Dear John and Doves,
 
I've been following the events in Egypt with growing interest ever since I visited the country in 2009.
Most recently, I've noticed that people are relating what's happening there at the moment to Isaiah 19 which certainly seems significant despite the fact that Egypt has experienced several times when Egyptian has been fighting Egyptian. What I find hard to align with scripture are the reports of the Nile is drying up. Some of the canals have dried up and some are even being used as rubbish tips but the main Nile continues to flow at the normal rate.
My attention was recently drawn to Isaiah 19v5.
It's important to check which translation you use when looking at this passage.
For example, Isaiah 19v5 (RSV) says
"And the waters of the Nile will be dried up, and the river will be parched and dry"
 
This is a sloppy translation because the actual Hebrew mentions the sea and the river.
 
The New King James renders it better as:
" The waters will fail from the sea, And the river will be wasted and dried up. "
 
 Clearly, this mention both the River Nile and the sea. Bible commentaries fail to mention the sea as it presents a problem.
What sea is it talking about? Surely it can't mean that the Med is going to dry up. Furthermore, the verse says that the waters FROM the sea will fail. This appears at first sight to be the wrong way around since water normally flows INTO the sea and not FROM it.
 
When I was studying this recently, I realised that the word translated 'sea' can mean any large body of water. I believe that the "sea" of Isaiah 19v5 is actually Lake Nasser - the largest man-made lake in the world, held back by the Aswan High Dam in southern Egypt. Although the Egyptians are worried about the Ethiopians damming the Nile, a quick calculation of flow rates and volume shows that Lake Nasser holds enough water to keep the Nile flowing at its present rate for around 600 days.
Given this amount of reserve water, I think that there is only one conclusion - the lake will be emptied in a sudden destructive event that will cause desolation in Egypt and possibly fulfill the Ezekiel 29 prophecy of a 40 year period of desolation in which no man or beast sets foot in the area for that period. It may be the result of an earthquake or an attack from Israel but either way, I think the Egyptians need our prayers.
 
Dave Baxter