Isaiah 37:25

25 I have dug wells in many foreign lands and refreshed myself with their water. With the sole of my foot, I stopped up all the rivers of Egypt!’

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 “Whom have you been defying and ridiculing? Against whom did you raise your voice? At whom did you look with such haughty eyes? It was the Holy One of Israel!
24 By your messengers you have defied the Lord. You have said, ‘With my many chariots I have conquered the highest mountains— yes, the remotest peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars and its finest cypress trees. I have reached its farthest heights and explored its deepest forests.
25 I have dug wells in many foreign lands and refreshed myself with their water. With the sole of my foot, I stopped up all the rivers of Egypt!’
26 “But have you not heard? I decided this long ago. Long ago I planned it, and now I am making it happen. I planned for you to crush fortified cities into heaps of rubble.
27 That is why their people have so little power and are so frightened and confused. They are as weak as grass, as easily trampled as tender green shoots. They are like grass sprouting on a housetop, scorched before it can grow lush and tall.

Footnotes 1

  • [a]. As in Dead Sea Scrolls (see also 2 Kgs 19:24 ); Masoretic Text lacks in many foreign lands.
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