John Gill 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)

And I will set the Egyptians against the Egyptians
Or mingle and confound them together; in which confusion they should fall upon and destroy one another, as the Midianites did: the phrase is expressive of rebellions and civil wars, as the following words explain it; and which show, that the calamities of Egypt should be brought upon them, not by means of a foreign invasion, but by internal quarrels, and other means, which the Lord would in judgment send among them: and they shall fight everyone against his brother, and everyone
against his neighbour ;
and destroy one another:

city against city ;
of which there were great numbers in Egypt; in the times of Amasis, it is said ^F19 , there were twenty thousand:

[and] kingdom against kingdom ;
for though Egypt was but originally one kingdom, yet upon the death of Sethon, one of its kings, who had been a priest of Vulcan, there being no successor, twelve of the nobility started up, and set up themselves as kings, and divided the kingdom into twelve parts ^F20 , and reigned in confederacy, for the space of fifteen years;

when, falling out among themselves, they excluded Psammiticus, one of the twelve, from any share of government; who gathering an army together, fought with and conquered the other eleven, and seized the whole kingdom to himself, and who seems afterwards regarded in this prophecy; all this happened in the times of Manasseh king of Judah, and so in or quickly after Isaiah's time:

though some understand this of the civil wars between Apries and Amasis, in the times of Nebuchadnezzar.

The Septuagint version renders the phrase here, "nome against nome"; for the whole land of Egypt, by Sesostris, one of its kings, was divided into thirty six ^F21 nomes, districts, or provinces, whose names are given by Herodotus ^F23 , Pliny {x}, and others;

for so the words of that version should be rendered, and not as they are by the Latin interpreter, and in the Arabic version, which follows it, "law upon law".

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FOOTNOTES:

• F19: Herodot. l. 2. c. 177.
• F20: Ib. c. 147.
• F21: There were ten of them in Thebais, the same number in Delta, and sixteen between them.
• F23: Euterpe, sive l. 2. c. 164, 165, 166.
• F24: Nat. Hist. I. 5. c. 9. Ptolem. Geograph. l. 4. c. 4. Strabo Geogr. l. 17. P. 541.