Isaiah 44:27

That saith to the deep, Be dry, and I will dry up thy rivers:

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
saith	הָאֹמֵ֥ר ha.'o.Mer	H559	to say (used with great latitude) · definite article + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
deep	לַצּוּלָ֖ה la.tzu.Lah	H6683	an abyss (of the sea) · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
dry	חֳרָ֑בִי cho.Ra.vi	H2717	to parch (through drought) i.e. (by analogy · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person feminine singular
up	אוֹבִֽישׁ 'o.Vish	H3001	to be ashamed · verb, hiphil imperfect, 1st person common singular
rivers	וְנַהֲרֹתַ֖יִךְ ve.na.ha.ro.Ta.yikh	H5104	a stream (including the sea · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person feminine singular

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Isaiah 42:15 I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.
Jeremiah 50:38 A drought is upon her waters; and they shall be dried up: for it is the land of graven images, and they are mad upon their idols.
Jeremiah 51:36 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will plead thy cause, and take vengeance for thee; and I will dry up her sea, and make her springs…
Psalms 74:15 Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou driedst up mighty rivers.
Isaiah 11:15-16 And the LORD shall utterly destroy the tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand over the river, and shal…
Isaiah 43:16 Thus saith the LORD, which maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters;
Isaiah 51:15 But I am the LORD thy God, that divided the sea, whose waves roared: The LORD of hosts is his name.
Jeremiah 51:32 And that the passages are stopped, and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 44:21–end

In these verses we have, I. The duty which Jacob and Israel, now in captivity, were called to, that they might be qualified and prepared for the deliverance designed them. Our first care must be to get good by our afflictions, and then we may hope to get out of them. The duty is expressed in two words: Remember and return, as in the counsel to Ephesus, Rev 2:4, Rev 2:5. 1. "Remember these, O Jacob! Remember what thou hast been told of the folly of idolatry, and let the convictions thou art now under be ready to thee whenever thou art tempted to that sin. Remember that thou art my servant, and therefore must not serve other masters." 2. Return unto me, Isa 44:22. It is the great concern of th…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 44:27

Referring to the Euphrates, which was turned into a different channel, close to Babylon, by Cyrus, who thereby took the city. "The deep" is applied to Euphrates as "sea" (Jer 51:32, Jer 51:36). "Rivers" refers to the artificial canals from the Euphrates made to irrigate the country; when it was turned off into a different bed (namely, a lake, forty miles square, which was originally formed to receive the superfluous water in an inundation), the canals became dry.

John Gill on Isaiah 44:27

That saith to the deep, be dry,.... The Targum is, "that saith to Babylon, be desolate;'' and most interpreters, Jewish and Christian, understand it of Babylon, which was situated in a watery place, by rivers of water, particularly the river Euphrates, and in a low valley: and I will dry up thy rivers; some think the allusion is to the stratagem of Cyrus, made use of, under a divine direction, to drain the river Euphrates, and make it passable for his army; by which means he surprised the city of Babylon, and took it: though others think it refers to the drying up of the Red sea and the river Jordan, which are proofs of what God can do, and a periphrasis of his power.

John Calvin on Isaiah 44:27

Saying to the deep. This is generally considered to be an allegorical description of Babylon, and I certainly do not deny that it is included; but yet I cannot think of limiting it to Babylon, for I prefer to view it simply as denoting any unexpected change. He shews that some great revolution will be necessary, as if the people must be drawn out of the depths of the sea, but declares that God will easily surmount every obstacle, for he can easily "make the deep dry, and dry up the rivers." In my opinion he rather appears to allude to that former redemption, (Exodus 14:29,) when the Lord brought the people out of Egypt through the Red Sea; as if he had said, "I did this for your fathers, and…

The Church Fathers

"I will dry up your rivers," that is, he will extend his hand over the Euphrates. In a different way, we may intend that the Lord will destroy the devil and his frauds, into which he plunges people as into a sea. And the rivers, which he dries up, are the armies of his iniquity.
— Ephrem the Syrian, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 44:27

Yet there will be a time when all things will be burned up by fire, as Isaiah says when he addresses the God of the universe: [You] "who say to the deep, 'Be thou desolate, and I will dry up all your rivers.' " Casting aside, therefore, the wisdom that has been turned into foolishness, receive with us the teaching of truth, homely in speech but infallible in doctrine.
— Basil of Caesarea, HOMILIES ON THE HEXAMERON 3:6

(Verse 27) I say to the depths: be desolate, and I will dry up your rivers. LXX: I say to the abyss, you will be desolated, and I will dry up your rivers. Therefore, whoever says that Jerusalem, and Judah, and its deserts should be inhabited, and built, and restored, he is saying that Babylon, which is the deep or abyss, should be made desolate and your rivers should be dried up, along with all the power of kings. And because he had said the deep and abyss, he appropriately added the translation of rivers, about which even the Psalmist sings: By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept (Psalm 137:1). And he who restores Jerusalem, destroys Babylon.
— Jerome, Commentary on Isaiah

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Prophecy — Or prediction, was one of the functions of the prophet. It has been defined as a “miracle of knowledge, a declaration or description or representation of something future, beyond the power of human…
Jerusalem · Prophecies respecting: To be rebuilt by Cyrus — Prophecies respecting: To be rebuilt by Cyrus

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Isaiah 44:27

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 44:21–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 44:27

John Gill on Isaiah 44:27

John Calvin on Isaiah 44:27

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Isaiah 44:27

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 44:21–end

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 44:27

John Gill on Isaiah 44:27

John Calvin on Isaiah 44:27

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 44:24–end

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Isaiah 44:27

Rashi on Isaiah 44:27