2 Kings 19:24 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

I have digged and drunk strange waters That is, says Vitringa, “I have hitherto possessed all my desires; whatever I have vehemently thirsted after, I have attained.” Others understand this and the following clause more literally, thus: “I have marched through deserts, where it was expected my army would have perished with thirst; and yet even there have I digged and found water: and I have rendered rivers fordable by turning their streams from their ancient beds, and have deprived the besieged of the benefit of those waters.” Vitringa, however, renders the last clause, with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of Egypt. The prophet is thought to allude to a custom of the Egyptians, who commonly made use of machines, which were worked by the foot, to draw water from rivers, for whatever purpose it might be wanted; and the meaning, according to Vitringa, is, that the Assyrian, by the assistance of his very numerous army, the sole of his foot, would dry up all the rivers of Egypt, so that they should not delay the success of his expedition. The expression is of the hyperbolic kind, and well suits this haughty monarch, whose mind was at this time full of his expedition into Judea and Egypt. See Dr. Dodd.