Isaiah 19:6
in Isaiah 19The canals will stink; the streams of Egypt will trickle and dry up; the reeds and rushes will wither.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
And the rivers shall become foul; the streams of Egypt shall be diminished and dried up; the reeds and flags shall wither away.
KJV
And they shall turn the rivers far away; and the brooks of defence shall be emptied and dried up: the reeds and flags shall wither.
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This verse in Isaiah 19
Commentary
13 notes on this verseShall turn the rivers far away “Shall become putrid” - האזניחו heeznichu. This sense of the word, which Simonis gives in his Lexicon, from the meaning of it in Arabic, suits the place much better than any other interpretation hitherto given; and that the word in Hebrew had some such signification, is probable from 2Ch 29:19, where the Vulgate renders it by polluit, polluted, and the Targum, by profaned, and made abominable, which the context in that place seems plainly to require.
This site's exposition
a fierce king will rule over them
on Isaiah 19:4-6
Egypt is delivered "into the hands of harsh masters". The Nile, the river Egypt honored as a god, is judged: "The waters of the Nile will dry up". Delitzsch and Barnes note that the flood of the Nile carried the whole economy of Egypt, so its failure strikes the nation.
This site's exposition
The canals will stink
The verb for stink is rare, and Barnes and Clarke take it as to turn rancid. Water standing in the shrinking canals of Egypt goes foul, and the reeds and rushes wither along them. Older versions read the verb as turning the rivers away.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers2 voices
(Verses 5-7) And the water of the sea shall dry up, and the river shall be desolate and dry, and the streams shall diminish and dry up the water-courses. The reed and the rush shall wither, the channel of the river shall be laid bare and all the irrigated seed shall dry up, wither, and not exist. It is natural that when captivity comes through the anger of God, his wrath shall be followed by pestilence, and all the elements shall rage against those who offend God. Where it is written in another Prophet (Jer. XII), 'And the birds in the air fail, and the fishes in the waters, so that all things are taken away from human use.' We say this if we want to take the dryness of the Nile river and its streams simply. But if we take it as a metaphor: in the river, we understand the kingdom, and in its streams, the leaders; and in the greenness, and the reed, and the papyrus, all the abundance of Egypt, so that through these things, the wealth of Egypt is described, of which Egypt is most fertile. Let us read Ezekiel, where the king Pharaoh is described as a great dragon dwelling in the rivers, and says: The river is mine, and I have made myself. And it is heard: I will put a bit in your jaws, and I will stick the fish of your rivers to your scales, and I will draw you out from the midst of your rivers, and all your fish will cling to your scales, and I will cast you into the desert (Ezek. XXIX, 3, 4). However, in the coming of Christ, all these things are to be understood figuratively, according to what we read above: The Lord will make the sea of Egypt a desert. And again: the Lord will stretch out His hand over the violent river of Egypt, and He will strike it in seven valleys, so that it can be crossed by foot with shoes on. […]
(Verset 5 et suiv.) And the sea water will dry up, and the river will be deserted and dried up, and the rivers will fail, and the streams of the embankments will be thin and dry up. The reed and the rush will wither, the bed of the river will be exposed from its source, and all irrigated crops will dry up. It will dry up and cease to exist.
The Medieval Church1 voice
And the rivers, other rivers: I will make the channels of the rivers dry (Ezek 30:12). Second, he sets out the sign of the drought: the reed and the bulrush, which are raised in the water, below: shall rise up the verdure of the reed …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
), making the country difficult of access to an enemy. Deep rivers are the strongest lines, and most hardly forced. Pharaoh is said to be a great dragon lying in the midst of his rivers, and guarded by them, bidding defiance to all about him, Ezek. xxix.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
That at length God's holy religion should be brought into Egypt, and set up there, in part by the Jews that should flee thither for refuge, but more fully by the preachers of the gospel of Christ, through whose ministry churches should be planted in Egypt in the says of the Messiah (
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens
5 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening3 voices
): They shall turn the rivers far away. Their kings and great men, to gratify their own fancy, will drain water from the main river to their own houses and grounds at a distance, preferring their private convenience before the public good, and so by degrees the force of the river is sensibly weakened.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
Rivers - The rivers (those rivulets by which the waters of Nile were distributed into several parts of the land) shall be turned far away, as they must needs be, when the river which fed them was dried up.
And they shall turn the rivers far away,.... The river Nile, called "rivers", the plural for the singular, because of the abundance of water in it; or its seven streams, with other rivulets, derived from it.
The Nineteenth Century2 voices
A commentator
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown1802–1910
Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)
HORSLEY, with the Septuagint, translates, "And waters from the sea shall be drunk"; by the failure of the river water they shall be reduced to sea water. brooks of defence--rather, "canals of Egypt"; "canals," literally, "Niles," Nile canals, the plural of the Egyptian term for the great river.
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
proposed
And they shall turn the rivers far away - (האזיּחוּ he'ezenı̂ychû), probably from זנח zânach, “to have an offensive smell; to be rancid, or putrid.” The word in this form occurs nowhere else. It is in the Hiphil conjugation, and is probably a form made from a mixture with the Chaldee. The sense is not doubtful. It means ‘the rivers shall become putrid - or have an offensive smell;’ that is, shall become stagnant, and send forth unwholesome “miasmata” producing sickness, as stagnant waters often do. The Vulgate renders it, ‘And the rivers shall fail.’ The Septuagint, ‘And the Egyptians shall drink the waters from the sea, but the river shall fail, and be dried up, and the rivers shall fail, and the streams (διὼρυχες diōruches) of the river, and all the assembling (συναγωγή sunagōgē) waters shall be dried up.’ And the brooks of defense - Hebrew, ‘The rivers of מצור mâtsôr. The word מצור mâtsôr often means “straitness, affliction;” then a siege, a wall, a bulwark, a fortification. But, probably, it here means “Egypt,” or the same as מצרים mı̂tserayı̂m (compare Isa 37:25; 2Ki 18:24; Mar 7:12). Perhaps the Hebrews may have thought of Egypt as a strongly fortified place, and thus have given the name to it; or possibly this may have been a modification of the name “Mitsraim.” The reeds and flags - Which grew on the banks of the Nile - the papyrus, etc. (see the note at Isa 18:2)
The words behind it
9 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וְהֶאֶזְנִ֣יחוּ | veheeznichu | and they will stink | H2186 → | |
| נְהָר֔וֹת | neharot | [the] rivers | H5104 → | 119 times |
| דָּלֲל֥וּ | dalalu | they will be low | H1809 → | 9 times |
| וְחָרְב֖וּ | vecharevu | and they will become dry | H2717 → | 40 times |
| יְאֹרֵ֣י | yeorei | [the] canals of | H2975 → | 65 times |
| מָצ֑וֹר | matzor | Egypt | H4693 → | |
| קָנֶ֥ה | kaneh | reed[s] | H7070 → | 62 times |
| וָס֖וּף | vasuf | and rush[es] | H5488 → | |
| קָמֵֽלוּ׃ | kamelu | they will wither | H7060 → |
וְהֶאֶזְנִ֣יחוּand they will stink
veheeznichuH2186 →
נְהָר֔וֹת[the] rivers
neharotH5104 →119 times
דָּלֲל֥וּthey will be low
dalaluH1809 →9 times
וְחָרְב֖וּand they will become dry
vecharevuH2717 →40 times
יְאֹרֵ֣י[the] canals of
yeoreiH2975 →65 times
מָצ֑וֹרEgypt
matzorH4693 →
קָנֶ֥הreed[s]
kanehH7070 →62 times
וָס֖וּףand rush[es]
vasufH5488 →
קָמֵֽלוּ׃they will wither
kameluH7060 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Exodus 2:3But when she could no longer hide him, she got him a papyrus basket and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in the basket and set it among the…
it leads to
- Exodus 1:22
Then Pharaoh commanded all his people: “Every son born to the Hebrews you must throw into the Nile, but every daughter you may allow to live.”
- Acts 7:19
He exploited our people and oppressed our fathers, forcing them to abandon their infants so they would die.
- Genesis 6:14
Make for yourself an ark of gopher wood; make rooms in the ark and coat it with pitch inside and out.
- Isaiah 18:2
which sends couriers by sea, in papyrus vessels on the waters. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people widely feared, to a powerful nation of strange speech, whose land…
- Matthew 2:16
When Herod saw that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was filled with rage. Sending orders, he put to death all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years…
- Exodus 1:22
Through
Isaiah 37:25I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.”
it leads to
- 1 Kings 20:10
Then Ben-hadad sent another message to Ahab: “May the gods deal with me, and ever so severely, if enough dust remains of Samaria for each of my men to have a handful.”
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- 1 Kings 20:10
Through
Exodus 7:18The fish in the Nile will die, the river will stink, and the Egyptians will be unable to drink its water.’”
it leads to
- Exodus 7:24
So all the Egyptians dug around the Nile for water to drink, because they could not drink the water from the river.
- Exodus 7:21
The fish in the Nile died, and the river smelled so bad that the Egyptians could not drink its water. And there was blood throughout the land of Egypt.
- Exodus 7:24
Where this verse is studied
About Isaiah
Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Isaiah; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Prophecies of Isaiah; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Isaiah.