Isaiah 37:24,25 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

By the multitude of my chariots— Cities, in the prophetical writings, are metaphorically represented by woods or forests, especially those of Lebanon and Carmel; and the several ranks of inhabitants by the taller and lesser trees growing there. Hence we may collect the true sense of this passage, which represents the Assyrian prince as threatening to take mount Zion, together with the capital city of Jerusalem, and to destroy their principal inhabitants. The height of his border, and the grove of his fruitful field, are generally thought figuratively to refer to the temple and the city. The Chaldee paraphrast renders it, And I will also take the house of their sanctuary, and I will subject to myself their fortified city. The Assyrian adds, I have digged and drunk waters, or, as it is in 2 Kings, strange waters; that is, according to 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 desarts, where it was expected my army would perish with thirst, and yet even there I have digged and found water; and I have rendered rivers fordable by turning their streams from their ancient beds, and deprived the besieged of the benefit of those waters." Vitringa, however, renders the last clause, And with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of Egypt. The prophet here alludes 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 feet, 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 or Thrasonic kind, and well suits this haughty monarch, whose mind was at this time full of his expeditions into Judaea and Egypt. See 2 Chronicles 32:4 and Deuteronomy 11:10. The author of the Observations remarks, that he thinks this whole verse a reference to the Eastern way of watering; as much as to say, "I have digged channels, and drank, and caused my army to drink out of new-made rivers, into which I have conducted the waters which used to flow elsewhere; and I have laid those old channels dry with the sole of my foot, with as much ease as a gardener digs channels in his garden, and, directing the waters of a cistern into a new well, with his foot stops up that in which they before ran." In confirmation whereof, let it be remembered, that this way of watering by rills is in use in those countries whence Sennacherib came, continued down from ancient times there, without doubt, as it is in Egypt. The understanding of those words of the Psalmist, Psalms 65:9. Thou visitest the earth, and waterest it; thou greatly enrichest it with the river of God, as expressive of the watering it as by a rill of water, makes an easy and beautiful sense; the rain being to the earth in general the same thing, from God, that a watering rill, or little river, is to a garden from man. See Observations, p. 343.