Isaiah 19:5-10

19:5 The water of the sea will be dried up,

and the river will dry up and be empty. ¹ 

19:6 The canals ²  will stink; ³ 

the streams of Egypt will trickle and then dry up;

the bulrushes and reeds will decay,

19:7 along with the plants by the mouth of the river. ⁴ 

All the cultivated land near the river

will turn to dust and be blown away. ⁵ 

19:8 The fishermen will mourn and lament,

all those who cast a fishhook into the river,

and those who spread out a net on the water’s surface will grieve. ⁶ 

19:9 Those who make clothes from combed flax will be embarrassed;

those who weave will turn pale. ⁷ 

19:10 Those who make cloth ⁸  will be demoralized; ⁹ 

all the hired workers will be depressed. ¹⁰ 

Exodus 7:19-21

7:19 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron, ‘Take your staff and stretch out your hand over Egypt’s waters – over their rivers, over their canals, ¹¹  over their ponds, and over all their reservoirs ¹²  – so that it becomes ¹³  blood.’ There will be blood everywhere in ¹⁴  the land of Egypt, even in wooden and stone containers.” 7:20 Moses and Aaron did so, ¹⁵  just as the Lord had commanded. Moses raised ¹⁶  the staff ¹⁷  and struck the water that was in the Nile right before the eyes ¹⁸  of Pharaoh and his servants, ¹⁹  and all the water that was in the Nile was turned to blood. ²⁰  7:21 When the fish ²¹  that were in the Nile died, the Nile began ²²  to stink, so that the Egyptians could not drink water from the Nile. There was blood ²³  everywhere in the land of Egypt!

Psalms 74:13-15

74:13 You destroyed ²⁴  the sea by your strength;

you shattered the heads of the sea monster ²⁵  in the water.

74:14 You crushed the heads of Leviathan; ²⁶ 

you fed ²⁷  him to the people who live along the coast. ²⁸ 

74:15 You broke open the spring and the stream; ²⁹ 

you dried up perpetually flowing rivers. ³⁰ 

Ezekiel 29:10

29:10 I am against ³¹  you and your waterways. I will turn the land of Egypt into an utter desolate ruin from Migdol ³²  to Syene, ³³  as far as the border with Ethiopia.

Ezekiel 30:12

30:12 I will dry up the waterways

and hand the land over to ³⁴  evil men.

I will make the land and everything in it desolate by the hand of foreigners.

I, the Lord, have spoken!

Revelation 16:12

16:12 Then ³⁵  the sixth angel ³⁶  poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates and dried up its water ³⁷  to prepare the way ³⁸  for the kings from the east. ³⁹ 

[19:5]  ¹ tn Heb “will dry up and be dry.” Two synonyms are joined for emphasis.

[19:6]  ² tn Heb “rivers” (so KJV, ASV); NAB, CEV “streams”; TEV “channels.”

[19:6]  ³ tn The verb form appears as a Hiphil in the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a; the form in MT may be a so-called “mixed form,” reflecting the Hebrew Hiphil stem and the functionally corresponding Aramaic Aphel stem. See HALOT 276 s.v. I זנח.

[19:7]  ⁴ tn Heb “the plants by the river, by the mouth of the river.”

[19:7]  ⁵ tn Heb “will dry up, [being] scattered, and it will vanish.”

[19:8]  ⁶ tn Or perhaps, “will disappear”; cf. TEV “will be useless.”

[19:9]  ⁷ tn BDB 301 s.v. חוֹרִי suggests the meaning “white stuff” for חוֹרִי (khori); the Qumran scroll 1QIsa^a has חָוֵרוּ (khaveru), probably a Qal perfect, third plural form of חוּר, (khur, “be white, pale”). See HALOT 299 s.v. I חור. The latter reading is assumed in the translation above.

[19:10]  ⁸ tn Some interpret שָׁתֹתֶיהָ (shatoteha) as “her foundations,” i.e., leaders, nobles. See BDB 1011 s.v. שָׁת. Others, on the basis of alleged cognates in Akkadian and Coptic, repoint the form שְׁתִיתֶיהָ (shÿtiteha) and translate “her weavers.” See J. N. Oswalt, Isaiah (NICOT), 1:370.

[19:10]  ⁹ tn Heb “crushed.” Emotional distress is the focus of the context (see vv. 8-9, 10b).

[19:10]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “sad of soul”; cf. NIV, NLT “sick at heart.”

[7:19]  ¹¹ tn Or “irrigation rivers” of the Nile.

[7:19]  ¹² sn The Hebrew term means “gathering,” i.e., wherever they gathered or collected waters, notably cisterns and reservoirs. This would naturally lead to the inclusion of both wooden and stone vessels – down to the smallest gatherings.

[7:19]  ¹³ tn The imperfect tense with vav (ו) after the imperative indicates the purpose or result: “in order that they [the waters] be[come] blood.”

[7:19]  ¹⁴ tn Or “in all.”

[7:20]  ¹⁵ sn Both Moses and Aaron had tasks to perform. Moses, being the “god” to Pharaoh, dealt directly with him and the Nile. He would strike the Nile. But Aaron, “his prophet,” would stretch out the staff over the rest of the waters of Egypt.

[7:20]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “And he raised”; the referent (Moses) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[7:20]  ¹⁷ tn Gesenius calls the preposition on “staff” the בְּ (bet) instrumenti, used to introduce the object (GKC 380-81 §119.q). This construction provides a greater emphasis than an accusative.

[7:20]  ¹⁸ tn The text could be rendered “in the sight of,” or simply “before,” but the literal idea of “before the eyes of” may stress how obvious the event was and how personally they were witnesses of it.

[7:20]  ¹⁹ sn U. Cassuto (Exodus, 98) notes that the striking of the water was not a magical act. It signified two things: (1) the beginning of the sign, which was in accordance with God’s will, as Moses had previously announced, and (2) to symbolize actual “striking,” wherewith the Lord strikes Egypt and its gods (see v. 25).

[7:20]  ²⁰ sn There have been various attempts to explain the details of this plague or blow. One possible suggestion is that the plague turned the Nile into “blood,” but that it gradually turned back to its normal color and substance. However, the effects of the “blood” polluted the water so that dead fish and other contamination left it undrinkable. This would explain how the magicians could also do it – they would not have tried if all water was already turned to blood. It also explains why Pharaoh did not ask for the water to be turned back. This view was put forward by B. Schor; it is summarized by B. Jacob (Exodus, 258), who prefers the view of Rashi that the blow affected only water in use.

[7:21]  ²¹ tn The first clause in this verse begins with a vav disjunctive, introducing a circumstantial clause to the statement that the water stank. The vav (ו) consecutive on the next verb shows that the smell was the result of the dead fish in the contaminated water. The result is then expressed with the vav beginning the clause that states that they could not drink it.

[7:21]  ²² tn The preterite could be given a simple definite past translation, but an ingressive past would be more likely, as the smell would get worse and worse with the dead fish.

[7:21]  ²³ tn Heb “and there was blood.”

[74:13]  ²⁴ tn The derivation and meaning of the Polel verb form פּוֹרַרְתָּ (porarta) are uncertain. The form may be related to an Akkadian cognate meaning “break, shatter,” though the biblical Hebrew cognate of this verb always appears in the Hiphil or Hophal stem. BDB 830 s.v. II פָּרַר suggests a homonym here, meaning “to split; to divide.” A Hitpolel form of a root פָּרַר (parar) appears in Isa 24:19 with the meaning “to shake violently.”

[74:13]  ²⁵ tn The Hebrew text has the plural form, “sea monsters” (cf. NRSV “dragons”), but it is likely that an original enclitic mem has been misunderstood as a plural ending. The imagery of the mythological sea monster is utilized here. See the note on “Leviathan” in v. 14.

[74:14]  ²⁶ sn You crushed the heads of Leviathan. The imagery of vv. 13-14 originates in West Semitic mythology. The description of Leviathan should be compared with the following excerpts from Ugaritic mythological texts: (1) “Was not the dragon [Ugaritic tnn, cognate with Hebrew תַּנִין (tanin), translated “sea monster” in v. 13] vanquished and captured? I did destroy the wriggling [Ugaritic ’qltn, cognate to Hebrew עֲקַלָּתוֹן (’aqallaton), translated “squirming” in Isa 27:1] serpent, the tyrant with seven heads” (note the use of the plural “heads” here and in v. 13). (See CTA 3.iii.38-39 in G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 50.) (2) “For all that you smote Leviathan the slippery [Ugaritic brh, cognate to Hebrew בָּרִחַ (bariakh), translated “fast moving” in Isa 27:1] serpent, [and] made an end of the wriggling serpent, the tyrant with seven heads” (See CTA 5.i.1-3 in G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends, 68.) In the myths Leviathan is a sea creature that symbolizes the destructive water of the sea and, in turn, the forces of chaos that threaten the established order. In the OT, the battle with the sea motif is applied to Yahweh’s victories over the forces of chaos at creation and in history (see Pss 74:13-14; 77:16-20; 89:9-10; Isa 51:9-10). Yahweh’s subjugation of the waters of chaos is related to his kingship (see Pss 29:3, 10; 93:3-4). Isa 27:1 applies imagery from Canaanite mythology to Yahweh’s eschatological victory over his enemies. Apocalyptic literature employs the imagery as well. The beasts of Dan 7 emerge from the sea, while Rev 13 speaks of a seven-headed beast coming from the sea. Here in Ps 74:13-14 the primary referent is unclear. The psalmist may be describing God’s creation of the world (note vv. 16-17 and see Ps 89:9-12), when he brought order out of a watery mass, or the exodus (see Isa 51:9-10), when he created Israel by destroying the Egyptians in the waters of the sea.

[74:14]  ²⁷ tn The prefixed verbal form is understood as a preterite in this narrational context.

[74:14]  ²⁸ sn You fed him to the people. This pictures the fragments of Leviathan’s dead corpse washing up on shore and being devoured by those who find them. If the exodus is in view, then it may allude to the bodies of the dead Egyptians which washed up on the shore of the Red Sea (see Exod 14:30).

[74:15]  ²⁹ sn You broke open the spring and the stream. Perhaps this alludes to the way in which God provided water for the Israelites as they traveled in the wilderness following the exodus (see Ps 78:15-16, 20; 105:41).

[74:15]  ³⁰ sn Perpetually flowing rivers are rivers that contain water year round, unlike the seasonal streams that flow only during the rainy season. Perhaps the psalmist here alludes to the drying up of the Jordan River when the Israelites entered the land of Canaan under Joshua (see Josh 3-4).

[29:10]  ³¹ tn Or “I challenge you.” The phrase “I am against you” may be a formula for challenging someone to combat or a duel. See D. I. Block, Ezekiel (NICOT), 1:201-2, and P. Humbert, “Die Herausforderungsformel ‘h!nn#n' ?l?K>,’” ZAW 45 (1933): 101-8.

[29:10]  ³² sn This may refer to a site in the Egyptian Delta which served as a refuge for Jews (Jer 44:1; 46:14).

[29:10]  ³³ sn Syene is known today as Aswan.

[30:12]  ³⁴ tn Heb “and I will sell the land into the hand of.”

[16:12]  ³⁵ tn Here καί (kai) has been translated as “then” to indicate the implied sequence of events within the vision.

[16:12]  ³⁶ tn Grk “the sixth”; the referent (the sixth angel) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[16:12]  ³⁷ tn Grk “and its water was dried up.” Here the passive construction has been translated as an active one.

[16:12]  ³⁸ tn Grk “in order that the way might be prepared.” Here the passive construction has been translated as an active one.

[16:12]  ³⁹ tn Grk “from the rising of the sun.” BDAG 74 s.v. ἀνατολή 2.a takes this as a geographical direction: “ἀπὸ ἀ. ἡλίου…from the east Rv 7:2; 16:12; simply ἀπὸ ἀ. …21:13.”