Isaiah 37:25

25 I digged, and drank water; and I made dry with the step of my foot all the strands of [the] fields.

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.

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FOOTNOTES:

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

Isaiah 37:25 In-Context

23 (But) Whom despisest thou, and whom blasphemedest thou? and on whom raisedest thou thy voice, and raisedest the highness of thine eyes? To the Holy of Israel. (For whom hast thou despised, and whom hast thou blasphemed? and against whom hast thou raised up thy voice, and raised up the highness of thine eyes? To the Holy One of Israel.)

24 By the hand of thy servants thou despisedest the Lord, and saidest, In the multitude of my carts (In the multitude of my chariots), I ascended [up]on the highnesses of (the) hills, on the yokes of Lebanon; and I shall cut down the high things of cedars thereof, and the chosen beeches thereof; and I shall enter into the highness of the top thereof, into the forest of Carmel thereof.

25 I digged, and drank water; and I made dry with the step of my foot all the strands of [the] fields.

26 Whether thou, Sennacherib, heardest not what things I did sometime? From eld days I formed that thing, and now I have brought (it to pass); and it is made into the drawing up by the root of (the) little hills fighting together, and of strong cities (In the old days, I formed that thing, and now I have brought it to pass; yea, bringing down strengthened cities into heaps of rubble).

27 The dwellers of those cities trembled together with hand made short, and be ashamed; they be made as hay of the field, and as the grass of [the] pasture, and as herb of house roofs, either ridges, that dried up before that it waxed ripe. (The inhabitants of those cities trembled together with shortened hand, or powerless, and were ashamed; they were made like the hay of the field, and like the grass of the pasture, and like the herbs on the rooftops, that dried up before that they could ripen.)