Isaiah 43:17

17 I called forth the mighty army of Egypt with all its chariots and horses. I drew them beneath the waves, and they drowned, their lives snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick.

Isaiah 43:17 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 43:17

Which bringeth forth the chariot and the horse, the army and
the power
Who brought forth the chariots and horses, and the mighty army of Pharaoh, out of Egypt, to pursue the Israelites into the Red sea, where they were drowned. The present tense is put for the future, as in the preceding verse; the future is put for the past tense in the next clause: they shall lie down together, they shall not rise;
they lay down in the Red sea, where they sunk to the bottom, and perished, and never rose more, at least to life, nor never will, till the general resurrection: they are extinct, they are quenched as tow;
or flax, or as the wick of a candle F16, when put into water, is quenched at once; so the Egyptian, became extinct in the Red sea. Some observe an allusion to the commodity of flax, for which Egypt was famous. Kimchi interprets the whole of the army of Sennacherib, which was brought out of their own land to Jerusalem, and was destroyed in one night by an angel. Aben Ezra of the Chaldeans being brought out to fight with the Persians. But others rather of the army of the Medes and Persians being brought against them, by whom they became extinct as tow or flax.


FOOTNOTES:

F16 (htvpk) "ut ellychnium" Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gataker, Vitringa.

Isaiah 43:17 In-Context

15 I am the LORD, your Holy One, Israel’s Creator and King.
16 I am the LORD, who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea.
17 I called forth the mighty army of Egypt with all its chariots and horses. I drew them beneath the waves, and they drowned, their lives snuffed out like a smoldering candlewick.
18 “But forget all that— it is nothing compared to what I am going to do.
19 For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland.
Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.