Isaiah 42:15

15 I shall make (into) desert (the) high mountains and little hills, and I shall dry up all the burgeoning of them; and I shall set floods into isles, and I shall make ponds dry.

Isaiah 42:15 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 42:15

I will make waste mountains and hills
Kingdoms, greater and lesser; kings and governors, as Jarchi interprets it; and so Kimchi understands it of the kings of the nations; by them are meant the emperors of Rome, and their governors under them, that set themselves against Christ and his Gospel, but were overcome by him; these mountains and hills became a plain before him: "every mountain and island were moved out of their places, and the kings of the earth, and the great men hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, and called upon them to fall on them, and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb", ( Revelation 6:14-16 ) : and dry up all their herbs;
the common people, and common soldiers that were with them, and on their side; comparable, for smallness, weakness, and number, to the grass of the mountains and hills: and I will make the rivers islands, and dry up the pools;
extirpate all the remains of idolatry, rivers and fountains being sacred with the Heathens, as mountains and hills were places where sacrifices were offered to idols. Unless by it rather should be meant, that the Lord would remove all impediments out of the way of his people, or which were obstacles of their conversion; just as he dried up the waters of the Red sea and Jordan, to make way for the people of Israel; to which the allusion may be, and which agrees with the following words.

Isaiah 42:15 In-Context

13 The Lord as a strong man shall go out, as a man a warrior he shall raise fervent love; he shall speak, and shall cry; he shall be comforted on his enemies. (The Lord shall go out like a strong man, he shall stir up fervour like a man of war; he shall speak, and he shall cry out; he shall be strong against his enemies.)
14 I was still, ever I held [my] silence; I was patient, (but now) I shall speak as a woman travailing of child (but now I shall cry like a woman labouring with child); I shall scatter, and I shall swallow (up) (al)together.
15 I shall make (into) desert (the) high mountains and little hills, and I shall dry up all the burgeoning of them; and I shall set floods into isles, and I shall make ponds dry.
16 And I shall lead out blind men into the way, which they know not, and I shall make them to go in paths, which they knew not; I shall set the darknesses of them before them into light, and shrewd things into rightful things; I did these words to them, and I forsook not them. (And I shall lead out the blind by the way, which they know not, and I shall make them to go on paths, which they knew not; I shall turn their darkness into light before them, and make depraved, or crooked, ways into straight ways; I shall do these things for them, and I shall not desert them.)
17 (But others,) They (shall) be turned aback; (yea,) be they shamed with shame, that trust in a graven image; which say to a molten image, Ye be our gods.
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.