The rivers. — According to the pointing of the Hebrew text this is the two rivers, as is expressed in the margin. This peculiar form has occasioned some perplexity, especially because in the vision of Zechariah (Zechariah 14:8) the waters are represented as divided, half of them flowing to the Dead Sea and half of them to the Mediterranean. It is plain, however, that but one river is intended here, flowing into the Dead Sea. Possibly there is an allusion in the dual form to the Jordan flowing with it into the sea; but this vision throughout pays so little regard to the natural features of the country that it seems more likely that the dual form is simply used to express the greatness of the river, “a double river.” By a division of the word and a slight change in the vowels the expression would become “river of the sea,” that is, flowing into the sea.
Shall live. — This is to be understood as a pregnant expression; all kinds of life shall spring into being whithersoever the waters come. The same thing is emphatically repeated at the close of the verse, and in the intermediate clause the same thought is expressed by the “very great multitude of fish.”