Surely the princes of Zoan [are] fools
Zoan was a very ancient city of Egypt, it was built within seven
years of Hebron in the land of Judah, ( Numbers
13:22 ) here it was that the Lord did those miracles, by the
hands of Moses and Aaron, before Pharaoh and his people, in order
to oblige him to let Israel go, ( Psalms 78:12
Psalms
78:43 ) by which it appears that it was then the royal city,
as it seems to have been now; since mention is made of the
princes of it, who usually have their residence where the court
is. The Targum, Septuagint, and Vulgate Latin versions, call it
Tanis, which was the metropolis of one of the nomes or provinces
of Egypt, called from it the Tanitic nome F17; near
it was one of the gates of the Nile, which had from it the name
of the Tanitic gate F18; the princes of this place, the
lords of this nome, though they had princely education, acted a
foolish part, in flattering their sovereign, as afterwards
mentioned, and in putting him upon doing things destructive to
his kingdom and subjects: the counsel of the wise
counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish;
the men of whose privy council were esteemed very wise, and
greatly boasted of, and much confided in; and yet the counsel
they gave him were such as made them look more like brutes than
men: how say ye unto Pharaoh;
the then reigning prince, for Pharaoh was a name common to all
the kings of Egypt. Some think their king Cethon is meant, said
to be a very foolish king: others Psammiticus; which seems more
likely; though there is no need to apply it to any particular
king, they being used to say what follows to all their kings:
I [am] the son of the wise;
suggesting that wisdom was natural and hereditary to him; though
this may not merely respect his immediate ancestors, but remote
ones, as Menes or Mizraim, the first king of Egypt, to whom is
attributed the invention of arts and sciences; and his son Thoth,
the same with Hermes, the Mercury of the Egyptians. The
Septuagint, Syriac, and Arabic versions, make these words to be
spoken by the wise counsellors of themselves, "we are the sons of
wise men", and so the next clause; likewise Aben Ezra and Jarchi,
also the Targum: the son of ancient kings?
according to these, it is spoken to Pharaoh thus, "and thou the
son of kings of old"; of Ham, Mizraim, Thoth; the Egyptians
boasted much of the antiquity of their kingdom and kings; and
they say, from their first king Menes, to Sethon the priest of
Vulcan, who lived about the time of this prophecy, were three
hundred and forty one generations or ages of men, in which were
as many kings and priests; and three hundred generations are
equal to ten thousand years F19; and so many years, and
more, their kings had reigned down to the prophet's time; which
was all vain boasting, there being no manner of foundation for
it. Vitringa renders it the son of ancient counsellors; this, as
the former, being spoken by the counsellors, not of Pharaoh, but
themselves.