Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 37:25

A historical reference excerpt for this verse. Read it alongside the biblical text and other available sources.

Commentary on the Old Testament
C. F. Keil & F. Delitzsch · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.

Third turn, "I, I have digged and drunk (K. foreign) waters, and will make dry with the sole of my feet all the Nile-arms (יארי, K. יאורי) of Matsor." If we take עליתי in Isa 37:24 as a perfect of certainty, Isa 37:25 would refer to the overcoming of the difficulties connected with the barren sandy steppe on the way to Egypt (viz., et-Tih); but the perfects stand out against the following futures, as statements of what was actually past. Thus, in places where there were no waters at all, and it might have been supposed that his army would inevitably perish, there he had dug them (qūr, from which mâqōr is derived, fodere; not scaturire, as Luzzatto supposes), and had drunk up these waters, which had been called up, as if by magic, upon foreign soil; and in places where there were waters, as in Egypt (mâtsōr is used in Isaiah and Micah for mitsrayim, with a play upon the appellative meaning of the word: an enclosing fence, a fortifying girdle: see Psa 31:22), the Nile-arms and canals of which appeared to bar all farther progress, it was an easy thing for him to set at nought all these opposing hindrances. The Nile, with its many arms, was nothing but a puddle to him, which he trampled out with his feet. Isaiah 37:26

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