Isaiah 37:25

25 I have digged, and drank water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.

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 hast thou reproached and blasphemed; and against whom hast thou exalted [thy] voice, and lifted thy eyes on high? [even] against the Holy One of Israel.
24 By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord, and hast said, By the multitude of my chariots have I come up to the hight of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon; and I will cut down its tall cedars, [and] its choice fir-trees: and I will enter into the hight of its border, [and] the forest of its Carmel.
25 I have digged, and drank water; and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the besieged places.
26 Hast thou not heard long ago, [how] I have done it; [and] of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldst be to lay waste fortified cities [into] ruinous heaps.
27 Therefore their inhabitants [were] of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were [as] the grass of the field, and [as] the green herb, [as] the grass on the house-tops, and [as corn] blasted before it is grown up.
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