Isaiah 19:5

It has been supposed by some that there is a causal connexion between the judgments here threatened and the political calamities described in the first strophe. The loss of a stable and beneficent central administration in Egypt is immediately felt by the peasantry through the neglect of the vast system of artificial irrigation which is essential to the maintenance of the fertility of the soil. It is manifest, however, that the expressions here point to something far more serious than this, viz. a drying up of the Nile by the direct exercise of Jehovah's power. Cf. Ezekiel 30:12 and Job 14:11 (where the latter part of this verse is reproduced).

the sea Cf. Isaiah 18:2. "Nili aqua mari similis est" (Pliny). At the time of the annual inundation the Nile has far more the appearance of an inland sea than of a stream; hence it is still called by the Arabs Elbaḥr(the sea).