Isaiah 30:1-5

Isaiah 30. Denunciation of the Egyptian Alliance. The Blessed Future of Israel. The Destruction of Assyria. We should probably pass the same judgment on Isaiah 30:18 as on Isaiah 29:16. The two passages are closely related, and are not improbably by the same author. A post-exilic date seems on the whole more likely. There are no substantial reasons for rejecting the Isaianic authorship of Isaiah 30:27.

Isaiah 30:1. Woe to the unfilial rebels who negotiate alliance with Egypt, leaving God out of their counsels. intriguers who flout the prophetic spirit, piling one sin upon another. Egypt will prove no refuge, but a bitter disappointment. Though Pharaoh's princes are in Tanis (Isaiah 19:11) and his envoys in Hanes, yet those who trust in their help will find that it is not forthcoming in their need.

Isaiah 30:1. Perhaps we should render weave a web (mg.), i.e. carry on an intrigue. The second margin, pour out a drink offering, would give a good sense, the allusion being to the libation at the making of an alliance.

Isaiah 30:4. Hanes: Heracleopolis Magna, the Egyptian Hanes, W. of the Nile, S. of the Fayyum, a city of great importance. It has been inferred from this verse that the prophecy refers to negotiations with Egypt in the time of Sargon rather than of Sennacherib, Zoan and Hanes marking the limits of the Pharaoh's dominion.