Isaiah 19:12

12 Where are they? Where are thy wise men? And let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.

Isaiah 19:12 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 19:12

Where [are] they? where [are] thy wise [men]?
&c.] The magicians and soothsayers, the diviners and astrologers, who pretended, by their magic art and skill in judicial astrology, to foretell things to come: this is an address to the king of Egypt, who had such persons about him, and encouraged them, by consulting them on occasion, and rewarding them:

and let them tell thee now, and let them know what the Lord of
hosts hath purposed upon Egypt;
or, "against it"; let them tell, if they can, and make known unto thee the purposes of God's heart, the things he has resolved upon, even the calamities and punishments he will shortly inflict upon the Egyptians, of which he has given notice by his prophets.

Isaiah 19:12 In-Context

10 And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.

11 Surely the princes of Zoan are fools; the counsel of the wise counselors of Pharaoh has become brutish. How say ye unto Pharaoh, "I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings"?

12 Where are they? Where are thy wise men? And let them tell thee now, and let them know what the LORD of hosts hath purposed upon Egypt.

13 The princes of Zoan are become fools; the princes of Noph are deceived; they have also seduced Egypt, even they that are the stay of the tribes thereof.

14 The LORD hath mingled a perverse spirit in the midst thereof; and they have caused Egypt to err in every work thereof, as a drunken man staggereth in his vomit.