Isaiah 19:2

The Egyptians against. This is an accurate description of the sort of debacle that so frequently meant defeat to the Egyptians. Had the Egyptians held together, no nation of antiquity could have defeated them. On the south they were protected by the cataracts of the Nile, on the west and east by the sands of the desert, and on the north by the sea.

Their natural defenses were ideal. But the Egyptians proved to be their own worst enemies. Internal unrest and dissension led to weakness and ruin. When Egyptians turned against Egyptians, as they frequently did, with local rulers rising up in various parts of the land and endeavoring to secure the supremacy over their fellows, the result was at least anarchy and chaos, and sometimes conquest by a foreign foe. Later, the Egyptian rulers hired foreign mercenaries to protect them from other Egyptians, with the result that the Greeks began to exercise considerable influence in Egyptian affairs. Finally, in 525, Cambyses of Persia marched into Egypt and was crowned the first Pharaoh of the Twenty-seventh Dynasty. The days of Egyptian greatness and independence had come to an end.