Isaiah 30:5

5 everyone comes to shame through ¹a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace."

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 shall the protection of Pharaoh turn to your shame, and the shelter in the shadow of Egypt to your humiliation.

4 For though his officials are at Zoan and his envoys reach Hanes,

5 everyone comes to shame through a people that cannot profit them, that brings neither help nor profit, but shame and disgrace."

6 An oracle on the beasts of the Negeb. Through a land of trouble and anguish, from where come the lioness and the lion, the adder and the flying fiery serpent, they carry their riches on the backs of donkeys, and their treasures on the humps of camels, to a people that cannot profit them.

7 Egypt's help is worthless and empty; therefore I have called her "Rahab who sits still."

Cross References

• 1. [ver. 7; Jeremiah 2:36]