| Geneva Study Bible And the LORD shall utterly destroy the {i} tongue of the Egyptian sea; and with his mighty wind shall he shake his hand {k} over the river, and shall smite it in the seven streams, and make men go over dryshod. (i) Meaning a corner of the sea that enters into the land and has the form of a tongue. (k) That is, Nile, the great river of Egypt which enters into the sea with seven streams. Wesley's Notes 11:15 Destroy - Shall not only divide it, as of old, but dry it up, that it may be an high - way. The sea - The Red Sea, which may well be called the Egyptian sea, both because it borders upon Egypt, and because the Egyptians were drowned in it, which is called a tongue in the Hebrew text, Jos 15:2,5, as having some resemblance with a tongue: for which reason the name of tongue hath been given by geographers to promontories of land which shoot forth into the sea, as this sea did shoot out of the main ocean into the land. Rivers - Nile. Seven streams - For which it is famous in all authors. King James Translators' Notes dryshod: Heb. in shoes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary 15. There shall be a second exodus, destined to eclipse even the former one from Egypt in its wonders. So the prophecies elsewhere (Ps 68:22; Ex 14:22; Zec 10:11). The same deliverance furnishes the imagery by which the return from Babylon is described (Isa 48:20, 21). destroy-literally, "devote," or "doom," that is, dry up; for what God dooms, perishes (Ps 106:9 Na 1:4). tongue-the Bubastic branch of the Nile [Vitringa]; but as the Nile was not the obstruction to the exodus, it is rather the west tongue or Heroöpolite fork of the Red Sea. with . mighty wind-such as the "strong east wind" (Ex 14:21), by which God made a way for Israel through the Red Sea. The Hebrew for "mighty" means terrible. Maurer translates, "With the terror of His anger"; that is, His terrible anger. in the seven streams-rather, "shall smite it (divide it by smiting) into seven (many) streams, so as to be easily crossed" [Lowth]. So Cyrus divided the river Gyndes, which retarded his march against Babylon, into three hundred sixty streams, so that even a woman could cross it [Herodotus, 1.189]. "The river" is the Euphrates, the obstruction to Israel's return "from Assyria" (Isa 11:16), a type of all future impediments to the restoration of the Jews. dry shod-Hebrew, "in shoes." Even in sandals they should be able to pass over the once mighty river without being wet (Re 16:12). Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary 11:10-16 When the gospel should be publicly preached, the Gentiles would seek Christ Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, and find rest of soul. When God's time is come for the deliverance of his people, mountains of opposition shall become plains before him. God can soon turn gloomy days into glorious ones. And while we expect the Lord to gather his ancient people, and bring them home to his church, also to bring in the fulness of the Gentiles, when all will be united in holy love, let us tread the highway of holiness he has made for his redeemed. Let us wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life, looking to him to prepare our way through death, that river which separates this world from the eternal world. |