Isaiah 42:15

Isa 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.

Ver. 15. I will make waste mountains and hills.] I will rather invert the order of nature, and mingle heaven and earth together, than my Church shall want seasonable help. I will also remove all obstacles by sending fire upon the earth, {Luk 12:49} and bring every high thought into a holy obedience. {2Co 10:5}

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will destroy all My foes.

mountains--in Palestine usually planted with vines and olives in terraces, up to their tops.

islands--rather, "dry lands." God will destroy His foes, the heathen, and their idols, and "dry up" the fountains of their oracles, their doctrines and institutions, the symbol of which is water, and their schools which promoted idolatry [VITRINGA].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 15. I will make the rivers islands - "I will make the rivers dry deserts"] Instead of איים iyim, islands, read ציים tsiim; a very probable conjecture of Houbigant.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(15) I will make waste mountains . . .—The whole description is symbolic, and points to the subjugation of the heathen nations, the “rivers” and “pools” probably representing the kingdoms of the Tigris and Euphrates (Isa_8:7). All this seems a purely destructive work, but through it all mercy and truth are working, and a way is being opened for the return of Israel, in painting which, as elsewhere, the literal melts into the spiritual, as in a dissolving view. (See Note on Isa_40:4.) “These things” include the whole work of judgment and of mercy.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. Jehovah’s breath of anger will make the fairest and best watered regions an arid waste. Cf. ch. Isa_40:7; Isa_40:24, and note the contrasted image in Isa_41:18 f. For herbs, read herbage. The word islands is used in a peculiar sense, of dry land as opposed to water.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will make waste mountains and hills,.... Kingdoms, greater and lesser; kings and governors, as Jarchi interprets it; and so Kimchi understands it of the kings of the nations; by them are meant the emperors of Rome, and their governors under them, that set themselves against Christ and his Gospel, but were overcome by him; these mountains and hills became a plain before him: "every mountain and island were moved out of their places, and the kings of the earth, and the great men, &c. hid themselves in the dens, and in the rocks of the mountains, and called upon them to fall on them, and hide them from the wrath of the Lamb", Rev 6:14,

and dry up all their herbs; the common people, and common soldiers that were with them, and on their side; comparable, for smallness, weakness, and number, to the grass of the mountains and hills:

and I will make the rivers islands, and dry up the pools; extirpate all the remains of idolatry, rivers and fountains being sacred with the Heathens, as mountains and hills were places where sacrifices were offered to idols. Unless by it rather should be meant, that the Lord would remove all impediments out of the way of his people, or which were obstacles of their conversion; just as he dried up the waters of the Red sea and Jordan, to make way for the people of Israel; to which the allusion may be, and which agrees with the following words.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

I will make waste mountains - This verse denotes the utter desolation which God would bring upon his foes in his anger. The meaning of this part of the verse is, that he would spread desolation over the hills and mountains that were well watered and laid out in gardens and orchards. It was common to plant vineyards on the sides of hills and mountains; and indeed most of the mountains of Palestine and adjacent regions were cultivated nearly to the top. They were favorable to the culture of the vine and the olive; and by making terraces, the greater portion of the hills were thus rescued for purposes of agriculture. Yet an enemy or warrior marching through a land would seek to spread desolation through all its cultivated parts, and lay waste all its fields. God, therefore, represents himself as a conqueror, laying waste the cultivated portions of the country of his foes.

And dry up all their herbs - He would destroy all the grain and fruits on which they were depending for support.

And I will make the rivers islands - Or rather, dry land, or deserts. I will, in the heat of my anger, dry up the streams, so that the bottoms of those streams shall be dry land. The word rendered here ‘islands,’ from אי 'ı̂y, properly denotes dry land, habitable ground, as opposed to water, the sea, rivers, etc., and the signification ‘islands’ is a secondary signification.

And I will dry up the pools - The pools on which they have been dependent for water for their flocks and herds. The sense of the whole passage is, I will bring to desolation those who worship idols, and the idols themselves. I will produce an entire change among them, as great as if I were to spread desolation over their cultivated hills, and to dry up all their streams. The reference is probably to the great changes which God would make in the pagan world. All that flourished on Pagan ground; all that was nurtured by idolatry; all their temples, fanes, altars, shrines, should be overturned and demolished; and in all these things great and permanent changes would be produced. The time would have come when God could no longer bear with the growing abominations of the pagan nations, and when he would go forth as a conqueror to subdue all to himself.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Pools. Cyrus deluged the country about Babylon, chap. xiii., and xxi. 1. (Haydock) --- The proud and covetous, who expected Christ to give them kingdoms, were deceived. He came to teach humility, and to grant eternal rewards. (Worthington)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

I will make waste mountains and hills; not dry and barren ones, for these were waste already, but such as are clothed with grass and herbs, as the following words imply; which is to be understood metaphorically, of God’s destroying his most lofty and flourishing enemies, who are oft compared in Scripture unto mountains and hills.

I will dry up the pools; I will remove all impediments out of the way; which is expressed in the prophetical dialect, by drying up Euphrates, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared, Rev 16:12. He seems to allude to that which God did in drying up first the Red Sea, and then Jordan, to give his people passage into Canaan. And this exposition is confirmed by the following verse.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

15. Waste mountains and hills — Extreme execution of threats against sinners under figures of utter desolation wrought upon comely landscapes.

Islands — Dry land as opposed to water. — Gesenius.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will make waste mountains and hills. The result of God"s "stirring up his jealousy," and giving a free vent to his feelings, will be the destruction of the great and mighty ones of the earth. (comp. Isa_2:14) These are probably, in this place, the Babylonian kings and nobles. Dry up all their herbs; i.e. turn Babylonia, temporarily, into a desert. Make the rivers islands, and dry up the pools. Invert the established order of things turn the rivers into dry land, and empty the reservoirs. There is, perhaps, some allusion to those dealings with the river-beds, which the Greek historians ascribe to Cyrus (Herod., 1:189, 191; Xen., "Cyrop.," 7:5, and which are not disproved by the fact that the one native account of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus, which has come down to us, makes no mention of them.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Hills - My most lofty and flourishing enemies. Dry up - I will remove all impediments out of the way.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

The delivery takes place, and the whole world of nature undergoes a metamorphosis, which is subservient to the great work of the future. "I make waste mountains and hills, and all their herbage I dry up, and change streams into islands, and lakes I dry up." Here is another example of Isaiah's favourite palindromy, as Nitzsch calls this return to a word that has been used before, or linking on the close of a period of its commencement. Jehovah's panting in labour is His almighty fiery breath, which turns mountains and hills into heaps of ruins, scorches up the vegetation, condenses streams into islands, and dries up the lakes; that is to say, turns the strange land, in which Israel has been held captive, into a desert, and at the same time removes all the hindrances to His people's return, thus changing the present condition of the world into one of the very opposite kind, which displays His righteousness in wrath and love.

Keil & Delitzsch — Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (1861–1891) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API. (Old Testament only.)

“I will lay waste mountains and hills, and all their herbage will I dry up; and I will turn (literally place) streams to islands and pools (or lakes) will I dry up.” Having described the effect and the cause of the great future change, He now describes the change itself, under the common form of a complete revolution in the face of nature, sometimes with special reference to the heavens (Isa 13:10) sometimes (as here and in Isa 35:6-7) to the earth. The verse probably contains an allusion to the ancient cultivation of the hills of Palestine, by means of terraces, many of which are still in existence.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Prophecies of Isaiah (1846–1847; New York: Scribner, 1870–1878) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

I will destroy mountains and hills I will slay kings and rulers.

and all their grass All their followers.

I will dry out Heb. אוֹבִישׁ. This is an expression of drying, used in reference to wet things, e. g., grass and rivers.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.

I will make waste, etc. How can they think thus? Do they not see, that I lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs, and make rivers into islands, that people can dwell therein.

Ibn Ezra on the Tanakh — English translations: “Sefaria Community Translation” (CC0 1.0 (public-domain dedication)); “Yalkut, Sifsei Chachomim Chumash, Metsudah Publications, 2009” (CC BY 4.0); and “Commentary of Ibn Ezra on Isaiah - trans. by M. Friedlander, 1873” (public domain). Text via Sefaria.