
6 The oracle concerning the beasts of the Negev. Through a land of distress and anguish, From where come lioness and lion, viper and flying serpent, They carry their riches on the backs of young donkeys And their treasures on camels' humps, To a people who cannot profit them;
7 Even Egypt, whose help is vain and empty. Therefore, I have called her "Rahab who has been exterminated."

Cross References 2

  • 1. Jeremiah 2:36
  • 2. Isaiah 10:3; Isaiah 30:7; Isaiah 31:3
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