Isaiah 30:25

25 And there will be streams on every high mountain and elevated hill, watercourses of water, on a day of great slaughter, when towers fall.

Isaiah 30:25 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 30:25

And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon
every high hill
Which were round about Jerusalem, and in other parts of Judea:

rivers [and] streams of water;
such abundance of rain, that it should flow in streams like rivers, from the higher to the lower lands, and water them. This may in a spiritual sense be understood of the great plenty of the ministry of the Gospel, in all the kingdoms of the world, great and small, signified by mountains and hills; and which may also intimate the open and public ministrations of it in them, ( Zechariah 14:8 ) ( Joel 3:18 ) or of the blessings of grace, and the graces of the Spirit, communicated everywhere; see ( Isaiah 41:18 ) ( 44:3 ) ( John 7:38 John 7:39 ) . This is applied to the times of the Messiah by the Jews ^F7 themselves, and respects the latter part of those times:

in the day of the great slaughter;
not of Sennacherib's army by the angel, as many Jewish and Christian interpreters understand it; nor of the Babylonians, at the taking of Babylon by Cyrus; but of the antichristian kings, and their armies, ( Revelation 19:17-21 ) . So the Targum paraphrases it,

``for the ruin of kings and their armies, in the day of the great slaughter;''

and a great slaughter it will be indeed:

when the towers fall;
not the batteries and fortifications raised in the Assyrian camp, at the siege of Jerusalem, which fell when they were destroyed by the angel; or the great men and princes in that army, which then fell; though towers sometimes signify great persons, such as princes; see ( Isaiah 2:15 ) and so the Targum interprets it here; and may be true of the antichristian princes; for of the fall of the great city of Rome, and of other cities of the nations, with the towers thereof, is this to be understood, even of mystical, and not of literal Babylon; see ( Revelation 11:13 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F7 Bemidbar Rabba, fol. 212. 3.

Isaiah 30:25 In-Context

23 And he will give rain for your seed [with] which you sow the ground, and grain, the produce of the ground, and it will be rich and {fertile}. On that day, your cattle will graze [in] broad pastures;

24 and the oxen and the donkeys that till the ground will eat fodder, sorrel that [has] been winnowed with shovel and pitchfork.

25 And there will be streams on every high mountain and elevated hill, watercourses of water, on a day of great slaughter, when towers fall.

26 And the light of the full moon will be like the light of the sun, and the light of the sun will be sevenfold, like the light of seven days, on [the] day [when] Yahweh binds up the breakage of his people, and he heals the wound of his blow.

27 Look! The name of Yahweh comes from afar, burning [with] his anger and heaviness of cloud. His lips are full [of] indignation, and his tongue [is] like a devouring fire.