Isaiah 30:5

5 They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them: they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to 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 And the strength of Pharao shall be to your confusion, and the confidence of the shadow of Egypt to your shame.

4 For thy princes were in Tanis, and thy messengers came even to Hanes.

5 They were all confounded at a people that could not profit them: they were no help, nor to any profit, but to confusion and to reproach.

6 The burden of the beasts of the south. In a land of trouble and distress, from whence come the lioness, and the lion, the viper and the flying basilisk, they carry their riches upon the shoulders of beasts, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall not be able to profit them.

7 For Egypt shall help in vain, and to no purpose: therefore have I cried concerning this: It is pride only, sit still.