Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 19:2

"And I will stir up the Egyptians against the Egyptians: and they shall fight every one against his brother, and every one against his neighbor; city against city, [and] kingdom against kingdom." — Isaiah 19:2 (ASV)

I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians ... —The discord predicted was probably the natural consequence of the overthrow of the Ethiopian power by Sargon, the Assyrian king, in 720 BC. Under Piankhi each nome, or district, had been governed by a chief, acknowledging the suzerainty of the Ethiopian king, and these, when the restraint was removed, would naturally assert their independence. So Herodotus (2.147) relates that on the overthrow of Sabaco, the last of the Ethiopian dynasty, the unity of Egypt was broken up into a dodecarchy.