Isaiah 36:6

6 Look! Relying on Egypt is like using a broken stick as a staff - when you lean on it, it punctures your hand. That's what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like for anyone who puts his trust in him.

Isaiah 36:6 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 36:6

Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt,
&c.] His ally and auxiliary; and which is rightly called "the staff of a broken reed", if trusted to, and leaned upon, being weak and frail, and an insufficient ground of confidence to depend upon; the allusion seems to be to the cane or reed which grew upon the banks of the river Nile, in Egypt: whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it;
the splinters of the broken reed being leaned on, will enter into a man's hand, and do him harm, instead of being a help to him to walk with: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him;
pernicious and harmful, instead of being useful and helpful.

Isaiah 36:6 In-Context

4 Rav-Shakeh addressed them: "Tell Hizkiyahu: 'Here is what the great king, the king of Ashur, says: "What makes you so confident?

5 I say: do mere words constitute strategy and strength for battle? In whom, then, are you trusting when you rebel against me like this?

6 Look! Relying on Egypt is like using a broken stick as a staff - when you lean on it, it punctures your hand. That's what Pharaoh king of Egypt is like for anyone who puts his trust in him.

7 But if you tell me, 'We trust in ADONAI our God,' then isn't he the one whose high places and altars Hizkiyahu has removed, telling Y'hudah and Yerushalayim, 'You must worship before this altar'?

8 All right, then, make a wager with my lord the king of Ashur: I will give you two thousand horses if you can find enough riders for them.