“And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and dried up. 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. The paper reeds by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and every thing sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more. The fishers also shall mourn, and all they that cast angle into the brooks shall lament, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. Moreover they that work in fine flax, and they that weave networks, shall be confounded. And they shall be broken in the purposes thereof, all that make sluices and ponds for fish.” (Isaiah 19:5-10)

Part of the judgment of God against Egypt took the form of drastic effects on the Nile River, the source and conduit of most of Egypt’s economy.

The failure of monsoon rains caused crop failures needed for food and the growth of the reeds with which they made papyrus, one of their major commodities.

Engineers made a foolish attempt to build a canal between the Red Sea and the Nile. This also led to a further decline in water levels of the river not to mention that hundreds of thousands of lives were lost trying to build this canal.

Fishing failed. The business of making nets was no longer needed. The lack of flax dried up the textiles market. Everything that Egypt had learned to trust in “self-sufficiency” failed.

These details show us how utterly futile it is to put our trust in earthly wealth.


Yes, we should work to provide for ourselves and our families. However, neither nations, churches, nor individuals should ever consider themselves to independent of the providence of God.

We should give thanks every day for the blessings of natural life. And realize, that even in this, it is by the mercies of God that we are not consumed by the world every day.