Isaiah 33:21-22 But there the glorious LORD will be to us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars… One great peculiarity of Jerusalem which distinguishes it from almost all other historical cities, is that it has no river. Babylon was on the Euphrates, Nineveh on the Tigris, Thebes on the Nile, Rome on the Tiber; but Jerusalem had nothing but a fountain or two, and a well or two, and a little trickle of an intermittent stream. The water-supply to-day is, and always has been, a great difficulty, and an insuperable barrier to the city's ever having a great population. That deficiency throws a great deal of beautiful light on more than one passage in the Old Testament. Isaiah's great vision is not, as I take it, of a future, but of what the Jerusalem of his day might be to the Israelite, if he would live by faith. The mighty Lord. "the glorious Lord," shall Himself "be a place of broad rivers and streams." (A. Maclaren, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But there the glorious LORD will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. |
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