Isaiah 43:2 (BSB)

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you go through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be scorched; the flames will not set you ablaze.

From Isaiah 43. Also in the ESV.

Commentary on Isaiah 43:2

  • John Calvin (Reformed), Calvin's Commentaries on Isaiah 43:2: 2 When thou shalt pass through the waters. This is an anticipation by which he declares that they who rely on God’s immediate assistance have no reason for sinking under adversity. That is stated more fully than in the preceding verse, because while he shews that the Church will not be exempt from calamities and afflictions, but must maintain a constant warfare, he encourages to...
  • Matthew Henry (Presbyterian), Matthew Henry's Complete Commentary on Isaiah 43:1-7: This chapter has a plain connexion with the close of the foregoing chapter, but a very surprising one. It was there said that Jacob and Israel would not walk in God's ways, and that when he corrected them for their disobedience they were stubborn and laid it not to heart; and now one would think it should have followed that God would utterly abandon and...
  • John Gill (Reformed Baptist), Exposition of the Old and New Testaments on Isaiah 43:2: When thou passest through the waters; I will be with thee,.... The Targum and Jarchi apply this to the Israelites' passage through the waters of the Red sea, as a thing past; and Kimchi to Sennacherib's army, compared to the waters of a river strong and many, Isa 8:7.
  • Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (Reformed), Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible on Isaiah 43:2: rivers . . . not overflow thee--so in passing Jordan, though at its "overflow," when its "swellings" were especially dangerous (Jos 3:15; Jer 12:5). waters . . . fire--a proverbial phrase for the extremest perils (Psa 66:12; also Psa 138:7). Literally fulfilled at the Red Sea (Exo 14:21-22), and in the case of the three youths cast into the fiery furnace for conscience' sake (Dan 3:25, Dan 3:27).