Isaiah 30:5

5 everyone will be ashamed because of a people who can't help. They are of no benefit, they are no help; they are good for nothing but shame and 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 But Pharaoh's protection will become your shame, and refuge in Egypt's shadow your disgrace.

4 For though his princes are at Zoan and his messengers reach as far as Hanes,

5 everyone will be ashamed because of a people who can't help. They are of no benefit, they are no help; they are good for nothing but shame and reproach.

6 An oracle about the animals of the Negev: Through a land of trouble and distress, of lioness and lion, of viper and flying serpent, they carry their wealth on the backs of donkeys and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people who will not help them.

7 Egypt's help is completely worthless; therefore, I call her: Rahab Who Just Sits.