Isaiah 37:25

25 I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry.

Isaiah 37:25 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 37:25

I have digged, and drunk water
In places where he came, and found no water for his army, he set his soldiers to work, to dig cisterns, as the Targum, or wells, so that they had water sufficient to drink; in ( 2 Kings 19:24 ) , it is "strange waters", which were never known before: and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the
besieged places;
or, as the Targum,

``with the soles of the feet of the people that are with me;''
the Syriac version, "with the hoofs of my horses": with which he trampled down banks of rivers, and pools, and cisterns of water; signifying the vast numbers of his soldiers, who could drink up a river, or carry it away with them, or could turn the streams of rivers that ran by the sides, or round about, cities besieged, and so hindered the carrying on of a siege, and the taking of the place; but he had ways and means very easily to drain them, and ford them; or to cut off all communication of the water from the besieged. Some render it, "I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt" F19, as Kimchi, on ( 2 Kings 19:24 ) , observes, and to be understood hyperbolically; see ( Isaiah 19:6 ) , so Ben Melech observes.
FOOTNOTES:

F19 (rwum yrway lk) "omnes rivos Aegypti", Vitringa.

Isaiah 37:25 In-Context

23 Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? and against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel.
24 You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; and its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods: I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods.
25 I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry.
26 Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.
27 This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste.
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