Albert Barnes Commentary Isaiah 19:11

"The princes of Zoan are utterly foolish; the counsel of the wisest counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I am the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?" — Isaiah 19:11 (ASV)

Surely the princes - The following verses, to (Isaiah 19:16), are designed to describe further the calamities that were coming upon Egypt because of a lack of wisdom in their rulers. They would be unable to devise means to meet the impending calamities, and would actually increase the national misery by their unwise counsel. The word ‘princes’ here clearly refers to the rulers or counselors of state.

Of Zoan - The Vulgate, Septuagint, and Chaldee render this ‘Tanis.’ Zoan was undoubtedly the Tanis of the Greeks (Herod. ii. 166), and was a city of Lower Egypt, built, according to Moses (Numbers 13:22), seven years after Hebron. It is mentioned in (Psalms 78:12; Isaiah 19:11, 13; Isaiah 30:4; Ezekiel 30:14). It was at the entrance of the Tanitic mouth of the Nile, and gave its name to it. Its ruins still exist, and there are seen there currently numerous blocks of granite, seven obelisks of granite, and a statue of Isis.

It was the capital of the dynasty of the Tanitish kings until the time of Psammetichus; it was mainly at this place that the miracles done by Moses were performed. Marvellous things did he in the sight of their fathers in the land of Egypt; in the field of Zoan (Psalms 78:12). Its ruins are still called “San,” a slight change of the word Zoan. The Ostium Taniticum is now the “Omm Faredje.”

Are fools - They are unable with their counsel to meet the impending calamities. Perhaps their folly was demonstrated by their flattering their sovereign, and by leading him to plans that tended to ruin, rather than the welfare of the kingdom.

The wise counselors of Pharaoh - Pharaoh was the common name of the kings of Egypt in the same way that “Caesar” later became the common name of the Roman emperors - and the king intended here by Pharaoh is probably Psammetichus (see the note at Isaiah 19:4).

How say ye ... - Why do you “flatter” the monarch? Why remind him of his ancestry? Why attempt to inflate him with the conception of his own wisdom? This was, and is, the common practice of courtiers; and in this way kings are often led to measures most ruinous to their subjects.