Charles Ellicott Commentary Isaiah 19:5

"And the waters shall fail from the sea, and the river shall be wasted and become dry." — Isaiah 19:5 (ASV)

The waters shall fail from the sea. —The “sea”, like the river, is, of course, the Nile (Homer calls it Oceanus), or, possibly, indicates specifically the Pelusiac branch of the river. So the White and Blue Niles are respectively the White and Blue Seas (Bahr). The words that follow seem to describe partly the result of the failure of the annual rising of the Nile, partly of the neglect of the irrigation systems caused by the anarchy implied in Isaiah 19:2 (Herod. ii. 137).