For Egypt’s help is worthless and empty: The connector For renders the common Hebrew conjunction. Here it is better translated “But” or omitted (so Good News Translation). Judah expects help, but Egypt is unreliable. This line is literally “And Egypt is empty/useless and [in] vain they will help.” The Revised Standard Version rendering focuses on Egypt’s help, but the Hebrew text highlights Egypt. A model that keeps the focus of the Hebrew is “Egypt is useless, and they will offer vain help.”
Therefore I have called her “Rahab who sits still”: These two lines are problematic. The connector therefore indicates that they are a conclusion to the previous line. The pronoun I refers to the prophet. Because Egypt’s help is useless, the prophet refers to it in a critical way. However, the specific meaning of what he calls Egypt is difficult to interpret. Some other renderings for the Hebrew translated Rabab who sits still are “Rahab the Do-Nothing” (New International Version), “Rahab quelled” (New American Bible), “Rahab Subdued” (Revised English Bible), and “Rahab-the-collapsed” (New Jerusalem Bible). These each render the Hebrew noun rahab as a personal name. Good News Translation suggests “The Harmless Dragon,” believing that the word rahab refers to a mythical sea monster (51.9; Job 9.13; Psa 89.10) like Leviathan (see the comments on 27.1). Although there have been some suggestions for modifying Masoretic Text, we (also Hebrew Old Testament Text Project) prefer to retain it, especially since the various renderings are close enough to make little difference. The translations that render rahab as a name compare Egypt to Rahab, a great sea monster. However, that monster sits still, which means it does nothing. In the context this meaning is appropriate since the prophet is warning Judah that Egypt’s help will be fruitless. So we commend New International Version‘s rendering listed above. The name Rahab will require a footnote to explain that it is the name of a big monster that the people believed lived in the sea. Translators may also render rahab as “sea monster,” but they should include a footnote indicating that the Hebrew text has the name “Rahab.” Some interpreters identify Rahab as the hippopotamus, a big animal that during daytime lies quietly in the water, doing nothing. This animal is well known in the upper Nile River.
Suggested translations for this verse are:
• But Egypt is useless,
it will offer vain help;
that is why I call it “Rahab the do-nothing.”
• But Egypt is useless,
and vain will be is its offer of help;
so I have given it the name “The sea monster who just sits still.”
Quoted with permission from Ogden, Graham S. and Sterk, Jan. A Handbook on Isaiah. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2011. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .