Isaiah 19:12

12 Where be now thy wise men? Tell they to thee, and show they, what the Lord of hosts thought on Egypt. (Where be thy wise men now? Tell they to thee, and show they, what the Lord of hosts thought about 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 And the water places thereof shall be dry (And the places of water there shall dry up); (and) all that made ponds to take fishes, shall be shamed.

11 The fond princes of Tanis (The foolish leaders of Zoan), the wise counsellors of Pharaoh, gave unwise counsel; how shall ye say to Pharaoh, I am the son of wise men, the son of eld kings?

12 Where be now thy wise men? Tell they to thee, and show they, what the Lord of hosts thought on Egypt. (Where be thy wise men now? Tell they to thee, and show they, what the Lord of hosts thought about Egypt.)

13 The princes of Tanis be made fools; the princes of Memphis faded; they deceived Egypt, a corner(stone) of the peoples thereof. (The leaders of Zoan be made fools; the leaders of Noph faded away; they deceived Egypt, yea, the chieftains of the peoples there.)

14 The Lord meddled a spirit of error in the midst thereof; and they made Egypt for to err in all his work, as a drunken man and spewing erreth. (The Lord mixed in a spirit of error in its midst; and so the leaders made Egypt to err in all its ways and works, like a drunken man who wandereth about in his own spewing, or his own vomit.)