Isaiah 19:5

"And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and become dry. And the rivers shall become foul; and the streams of Egypt shall be diminished and dried up; the reeds and flags shall wither away. The meadows by the Nile, by the brink of the Nile, and all the sown fields of the Nile, shall become dry, and be no more. And the fishers shall lament, and all they that cast angle into the Nile shall mourn, and they that spread nets upon the waters shall languish. Moreover they that work in combed flax, and they that weave white cloth, shall be confounded. And the pillars of Egypt shall be broken in pieces; and they that work for hire shall be grieved in soul."

This is a prophecy of total economic disaster for Egypt, brought about by the worst of all possible disasters in that land, the failure of the Nile River, here called the "sea." Occasional severe droughts in Africa that interfered with the annual flooding of the river have occurred often enough that public records for ages have been kept detailing the exact inches of the rise and fall of the river. "The public record is kept at Cairo of the daily rise and fall of the river. When the Nile rises to a less height than 18', a disastrous famine is the sure result, for the river will not overflow. When it rises to a greater height than 24' a famine is almost as certain, for then the water does not drain off soon enough to allow the planting of fields."[8]

We do not know enough about the long history of Egypt and its Nile river to pinpoint the particular disaster Isaiah here foretold; but we may be very sure that it happened. It could have happened repeatedly. There is another consideration in the interpretation of this, that, "It may be a symbol of the wasting and decline of the nation, the death of her empire."[9] Thus there is no requirement to interpret this Nile disaster literally. Another possibility was mentioned by Cheyne, `What in times of disorders, great troubles were caused by the neglect of the dikes and reservoirs."[10] Such neglect would cause damage just like a drought or too great a flood. The canal system would be destroyed, and all methodical agriculture would fail. No matter how the economic collapse would come, God here foretold it; and no one has ever denied that it happened.