The interpretation timeline

Isa 37:25

How this passage has been read — the sources, oldest to newest.

From the early Church Fathers to now.

2 Jewish · 2 Catholic · 1 Reformed · 1 Lutheran

Isa 37:25 · Douay-Rheims
“I have digged, and drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot, all the rivers shut up in banks.”
Scholastic c. 1100 – 1500
1105
A.D.
Rashi Jewish
1040–1105
“I dug and drank (קַרְתִּי) I.e., to say, I started all my deeds and completed them and succeeded, as one who digs a hole and finds water and succeeds. This is an expression of a spring (מָקוֹר). and I dry up with the soles of my feet If I would besiege a city reliant on the strength of its rivers, I would bring upon it many troops, and the water of their rivers would be depleted from their drinking and the drinking of their cattle and by the treading of their feet. and I dry up (lit., and I will dry up) This is the present tense, i.e., to say, so is my wont always. rivers of the siege The rivers of the city that is besieged through its rivers. ([Mss. yield:] that is besieged by me.)”
Source
1167
A.D.
Ibn Ezra Jewish
1089–1167
“3. In the book of Kings there is the addition of the words נהרי זרים=זרים, the rivers of strangers, after מים water.”
1274
A.D.
Thomas Aquinas Catholic
1225–1274
“From the multitude of his warriors: I have dug, as if to say: I have such a large army that the water that I find is not enough, unless I dig wells; or, metaphorically: I dried up the consolations of all nations: like a garden of pleasure before it, and behind it a desolate wilderness (Joel 2:3).”
575 years pass — nothing from this stretch is hosted yet
Post-Reformation c. 1650 – 1900
1849
A.D.
1774–1849
“Shut, &c. Hebrew matsor, (Haydock) “of Egypt,” where Sennacherib had been. (Calmet)”
1871
A.D.
1871
“digged, and drunk water--In Kg2 19:24, it is "strange waters." I have marched into foreign lands where I had to dig wells for the supply of my armies; even the natural destitution of water there did not impede my march. rivers of . . . besieged places--rather, "the streams (artificial canals from the Nile) of Egypt." "With the sole of my foot," expresses that as soon as his vast armies marched into a region, the streams were drunk up by them; or rather, that the rivers proved no obstruction to the onward march of his armies. So Isa 19:4-6, referring to Egypt, "the river--brooks of defense--shall be dried up." HORSLEY, translates the Hebrew for "besieged places," "rocks."”
Source
1875
A.D.
Keil & Delitzsch Lutheran
1861–1875
“Third turn, "I, I have digged and drunk (K. foreign) waters, and will make dry with the sole of my feet all the Nile-arms (יארי, K. יאורי) of Matsor." If we take עליתי in Isa 37:24 as a perfect of certainty, Isa 37:25 would refer to the overcoming of the difficulties connected with the barren sandy steppe on the way to Egypt (viz., et-Tih); but the perfects stand out against the following futures, as statements of what was actually past. Thus, in places where there were no waters at all, and it might have been supposed that his army would inevitably perish, there he had dug them (qūr, from which mâqōr is derived, fodere; not scaturire, as Luzzatto supposes), and had drunk up these waters, which had been called up, as if by magic, upon foreign soil; and in places where there were waters, as in Egypt (mâtsōr is used in Isaiah and Micah for mitsrayim, with a play upon the appellative meaning of the word: an enclosing fence, a fortifying girdle: see Psa 31:22), the Nile-arms and canals of which appeared to bar all farther progress, it was an easy thing for him to set at nought all these opposing hindrances. The Nile, with its many arms, was nothing but a puddle to him, which he trampled out with his feet.”
Source
Modern · 1953 →

The in-app commentary runs from the Fathers to the early-modern record, then stops — that's where the public-domain sources end, not where the reading does. For the modern reading, follow the sources directly.