Isaiah 63:13

That led them through the deep, as an horse in the wilderness, that they should not stumble?

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
led	יָלַךְ yâlak	H3212	to walk (literally or figuratively)
deep	בַּתְּהֹמ֑וֹת ba.te.ho.Mot	H8415	an abyss (as a surging mass of water) · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine plural absolute
horse	כַּסּ֥וּס ka.Sus	H5483	a horse (as leaping) · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
wilderness	בַּמִּדְבָּ֖ר ba.mid.Bar	H4057	a pasture (i.e. open field · preposition with the article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
stumble	יִכָּשֵֽׁלוּ yi.ka.She.lu	H3782	to totter or waver (through weakness of the legs · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural

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

Jeremiah 31:9 They shall come with weeping, and with supplications will I lead them: I will cause them to walk by the rivers of waters in a straight way,…
Psalms 106:9 He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness.
Habakkuk 3:15 Thou didst walk through the sea with thine horses, through the heap of great waters.

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

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 63:7-14

The prophet is here, in the name of the church, taking a review, and making a thankful recognition, of God's dealings with his church all along, ever since he founded it, before he comes, in the latter end of this chapter and in the next, as a watchman upon the walls, earnestly to pray to God for his compassion towards her in her present deplorable state; and it was usual for God's people, in their prayers, thus to look back. I. Here is a general acknowledgment of God's goodness to them all along, Isa 63:7. It was said, in general, of God's prophets and people (Isa 62:6) that they made mention of the Lord; now here we are told what it is in God that they do especially delight to make mention…

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Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 63:13

deep--literally, "the tossing and roaring sea." wilderness--rather, the "open plain" [HORSLEY], wherein there is no obstacle to cause a horse in its course the danger of stumbling.

Adam Clarke on Isaiah 63:13

That led them through the deep - As a beast goeth down into the valley - In both these verses there is an allusion to the Israelites going through the Red Sea, in the bottom of which they found no more inconvenience than a horse would in running in the desert, where there was neither stone nor mud; nor a beast in the valley, where all was plain and smooth.

John Gill on Isaiah 63:13

That led them through the deep,.... The depths, the bottom of the sea; not through the shallow, but where the waters had been deepest, the descent greatest; and at the bottom of which might have been expected much filth and dirt to hinder them in their passage, yet through this he led them: as an horse in the wilderness; or rather, "in a plain", as the word (b) sometimes signifies; and so Kimchi renders it a plain land, and Jarchi smooth land. The sense is, that the Israelites passed through the sea with as much ease, and as little difficulty, as a good horse will run over a plain, where there is nothing to stop his course: that they should not stumble? there being no clay to stick in, no…

The Church Fathers

Just as with Pharaoh and the Egyptians chasing them, the people led by Moses crossed the sea, so, too, as the devil and the demons were waging war, Christ the master shattered the gates of death, was first to go through them and took with him human nature in its entirety!
— Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 20:63.11-12

It seems that Isaiah is making mention here of the resurrection of Christ, the Savior of us all. "He who has gone up" is said in place of "he who has risen"—from the earth—the chief shepherd of all, not just that he was rising up from the dead, but in the sense that he was clearly distinct among human beings. For he became like one of us, undergoing birth from a woman according to the flesh—he who was the only-begotten Word of the Father.
— Cyril of Alexandria, COMMENTARY ON ISAIAH 5:5.63:11-14

Indeed just as the Lord and the Son are one, the Lord is the Father. For they come together, and the Holy Spirit both is and can be understood to be in both, and he makes sharp the straight way of truth whenever the mind of believers lacks correct thinking. On account of this being the case, the Spirit is Lord and God, as the Scriptures declare, with the great Isaiah speaking concerning the race of Israel, "The Spirit came down from the Lord and led them."
— Cyril of Alexandria, ON THE HOLY AND CONSUBSTANTIAL TRINITY 7

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

Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The · Under God’s guidance — Under God’s guidance
Horse, The · Described as: Sure footed — Described as: Sure footed

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 63:13

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 63:7-14

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 63:13

Adam Clarke on Isaiah 63:13

John Gill on Isaiah 63:13

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Isaiah 63:13

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Isaiah 63:7-14

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown on Isaiah 63:13

Adam Clarke on Isaiah 63:13

John Gill on Isaiah 63:13

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

John Calvin on Isaiah 63:13

Keil & Delitzsch on Isaiah 63:11-14

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Isaiah 63:10

Rashi on Isaiah 63:13