Yeshayah 37:25

25 I have dug, and drunk mayim; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the streams of the besieged places.

Yeshayah 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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Yeshayah 37:25 In-Context

23 Whom hast thou insulted and made gidduf against? And against whom hast thou raised thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes marom? Even against Kadosh Yisroel.

24 By thy avadim hast thou insulted Adonoi, and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots am I come up marom harim, to the heights of Levanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice pine trees thereof; and I will enter into its most remote height, and the ya’ar (forest) of its fruitful land.

25 I have dug, and drunk mayim; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the streams of the besieged places.

26 Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of yemei kedem (days of old), that I have formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and put to shame; they were as the esev of the sadeh, and as the green herb, as the khatzir (grass) on the gagot (rooftops) is sun-scorched before it is grown up.