Surely the princes of Zoan [are] fools, the counsel of the wise counsellors of Pharaoh is become brutish: how say ye unto Pharaoh, I [am] the son of the wise, the son of ancient kings?
Ver. 11. Surely the princes of Zoan are fools.] Otherwise they would never have so ill-advised their king so to drain the river, for his pleasure, to the public detriment. Zoan was an ancient city in Egypt. Num 13:22 The Septuagint and Vulgate versions call it Tunis. Here it was that Moses did all his wonders. Psa 78:12 Exo 7:8-9 Here Pharaoh's princes "took counsel, but not of God; and covered with a covering, but not of his Spirit, that they might add sin to sin." Isa 30:1
The counsel of the wise counsellors is become brutish.] Such as was that of Machiavel, a the Florentine secretary, who proposeth Caesar Borgia, notwithstanding all his villanies, as the only example for a prince to imitate.
How say ye unto Pharaoh?] How can ye for shame say so of yourselves? Or quomodo dictatis Pharaoni? How can ye dictate or put such words as these into your king's mouth? What gross flattery is this?
I am the son of the wise.] Or, A son of "wise ones; as if wisdom were proper to you, and hereditary. The Egyptians cracked much of their wisdom, yet more of their antiquity, as if they were long before other people, yea, before the moon - as the Arcadians also boasted - and that their philosophy was very ancient. b
a De Principe, p. 185.
b Herod. lib. ii. - προσεληναοι, Lucian. - Plato in Timaeo.