Isaiah 42:15
 Isaiah 42:15 
New International Version (©2011)
I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn rivers into islands and dry up the pools.

New Living Translation (©2007)
I will level the mountains and hills and blight all their greenery. I will turn the rivers into dry land and will dry up all the pools.

English Standard Version (©2001)
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn the rivers into islands, and dry up the pools.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"I will lay waste the mountains and hills And wither all their vegetation; I will make the rivers into coastlands And dry up the ponds.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
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.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
I will lay waste mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation. I will turn rivers into islands and dry up marshes.

International Standard Version (©2012)
I'll devastate the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; I'll turn rivers into islands, and dry up the ponds.

NET Bible (©2006)
I will make the trees on the mountains and hills wither up; I will dry up all their vegetation. I will turn streams into islands, and dry up pools of water.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
I will lay waste to mountains and hills. I will dry up all their vegetation. I will turn rivers into islands. I will dry up ponds.

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and dry up all their vegetation; and I will turn the rivers into islands, and I will dry up the pools.

American King James Version
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.

American Standard Version
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the pools.

Douay-Rheims Bible
I will lay waste the mountains and hills, and will make all their grass to wither: and I will turn rivers into islands, and will dry up the standing pools.

Darby Bible Translation
I will lay waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and I will dry up the pools.

English Revised Version
I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the pools.

Webster's Bible Translation
I will make waste mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs; and I will make the rivers to be islands, and I will dry up the pools.

World English Bible
I will destroy mountains and hills, and dry up all their herbs. I will make the rivers islands, and will dry up the pools.

Young's Literal Translation
I make waste mountains and hills, And all their herbs I dry up, And I have made rivers become isles, And ponds I dry up.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

42:13-17 The Lord will appear in his power and glory. He shall cry, in the preaching of his word. He shall cry aloud in the gospel woes, which must be preached with gospel blessings, to awaken a sleeping world. He shall conquer by the power of his Spirit. And those that contradict and blaspheme his gospel, he shall put to silence and shame; and that which hinders its progress shall be taken out of the way. To those who by nature were blind, God will show the way to life and happiness by Jesus Christ. They are weak in knowledge, but He will make darkness light. They are weak in duty, but their way shall be plain. Those whom God brings into the right way, he will guide in it. This passage is a prophecy, and is also applicable to every believer; for the Lord will never leave nor forsake them.


Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - 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. Isaiah 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, § 10), 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.


Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

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", Revelation 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.


Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. 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].


Isaiah 42:15 Parallel Commentaries

Isaiah 42:15 NIV
Isaiah 42:15 NLT
Isaiah 42:15 ESV
Isaiah 42:15 NASB
Isaiah 42:15 KJV

Bible Hub: Online Parallel Bible


A New Song of Praise
14I have long time held my peace; I have been still, and refrained myself: now will I cry like a travailing woman; I will destroy and devour at once. 15I 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. 16And I will bring the blind by a way that they knew not; I will lead them in paths that they have not known: I will make darkness light before them, and crooked things straight. These things will I do to them, and not forsake them.

Psalm 107:33 He turned rivers into a desert, flowing springs into thirsty ground,
Isaiah 2:12 The LORD Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled),
Isaiah 41:15 "See, I will make you into a threshing sledge, new and sharp, with many teeth. You will thresh the mountains and crush them, and reduce the hills to chaff.
Isaiah 44:27 who says to the watery deep, 'Be dry, and I will dry up your streams,'
Isaiah 50:2 When I came, why was there no one? When I called, why was there no one to answer? Was my arm too short to deliver you? Do I lack the strength to rescue you? By a mere rebuke I dry up the sea, I turn rivers into a desert; their fish rot for lack of water and die of thirst.
Ezekiel 38:19 In my zeal and fiery wrath I declare that at that time there shall be a great earthquake in the land of Israel.
Ezekiel 38:20 The fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the beasts of the field, every creature that moves along the ground, and all the people on the face of the earth will tremble at my presence. The mountains will be overturned, the cliffs will crumble and every wall will fall to the ground.
Nahum 1:4 He rebukes the sea and dries it up; he makes all the rivers run dry. Bashan and Carmel wither and the blossoms of Lebanon fade.