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Chapter 19

2 Kings 19

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¹And when King Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes and put on sackecloth, and came into the house of the Lord,

²And sent Eliakim which was the stewarde of the house, and Shebnah the chanceller, and the Elders of the Priestes clothed in sackecloth to Isaiah the Prophet the sonne of Amoz.

³And they said vnto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke, and blasphemie: for the childre are come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring foorth.

⁴If so be the Lord thy God hath heard all the wordes of Rabshakeh, whome the King of Asshur his master hath sent to raile on the liuing God, and to reproch him with wordes which the Lord thy God hath heard, then lift thou vp thy prayer for the remnant that are left.

⁵So the seruants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶And Isaiah said vnto them, So shall ye say to your master, Thus sayeth the Lord, Be not afraide of the words which thou hast heard, wherewith the seruants of the king of Asshur haue blasphemed me.

⁷Beholde, I will sende a blast vpon him, and he shall heare a noyse, and returne to his owne lande: and I will cause him to fall by the sworde in his owne lande.

⁸So Rabshakeh returned, and founde the King of Asshur fighting against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

⁹He heard also men say of Tirhakah King of Ethiopia, Beholde, he is come out to fight against thee: he therefore departed and sent other messengers vnto Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰Thus shall ye speake to Hezekiah King of Iudah, and say, Let not thy God deceiue thee in whome thou trustest, saying, Ierusalem shall not be deliuered into the hande of the King of Asshur.

¹¹Beholde, thou hast heard what the Kings of Asshur haue done to all landes, how they haue destroyed them: and shalt thou be deliuered?

¹²Haue the gods of the heathen deliuered them which my fathers haue destroyed? as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Thelasar?

¹³Where is the King of Hamath, and the King of Arpad, and the King of the citie of Shepharuaim, Hena and Iuah?

¹⁴So Hezekiah receiued the letter of the hande of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went vp into the house of the Lord, and Hezekiah spread it before the Lord.

¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and saide, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest betweene the Cherubims, thou art very God alone ouer all the kingdomes of the earth: thou hast made the heauen and the earth.

¹⁶Lord, bow downe thine eare, and heare: Lord open thine eyes and behold, and heare the wordes of Saneherib, who hath sent to blaspheme the liuing God.

¹⁷Trueth it is, Lord, that the Kings of Asshur haue destroyed the nations and their landes,

¹⁸And haue set fire on their gods: for they were no gods, but the worke of mans hands, euen wood and stone: therefore they destroyed them.

¹⁹Nowe therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech thee, saue thou vs out of his hande, that all the kingdomes of the earth may knowe, that thou, O Lord, art onely God.

²⁰Then Isaiah the sonne of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I haue heard that which thou hast prayed me, concerning Saneherib King of Asshur.

²¹This is the worde that the Lord hath spoken against him, O Virgine, daughter of Zion, he hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorne: O daughter of Ierusalem, he hath shaken his head at thee.

²²Whome hast thou railed on? and whome hast thou blasphemed? and against whome hast thou exalted thy voyce, and lifted vp thine eyes on hie? euen against the Holie one of Israel.

²³By thy messengers thou hast rayled on the Lord, and said, By the multitude of my charets I am come vp to the toppe of the mountaines, by the sides of Lebanon, and will cut downe the hie cedars thereof, and the faire firre trees thereof, and I will goe into the lodging of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel.

²⁴I haue digged, and drunke the waters of others, and with the plant of my feete haue I dried all the floods closed in.

²⁵Hast thou not heard, howe I haue of olde time made it, and haue formed it long ago? and should I nowe bring it, that it should be destroyed, and laid on ruinous heapes, as cities defensed?

²⁶Whose inhabitants haue small power, and are afraid, and confounded: they are like the grasse of the field, and greene herbe, or grasse on ye house toppes, or as corne blasted before it be growen.

²⁷I knowe thy dwelling, yea, thy going out, and thy comming in, and thy furie against me.

²⁸And because thou ragest against me, and thy tumult is come vp to mine eares, I will put mine hooke in thy nostrels, and my bridle in thy lippes, and will bring thee backe againe the same way thou camest.

²⁹And this shalbe a signe vnto thee, O Hezekiah, Thou shalt eate this yeere such things as growe of them selues, and the next yeere such as growe without sowing, and the third yeere sowe ye and reape, and plant vineyardes, and eate the fruites thereof.

³⁰And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Iudah, shall againe take roote downewarde, and beare fruite vpwarde.

³¹For out of Ierusalem shall goe a remnant, and some that shall escape out of mount Zion: the zeale of the Lord of hostes shall doe this.

³²Wherefore thus saith the Lord, concerning the King of Asshur, He shall not enter into this citie, nor shoote an arrowe there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a mount against it:

³³But he shall returne the way he came, and shall not come into this citie, saith the Lord.

³⁴For I will defende this citie to saue it for mine owne sake, and for Dauid my seruants sake.

³⁵And the same night the Angell of the Lord went out and smote in the campe of Asshur an hundreth foure score and fiue thousande: so when they rose earely in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

³⁶So Saneherib King of Asshur departed, and went his way, and returned, and dwelt in Nineueh.

³⁷And as he was in the Temple worshipping Nisroch his god, Adramelech and Sharezer his sonnes slewe him with the sworde: and they escaped into the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his sonne reigned in his steade.

Adam Clarke
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
John Gill
Keil-Delitzsch
Matthew Henry
Tyndale

Introduction

Hezekiah as greatly distressed, and sends to Isaiah to pray for him, Kg2 19:1-4. Isaiah returns a comfortable answer, and predicts the destruction of the king of Assyria and his army, Kg2 19:5-8. Sennacherib, hearing that his kingdom was invaded by the Ethiopians, sends a terrible letter to Hezekiah, to induce him to surrender, Kg2 19:9-13. Hezekiah goes to the temple, spreads the letter before the Lord, and makes a most affecting prayer, Kg2 19:14-19. Isaiah is sent to him to assure him that his prayer is heard; that Jerusalem shall be delivered; and that the Assyrians shall be destroyed, Kg2 19:20-34. That very night a messenger of God slays one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrians, Kg2 19:35. Sennacherib returns to Nineveh, and is slain by his own sons, Kg2 19:36, Kg2 19:37.

Verse 2

To Isaiah the prophet - His fame and influence were at this time great in Israel; and it was well known that the word of the Lord was with him. Here both the Church and the state unite in fervent application to, and strong dependence upon, God; and behold how they succeed!

Verse 3

The children are come to the birth - The Jewish state is here represented under the emblem of a woman in travail, who has been so long in the pangs of parturition, that her strength is now entirely exhausted, and her deliverance is hopeless, without a miracle. The image is very fine and highly appropriate. A similar image is employed by Homer, when he represents the agonies which Agamemnon suffers from his wound: - Οφρα οἱ αἱμ' ετι θερμον ανηνοθεν εξ ωτειλης· Λυταρ επει το μεν ἑλκος ετερσετο παυσατο δ' αἱμα, Οξειαι οδυναι δυνον μενος Ατρειδαο· Ως δ' ὁταν ωδινουσαν εχῃ βελος οξυ γυναικα, Δριμυ, το τε προΐεισι μογοστοκοι Ειλειθυιαι Ἡρης θυγατερες πικ ρας ωδινας εχουσαι· Ὡς οξει' οδυναι δυνον μενος Ατρειδαο. Il. xi., ver. 266. This, while yet warm, distill'd the purple flood; But when the wound grew stiff with clotted blood, Then grinding tortures his strong bosom rend. Less keen those darts the fierce Ilythiae send, The powers that cause the teeming matron's throes, Sad mothers of unutterable woes. Pope Better translated by Macpherson; but in neither well: "So long as from the gaping wound gushed forth, in its warmth, the blood; but when the wound became dry, when ceased the blood to flow amain, sharp pains pervade the strength of Atrides. Racking pangs glide through his frame; as when the Ilythiae, who preside over births, the daughters of white armed Juno, fierce dealers of bitter pains, throw all their darts on hapless women, that travail with child. Such pains pervade the strength of Atrides."

Verse 4

The remnant that are left - That is, the Jews; the ten tribes having been already carried away captive by the kings of Assyria.

Verse 7

Behold, I will send a blast - and he shall hear a rumor - The rumor was, that Tirhakah had invaded Assyria. The blast was that which slew one hundred and eighty-five thousand of them in one night, see Kg2 19:35. Cause him to fall by the sword - Alluding to his death by the hands of his two sons, at Nineveh. See Kg2 19:35-37.

Verse 8

Libnah - Lachish - These two places were not very distant from each other; they were in the mountains of Judah, southward of Jerusalem.

Verse 10

Let not thy God in whom thou trustest - This letter is nearly the same with the speech delivered by Rab-shakeh. See Kg2 18:29.

Verse 14

Spread it before the Lord - The temple was considered to be God's dwelling-place; and that whatever was there was peculiarly under his eye. Hezekiah spread the letter before the Lord, as he wished him to read the blasphemies spoken against himself.

Verse 15

Thou art the God, etc. - Thou art not only God of Israel, but God also of Assyria, and of all the nations of the world.

Verse 21

The virgin the daughter of Zion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee - "So truly contemptible is thy power, and empty thy boasts, that even the young women of Jerusalem, under the guidance of Jehovah, shall be amply sufficient to discomfit all thy forces, and cause thee to return with shame to thy own country, where the most disgraceful death awaits thee." When Bishop Warburton had published his Doctrine of Grace, and chose to fall foul on some of the most religious people of the land, a young woman of the city of Gloucester exposed his graceless system in a pamphlet, to which she affixed the above words as a motto!

Verse 23

The tall cedar trees - the choice fir trees - Probably meaning the princes and nobles of the country. The forest of his Carmel - Better in the margin: the forest and his fruitful field.

Verse 24

I have dipped and drunk strange waters - I have conquered strange countries, in which I have digged wells for my army; or, I have gained the wealth of strange countries. With the sole of my feet - My infantry have been so numerous that they alone have been sufficient to drink up the rivers of the places I have besieged.

Verse 25

Hast thou not heard - Here Jehovah speaks, and shows this boasting king that what he had done was done by the Divine appointment, and that of his own counsel and might he could have done nothing. It was because God had appointed them to this civil destruction that he had overcome them; and it was not through his might; for God had made their inhabitants of small power, so that he only got the victory over men whom God had confounded, dismayed, and enervated, Kg2 19:26.

Verse 28

I will put my hook in thy nose - This seems to be an allusion to the method of guiding a buffalo; he has a sort of ring put into his nose, to which a cord or bridle is attached, by which he can be turned to the right, or to the left, or round about, according to the pleasure of his driver.

Verse 29

This shall be a sign unto thee - To Hezekiah; for to him this part of the address is made. Ye shall eat this year - Sennacherib had ravaged the country, and seed-time was now over, yet God shows them that he would so bless the land, that what should grow of itself that year, would be quite sufficient to supply the inhabitants and prevent all famine; and though the second year was the sabbatical rest or jubilee for the land, in which it was unlawful to plough or sow; yet even then the land, by an especial blessing of God, should bring forth a sufficiency for its inhabitants; and in the third year they should sow and plant, etc. and have abundance, etc. Now this was to be a sign to Hezekiah, that his deliverance had not been effected by natural or casual means; for as without a miracle the ravaged and uncultivated land could not yield food for its inhabitants, so not without miraculous interference could the Assyrian army be cut off and Israel saved.

Verse 30

The remnant - shall yet again take root - As your corn shall take root in the soil, and bring forth and abundantly multiply itself, so shall the Jewish people; the population shall be greatly increased, and the desolations occasioned by the sword soon be forgotten.

Verse 31

Out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant - The Jews shall be so multiplied as not only to fill Jerusalem, but all the adjacent country. And they that escape out of Mount Zion - Some think that this refers to the going forth of the apostles to the Gentile world, and converting the nations by the preaching of the Gospel.

Verse 32

He shall not, etc. - Here follow the fullest proofs that Jerusalem shall not be taken by the Assyrians. 1. He shall not come into this city; 2. He shall not be able to get so near as to shoot an arrow into it; 3. He shall not be able to bring an army before it, 4. Nor shall he be able to raise any redoubt or mound against it; 5. No; not even an Assyrian shield shall be seen in the country; not even a foraging party shall come near the city.

Verse 33

By the way that he came - Though his army shall not return, yet he shall return to Assyria; for because of his blasphemy he is reserved for a more ignominious death.

Verse 35

That night - The very night after the blasphemous message had been sent, and this comfortable prophecy delivered. The angel of the Lord went out - I believe this angel or messenger of the Lord was simply a suffocating or pestilential Wind; by which the Assyrian army was destroyed, as in a moment, without noise confusion or any warning. See the note Kg1 20:30. Thus was the threatening, Kg2 19:7, fulfilled, I will send a Blast upon him; for he had heard the rumor that his territories were invaded; and on his way to save his empire, in one night the whole of his army was destroyed, without any one even seeing who had hurt them. This is called an angel or messenger of the Lord: that is, something immediately sent by him to execute his judgments. When they arose early - That is, Sennacherib, and probably a few associates, who were preserved as witnesses and relaters of this most dire disaster. Rab-shakeh, no doubt, perished with the rest of the army.

Verse 36

Dwelt at Nineveh - This was the capital of the Assyrian empire.

Verse 37

Nisroch his god - We know nothing of this deity; he is nowhere else mentioned. Smote him with the sword - The rabbins say that his sons had learned that he intended to sacrifice them to this god, and that they could only prevent this by slaying him. The same writers add, that he consulted his wise men how it was that such miracles should be wrought for the Israelites; who told him that it was because of the merit of Abraham who had offered his only son to God: he then said, I will offer to him my two sons; which when they heard, they rose up and slew him. When a rabbin cannot untie a knot, he feels neither scruple nor difficulty to cut it.

Introduction

HEZEKIAH IN DEEP AFFLICTION. (Kg2 19:1-5) when king Hezekiah heard it, he rent his clothes--The rending of his clothes was a mode of expressing horror at the daring blasphemy--the assumption of sackcloth a sign of his mental distress--his entrance into the temple to pray the refuge of a pious man in affliction--and the forwarding an account of the Assyrian's speech to Isaiah was to obtain the prophet's counsel and comfort. The expression in which the message was conveyed described, by a strong figure, the desperate condition of the kingdom, together with their own inability to help themselves; and it intimated also a hope, that the blasphemous defiance of Jehovah's power by the impious Assyrian might lead to some direct interposition for the vindication of His honor and supremacy to all heathen gods.

Verse 4

the living God--"The living God" is a most significant expression taken in connection with the senseless deities that Rab-shakeh boasted were unable to resist his master's victorious arms.

Verse 6

COMFORTED BY ISAIAH. (Kg2 19:6-7) Isaiah said . . . Be not afraid--The prophet's answer was most cheering, as it held out the prospect of a speedy deliverance from the invader. The blast, the rumor, the fall by the sword, contained a brief prediction that was soon fulfilled in all the three particulars--namely, the alarm that hastened his retreat, the destruction that overtook his army, and the violent death that suddenly ended his career.

Verse 8

SENNACHERIB SENDS A BLASPHEMOUS LETTER TO HEZEKIAH. (Kg2 19:8-13) So Rab-shakeh . . . found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah--Whether Lachish had fallen or not, is not said. But Sennacherib had transferred his battering-rams against the apparently neighboring fortress of Libnah (Jos 10:29; compare Jos 10:31; Jos 15:42), where the chief-cup-bearer reported the execution of his mission.

Verse 9

when he heard say of Tirhakah . . ., Behold, he is come out to fight against thee, &c.--This was the "rumor" to which Isaiah referred [Kg2 19:7]. Tirhakah reigned in Upper Egypt, while So (or Sabaco) ruled in Lower Egypt. He was a powerful monarch, another Sesostris, and both he and Sabaco have left many monuments of their greatness. The name and figure of Tirhakah receiving war captives, are still seen in the Egyptian temple of Medinet Abou. This was the expected succor which was sneered at by Rab-shakeh as "a bruised reed" (Kg2 18:21). Rage against Hezekiah for allying himself with Egypt, or the hope of being better able to meet this attack from the south, induced him, after hearing the rumor of Tirhakah's advance, to send a menacing letter to Hezekiah, in order that he might force the king of Judah to an immediate surrender of his capital. This letter, couched in the same vaunting and imperious style as the speech of Rab-shakeh, exceeded it in blasphemy, and contained a larger enumeration of conquered places, with the view of terrifying Hezekiah and showing him the utter hopelessness of all attempts at resistance.

Verse 14

HEZEKIAH'S PRAYER. (2Ki. 19:14-34) Hezekiah received the letter . . . and went up into the house of the Lord--Hezekiah, after reading it, hastened into the temple, spread it in the childlike confidence of faith before the Lord, as containing taunts deeply affecting the divine honor, and implored deliverance from this proud defier of God and man. The devout spirit of this prayer, the recognition of the Divine Being in the plenitude of His majesty--so strikingly contrasted with the fancy of the Assyrians as to His merely local power; his acknowledgment of the conquests obtained over other lands; and of the destruction of their wooden idols which, according to the Assyrian practice, were committed to the flames--because their tutelary deities were no gods; and the object for which he supplicated the divine interposition--that all the kingdoms of the earth might know that the Lord was the only God--this was an attitude worthy to be assumed by a pious theocratic king of the chosen people.

Verse 20

Then Isaiah . . . sent--A revelation having been made to Isaiah, the prophet announced to the king that his prayer was heard. The prophetic message consisted of three different portions:--First, Sennacherib is apostrophized (Kg2 19:21-28) in a highly poetical strain, admirably descriptive of the turgid vanity, haughty pretensions, and presumptuous impiety of the Assyrian despot. Secondly, Hezekiah is addressed (Kg2 19:29-31), and a sign is given him of the promised deliverance--namely, that for two years the presence of the enemy would interrupt the peaceful pursuits of husbandry, but in the third year the people would be in circumstances to till their fields and vineyards and reap the fruits as formerly. Thirdly, the issue of Sennacherib's invasion is announced (Kg2 19:32-34).

Verse 33

shall not come into this city--nor approach near enough to shoot an arrow, not even from the most powerful engine which throws missiles to the greatest distance, nor shall he occupy any part of the ground before the city by a fence, a mantelet, or covering for men employed in a siege, nor cast (raise) a bank (mound) of earth, overtopping the city walls, whence he may see and command the interior of the city. None of these, which were the principal modes of attack followed in ancient military art, should Sennacherib be permitted to adopt. Though the army under Rab-shakeh marched towards Jerusalem and encamped at a little distance with a view to blockade it, they delayed laying siege to it, probably waiting till the king, having taken Lachish and Libnah, should bring up his detachment, that with all the combined forces of Assyria they might invest the capital. So determined was this invader to conquer Judah and the neighboring countries (Isa 10:7), that nothing but a divine interposition could have saved Jerusalem. It might be supposed that the powerful monarch who overran Palestine and carried away the tribes of Israel, would leave memorials of his deeds on sculptured slabs, or votive bulls. A long and minute account of this expedition is contained in the Annals of Sennacherib, a translation of which has recently been made into English, and, in his remarks upon it, COLONEL RAWLINSON says the Assyrian version confirms the most important features of the Scripture account. The Jewish and Assyrian narratives of the campaign are, indeed, on the whole, strikingly illustrative of each other [Outlines of Assyrian History].

Verse 35

AN ANGEL DESTROYS THE ASSYRIANS. (Kg2 19:35-36) in the morning . . . they were all dead corpses--It was the miraculous interposition of the Almighty that defended Jerusalem. As to the secondary agent employed in the destruction of the Assyrian army, it is most probable that it was effected by a hot south wind, the simoon, such as to this day often envelops and destroys whole caravans. This conjecture is supported by Kg2 19:7 and Jer 51:1. The destruction was during the night; the officers and soldiers, being in full security, were negligent; their discipline was relaxed; the camp guards were not alert, or perhaps they themselves were the first taken off, and those who slept, not wrapped up, imbibed the poison plentifully. If this had been an evening of dissolute mirth (no uncommon thing in a camp), their joy (perhaps for a victory), or "the first night of their attacking the city," says JOSEPHUS, became, by its effects, one means of their destruction [CALMET, Fragments].

Verse 36

So Sennacherib king of Assyria . . . went and returned--the same way as he came (Kg2 19:33). The route is described (Isa 10:28-32). The early chariot track near Beyrout is on the rocky edge of Lebanon, which is skirted by the ancient Lycus (Nahr-el Kelb). On the perpendicular face of the limestone rock, at different heights, are seen slabs with Assyrian inscriptions, which having been deciphered, are found to contain the name of Sennacherib. Thus, by the preservation of these tablets, the wrath of the Assyrian invaders is made to praise the Lord. dwelt at Nineveh--This statement implies a considerable period of time, and his Annals carry on his history at least five years after his disastrous campaign at Jerusalem. No record of his catastrophe can be found, as the Assyrian practice was to record victories alone. The sculptures give only the sunny side of the picture.

Verse 37

SENNACHERIB SLAIN. (Kg2 19:37) as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch--Assarae, or Asshur, the head of the Assyrian Pantheon, represented not as a vulture-headed figure (that is now ascertained to be a priest), but as a winged figure in a circle, which was the guardian deity of Assyria. The king is represented on the monuments standing or kneeling beneath this figure, his hand raised in sign of prayer or adoration. his sons smote him with the sword--Sennacherib's temper, exasperated probably by his reverses, displayed itself in the most savage cruelty and intolerable tyranny over his subjects and slaves, till at length he was assassinated by his two sons, whom, it is said, he intended to sacrifice to pacify the gods and dispose them to grant him a return of prosperity. The parricides taking flight into Armenia, a third son, Esar-haddon, ascended the throne. Next: 2 Kings Chapter 20

Verse 1

When Hezekiah had heard from his counsellors the report of Rabshakeh's words, he rent his clothes with horror at his daring mockery of the living God (Kg2 19:4), put on mourning clothes as a sign of the trouble of his soul and went into the temple, and at the same time sent Eliakim and Shebna with the oldest of the priests in mourning costume to the prophet Isaiah, to entreat him to intercede with the Lord in these desperate circumstances. (Note: "But the most wise king did not meet his blasphemies with weapons, but with prayer, and tears, and sackcloth, and entreated the prophet Isaiah to be his ambassador." - Theodoret.) The order of the words: Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, is unusual (cf. Kg2 14:25; Kg2 20:1; Kg1 16:7, etc.), and is therefore altered in Isaiah into Isaiah the son of Amoz, the prophet.

Verse 3

"A day of distress, and of chastisement, and of rejection is this day." תּוכחה: the divine chastisement. נאצה: contemptuous treatment, or rejection of the people on the part of God (compare נאץ, Deu 32:19; Jer 14:21; Lam 2:6). "For children have come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth." A figure denoting extreme danger, the most desperate circumstances. If the woman in travail has not strength to bring forth the child which has come to the mouth of the womb, both the life of the child and that of the mother are exposed to the greatest danger; and this was the condition of the people here (see the similar figure in Hos 13:13). For לדה instead of לדת, see Ges. 69, 2 Anm.

Verse 4

Perhaps Jehovah thy God will hear the blasphemies of the living God on the part of Rabshakeh. ישׁמע: hear, equivalent to observes, take notice of, and in this case punish. חי אלהים: the living God, in contrast to the gods of the heathen, who are only lifeless idols (cf. Sa1 17:26, Sa1 17:36). והוכיח is not to be taken in connection with לחרף, as if it stood for להוכיח, "and to scold with words" (Luth., Ges., etc.), but is a perf. rel. or a progressive perfect (Ewald, 234, a.), and the continuation of ישׁמע: "and will chastise (punish, sc. him) for the words which He has heard." תף ונשׂאת "therefore lift up prayer (to heaven) for the (still) existing remnant, sc. of the people of God;" nearly all Judah having come into the power of Sennacherib since the carrying away of the ten tribes.

Verse 5

Isaiah replied with this comforting promise: Hezekiah was not to be afraid of the blasphemous words of the Assyrian king; the Lord would frighten him with a report, so that he would return to his own land, and there would He cause him to fall by the sword. מלך א נערי, the servants or young men of the Assyrian king, is a derogatory epithet applied to the officials of Assyria. "Behold, I put a spirit into him, so that he shall hear a report and return into his own land." שׁמוּעה does not refer to the report of the destruction of his army (Kg2 19:35), as Thenius supposes, for Sennacherib did not hear of this through the medium of an army, but was with the army himself at the time when it was smitten by the angel of the Lord; it refers to the report mentioned in Kg2 19:9. For even if he made one last attempt to secure the surrender of Jerusalem immediately upon hearing this report, yet after the failure of this attempt to shake the firmness of Hezekiah his courage must have failed him, and the thought of return must have suggested itself, so that this was only accelerated by the blow which fell upon the army. For, as O. v. Gerlach has correctly observed, "the destruction of the army would hardly have produced any decisive effect without the approach of Tirhakah, since the great power of the Assyrian king, especially in relation to the small kingdom of Judah, was not broken thereby. But at the prayer of the king the Lord added this miracle to the other, which His providence had already brought to pass. - For the fulfilment of the prophecy of Sennacherib's death, see Kg2 19:37.

Verse 8

In the meantime Rabshakeh had returned to his king at Libnah (see at Kg2 8:22), to which he had gone from Lachish, probably after having taken that fortress. Kg2 19:9 There Sennacherib heard that Tirhakah was advancing to make war against him. Tirhakah, Θαρακά (lxx), king of Cush, is the Ταρακός of Manetho, the successor of Sevechus (Shebek II), the third king of the twenty-fifth (Ethiopian) dynasty, described by Strabo (xv. 687), who calls him Τεάρκων, as a great conqueror. His name is spelt Thlqa or Tharqo upon the monuments, and on the Pylon of the great temple at Medinet-Abu he is represented in the form of a king, cutting down enemies of conquered lands (Egypt, Syria, and Tepop, an unknown land) before the god Ammon (see Brugsch, hist. d'Egypte, i. pp. 244,245). (Note: According to Jul. Afric. (in Syncell. i. p. 139, ed. Dind.) he reigned eighteen years, according to Euseb. (in Syncell. p. 140) twenty years. Both statements are incorrect; for, according to an Apis-stele published by Mariette, the birth of an Apis who died in the twentieth year of Psammetichus fell in the twenty-sixth year of Tirhakah, so that the reign of Tirhakah may be supposed to have lasted twenty-eight years (see Brugsch, l.c. p. 247). But the chronological conclusions respecting the date of his reign are very uncertain. Whereas M. v. Niebuhr (Gesch. Ass. p. 72) fixes his expedition against Sennacherib in the thirty-seventh aer. Nab., i.e., 710 b.c., and the commencement of his reign over Egypt in 45 aer. Nab., i.e., 702 b.c., and assumes that he marched against Sennacherib before he was king of Egypt, which is apparently favoured by the epithet king of Cush, not of Egypt; Brugsch (l.c. p. 292) has given the year 693 b.c. as the commencement of his reign. It is obvious that this statement is irreconcilable with the O.T. chronology, since the fourteenth year of Hezekiah, in which Sennacherib invaded Judah, corresponds to the year 714 or 713 b.c. These diversities simply confirm our remark (p. 411), that the chronological data as to the kings of Egypt before Psammetichus cannot lay any claim to historical certainty. For an attempt to solve this discrepancy see M. v. Niebuhr, pp. 458ff.) - On hearing the report of the advance of Tirhakah, Sennacherib sent ambassadors again to Hezekiah with a letter (Kg2 19:14), in which he summoned him once more to give up his confidence in his God, and his assurance that Jerusalem would not be delivered into the hands of the king of Assyria, since the gods of no other nation had been able to save their lands and cities from the kings of Assyria who had preceded him. The letter contained nothing more, therefore, than a repetition of the arguments already adduced by Rabshakeh (Kg2 18:19.), though a larger number of the lands conquered by the Assyrians are given, for the purpose of strengthening the impression intended to be made upon Hezekiah of the irresistible character of the Assyrian arms. - To offer a successful resistance to Tirhakah and overcome him, Sennacherib wanted above all things a firm footing in Judah; and for this the possession of Jerusalem was of the greatest importance, since it would both cover his back and secure his retreat. Fortifications like Lachish and Libnah could be quickly taken by a violent assault. But it was very different with Jerusalem. Salmanasar had stood before Samaria for three years before he was able to conquer it; and Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem for two years before the city was starved out and it was possible to take it (Kg2 25:1.). But as Tirhakah was approaching, Sennacherib had no time now for so tedious a siege. He therefore endeavoured to induce Hezekiah to surrender the city quietly by a boastful description of his own power. Instead of ויּשׁלח ויּשׁב (Kg2 19:9), we have in Isaiah ויּשׁלח ויּשׁמע, "when he heard this he sent," which is probably the more original, and indicates that when Sennacherib received the intelligence he sent at once (Drechsler). Kg2 19:10-11 ישּׁיאך אל: "let not thy God deceive thee," i.e., do not allow yourself to be deceived by your confidence in your God. לאמר, to say, i.e., to think or believe, that Jerusalem will not be given, etc. To shatter this confidence, Sennacherib reminds him of the deeds of the Assyrian kings. להחרימם, to ban them, i.e., by smiting them with the ban. The verb החרים is chosen with emphasis, to express the unsparing destruction. הנּצל ואתּה: and thou shouldst be saved? - a question implying a strong negative. Kg2 19:12-13 "Have the gods of the nations delivered them?" אתם is not a pronoun used in anticipation of the object, which follows in וגו גּוזן (Thenius), but refers to כּל־הארצות in Kg2 19:11, a specification of which is given in the following enumeration. Gozan may be the province of Gauzanitis in Mesopotamia, but it may just as well be the country of Gauzania on the other side of the Tigris (see at Kg2 17:6). The combination with Haran does not force us to the first assumption, since the list is not a geographical but a historical one. - Haran (Charan), i.e., the Carrae of the Greeks and Romans, where Abraham's father Terah died, a place in northern Mesopotamia (see at Gen 11:31), is probably not merely the city here, but the country in which the city stood. - Rezeph (רצף), the Arabic rutsâfat, a very widespread name, since Jakut gives nine cities of this name in his Geographical Lexicon, is probably the most celebrated of the cities of that name, the Rusapha of Syria, called ̔Ρησάφα in Ptol. v. 15, in Palmyrene, on the road from Racca to Emesa, a day's journey from the Euphrates (cf. Ges. Thes. p. 1308). - "The sons of Eden, which (were in Telassar," were evidently a tribe whose chief settlement was in Telassar. By עדן we might understand the בּית־עדן of Amo 1:5, a city in a pleasant region of Syria, called Παράδεισος by Ptol. (v. 15), since there is still a village called Ehden in that locality (cf. Burckhardt, Syr. p. 66, and v. Schubert, Reise, iii. p. 366), if we could only discover Telassar in the neighbourhood, and if the village of Ehden could be identified with Παράδεισος and the Eden of the Bible, as is done even by Gesenius on Burckhardt, p. 492, and Thes. p. 195; but this Ehden is spelt ‛hdn in Arabic, and is not to be associated with עדן (see Rob. Bibl. Res. pp. 586, 587). Moreover the Thelseae near Damascus (in the Itin. Ant. p. 196, ed. Wess.) is too unlike Telassar to come into consideration. There is more to be said in favour of the identification of our עדן with the Assyrian Eden, which is mentioned in Eze 27:23 along with Haran and Calneh as an important place for trade, although its position cannot be more certainly defined; and neither the comparison with the tract of land called (Syr.) ma‛āden, Maadon, which Assemani (Biblioth. or. ii. p. 224) places in Mesopotamia, towards the Tigris, in the present province of Diarbekr (Ges., Win.), nor the conjecture of Knobel that the tribe-name Eden may very probably have been preserved in the large but very dilapidated village of Adana or Adna, some distance to the north of Bagdad (Ker Porter, Journey, ii. p. 355, and Ritter, Erdk. ix. p. 493), can be established as even a probability. תּלאשּׂר, Telassar, is also quite unknown. The name applies very well to Thelser on the eastern side of the Tigris (Tab. Peut. xi. e), where even the later Targums on Gen 10:12 have placed it, interpreting Nimrod's Resen by תלסר, תלאסר, though Knobel opposes this on the ground that a place in Assyria proper is unsuitable in such a passage as this, where the Assyrian feats of war outside Assyria itself are enumerated. Movers (Phniz. ii. 3, p. 251) conjectures that the place referred to is Thelassar in Terodon, a leading emporium for Arabian wares on the Persian Gulf, and supposes that Terodon has sprung from Teledon with the Persian pronunciation of the תל, which is very frequent in the names of Mesopotamian cities. This conjecture is at any rate a more natural one than that of Knobel on Isa 37:12, that the place mentioned in Assemani (Bib. or. iii. 2, p. 870), (Arabic) tl b-ṣrṣr, Tel on the Szarszar, to the west of the present Bagdad, is intended. - With regard to the places named in Kg2 19:13, see at Kg2 18:34.

Verse 14

Hezekiah's prayer. - Kg2 19:14. Hezekiah took the letter, read it, went into the temple and spread it out before Jehovah, to lay open its contents before God. The contents of the letter are given in Kg2 19:10-13 in the form of the message which the ambassadors delivered to Hezekiah from their king, because the ambassadors communicated to Hezekiah by word of mouth the essential contents of the writing which they conveyed, and simply handed him the letter as a confirmation of their words. ספרים, like litterae, means a letter; hence the singular suffix attached to ויּפרשׂהוּ, whereas in the case of ויּקראם, which stands nearer, the suffix follows the number of the noun to which it refers. The spreading out of the letter before God was an embodiment of the wish, which sprang from a child-like and believing trust, that the Lord would notice and punish that defiance of the living God which it contained. What Hezekiah meant by this action he expressed in the following prayer. Kg2 19:15 In opposition to the delusion of the Assyrians, he describes Jehovah, the God of Israel, as the only God of all the kingdoms of the earth, since He was the Creator of heaven and earth. הכּרבים ישׁב (see at Sa1 4:4 and Exo 25:22) indicates the covenant-relation into which Jehovah, the almighty Creator and Ruler of the whole world, had entered towards Israel. As the covenant God who was enthroned above the cherubim the Lord was bound to help His people, if they turned to Him with faith in the time of their distress and entreated His assistance; and as the only God of all the world He had the power to help. In Isaiah, צבאות, which is very rare in historical prose, but very common in prophetical addresses, is added to the name יהוה, and thus Jehovah at the very outset is addressed as the God of the universe. On the meaning of צבאות, see at Sa1 1:3. On האלהים הוּא אתּה, see Sa2 7:28 and Kg1 18:39. Kg2 19:16 The accumulation of the words, "bow down Thine ear, Jehovah, and hear; open, Jehovah, Thine eyes and see, and hear the words," etc., indicates the earnestness and importunity of the prayer. The plural עיניך by the side of the singular אזנך is the correct reading, since the expression "to incline the ear" is constantly met with (Psa 17:6; Psa 31:3; Psa 45:11, etc.); and even in the plural, "incline ye your ear" (Psa 78:1; Isa 55:3), and on the other hand "to open the eyes" (Job 27:19; Pro 20:13; Zac 12:4; Dan 9:18), because a man always opens both eyes to see anything, whereas he turns one ear to a person speaking. The עינך of Isaiah is also plural, though written defectively, as the Masora has already observed. The suffix in שׁלחו, which is wanting in Isaiah, belongs to אשׁר, and refers with this to דּברי in the sense of speech: the speech which Sennacherib had made in his letter. Kg2 19:17-19 After the challenge, to observe the blasphemies of Sennacherib, Hezekiah mentions the fact that the Assyrians have really devastated all lands, and therefore that it is not without ground that they boast of their mighty power; but he finds the explanation of this in the impotence and nothingness of the gods of the heathen. אמנם, truly, indeed - the kings of Asshur have devastated the nations and their land. Instead of this we find in Isaiah: "they have devastated all lands and their (own) land" - which is evidently the more difficult and also the more original reading, and has been altered in our account, because the thought that the Assyrians had devastated their own land by making war upon other lands, that is to say, had depopulated it and thereby laid it waste, was not easy to understand. "And have cast their gods into the fire, for they are not gods, but works of human hands, wood and stone, and have thus destroyed them." Hezekiah does not mention this as a sign of the recklessness of the Assyrians (Knobel), but, because Sennacherib had boasted that the gods of no nation had been able to resist him (vv. 12, 13), to put this fact in the right light, and attach thereto the prayer that Jehovah, by granting deliverance, would make known to all the kingdoms of the earth that He alone was God. Instead of ונתנוּ we have in Isaiah ונתון, the inf. absol.; in this connection the more difficult and more genuine reading. This also applies to the omission of אלהים (Kg2 19:19) in Isa 37:20, since the use of Jehovah as a predicate, "that Thou alone art Jehovah," is very rare, and has therefore been misunderstood even by Gesenius. By the introduction of Elohim, the thought "that Thou Jehovah art God alone" is simplified.

Verse 20

The divine promise. - Kg2 19:20, Kg2 19:21. When Hezekiah had prayed, the prophet Isaiah received a divine revelation with regard to the hearing of this prayer, which he sent, i.e., caused to be handed over, to the king. שׁמעתּי (Kg2 19:21) is omitted in Isaiah, so that וגו התפּלּלתּ אשׁר is to be taken in the sense of "with regard to that which thou hast prayed to me," whilst שׁמעתּי (I have heard) elucidates the thought and simplifies the construction. The word of the Lord announced to the king, (1) the shameful retreat of Sennacherib as a just retribution for his mockery of the living God (Kg2 19:21-28; Isa 37:22-29); (2) the confirmation of this assurance through the indication of a sign by which Hezekiah was to recognise the deliverance of Jerusalem (Kg2 19:29-31; Isa 37:30-32), and through the distinct promise, that the Assyrian would neither come into the city nor besiege it, because the Lord was sheltering it (Kg2 19:32-34; Isa 37:33-35). In the first part the words are addressed with poetic vivacity directly to Sennacherib, and scourge his haughty boastings by pointing to the ridicule and scorn which would follow him on his departure from the land. Kg2 19:21 "The virgin daughter Zion despises thee, the daughter Jerusalem shakes the head behind thee." By daughter Zion, daughter Jerusalem, we are not to understand the inhabitants of Zion, or of Jerusalem, as though בּת stood for בּנים or בּני (Ges., Hitzig, and others); but the city itself with its inhabitants is pictorially personified as a daughter and virgin, and the construct state בּת־ציּון is to be taken, like פּרת נהר, as in apposition: "daughter Zion," not daughter of Zion (vid., Ges. 116, 5; Ewald, 287, e.). Even in the case of בּתוּלת the construct state expresses simply the relation of apposition. Zion is called a "virgin" as being an inviolable city to the Assyrians, i.e., one which they cannot conquer. Shaking the head is a gesture denoting derision and pleasure at another's misfortune (cf. Psa 22:8; Psa 109:25, etc.). "Behind thee," i.e., after thee as thou goest away, is placed first as a pictorial feature for the sake of emphasis. Kg2 19:22-23 This derision falls upon the Assyrian, for having blasphemed the Lord God by his foolish boasting about his irresistible power. "Whom hast thou despised and blasphemed, and against whom hast thou lifted up the voice? and thou liftest up thine eyes against the Holy One of Israel." Lifting up the voice refers to the tone of threatening assumption, in which Rabshakeh and Sennacherib had spoken. Lifting up the eyes on high, i.e., to the heavens, signifies simply looking up to the sky (cf. Isa 40:26), not "directing proud looks against God" (Ges.). Still less is מרום to be taken adverbially in the sense of haughtily, as Thenius and Knobel suppose. The bad sense of proud arrogance lies in the words which follow, "against the Holy One of Israel," or in the case of Isaiah, where אל stands for על, in the context, viz., the parallelism of the members. God is called the Holy One of Israel as He who manifests His holiness in and upon Israel. This title of the Deity is one of the peculiarities of Isaiah's range of thought, although it originated with Asaph (Psa 78:41; see at Isa 1:4). This insult to the holy God consisted in the fact that Sennacherib had said through his servants (Kg2 19:23, Kg2 19:24): "With my chariots upon chariots I have ascended the height of the mountains, the uttermost part of Lebanon, so that I felled the tallness of its cedars, the choice of its cypresses, and came to the shelter of its border, to the forest of its orchard. I have dug and drunk strange water, so that I dried up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet." The words put into the mouth of the Assyrian are expressive of the feeling which underlay all his blasphemies (Drechsler). The two verses are kept quite uniform, the second hemistich in both cases expressing the result of the first, that is to say, what the Assyrian intended still further to perform after having accomplished what is stated in the first hemistich. When he has ascended the heights of Lebanon, he devastates the glorious trees of the mountain. Consequently in Kg2 19:24 the drying up of the Nile of Egypt is to be taken as the result of the digging of wells in the parched desert; in other words, it is to be interpreted as descriptive of the devastation of Egypt, whose whole fertility depended upon its being watered by the Nile and its canals. We cannot therefore take these verses exactly as Drechsler does; that is to say, we cannot assume that the Assyrian is speaking in the first hemistichs of both verses of what he (not necessarily Sennacherib himself, but one of his predecessors) has actually performed. For even if the ascent of the uttermost heights of Lebanon had been performed by one of the kings of Assyria, there is no historical evidence whatever that Sennacherib or one of his predecessors had already forced his way into Egypt. The words are therefore to be understood in a figurative sense, as an individualizing picture of the conquests which the Assyrians had already accomplished, and those which they were still intending to effect; and this assumption does not necessarily exhibit Sennacherib "as a mere braggart, who boastfully heaps up in ridiculous hyperbole an enumeration of the things which he means to perform" (Drechsler). For if the Assyrian had not ascended with the whole multitude of his war-chariots to the loftiest summits of Lebanon, to feel its cedars and its cypresses, Lebanon had set no bounds to his plans of conquest, so that Sennacherib might very well represent his forcing his way into Canaan as an ascent of the lofty peaks of this mountain range. Lebanon is mentioned, partly as a range of mountains that was quite inaccessible to war-chariots, and partly as the northern defence of the land of Canaan, through the conquest of which one made himself lord of the land. And so far as Lebanon is used synecdochically for the land of which it formed the defence, the hewing down of its cedars and cypresses, those glorious witnesses of the creation of God, denotes the devastation of the whole land, with all its glorious works of nature and of human hands. The chief strength of the early Asiatic conquerors consisted in the multitude of their war-chariots: they are therefore brought into consideration simply as signs of vast military resources; the fact that they could only be used on level ground being therefore disregarded. The Chethb רכבּי רכב, "my chariots upon chariots," is used poetically for an innumerable multitude of chariots, as גּובי גּוב for an innumerable host of locusts (Nah 3:17), and is more original than the Keri רכבּי רב, the multitude of my chariots, which simply follows Isaiah. The "height of the mountains" is more precisely defined by the emphatic לבנון ירכּתי, the uttermost sides, i.e., the loftiest heights, of Lebanon, just as בור ירכּתי in Isa 14:15 and Eze 32:23 are the uttermost depths of Sheol. ארזיו קומת, his tallest cedars. בּרשׁיו מבחור, his most select or finest cypresses. קצּה מלון, for which Isaiah has the more usual קצּו מרום, "the height of his end," is the loftiest point of Lebanon on which a man can rest, not a lodging built on the highest point of Lebanon (Cler., Vitr., Ros.). כּרמלּו יער, the forest of his orchard, i.e., the forest resembling an orchard. The reference is to the celebrated cedar-forest between the loftiest peaks of Lebanon at the village of Bjerreh. Kg2 19:24 Kg2 19:24 refers to the intended conquest of Egypt. Just as Lebanon could not stop the expeditions of the Assyrians, or keep them back from the conquest of the land of Canaan, so the desert of et Tih, which separated Egypt from Asia, notwithstanding its want of water (cf. Herod. iii. 5; Rob. Pal. i. p. 262), was no hindrance to him, which could prevent his forcing his way through it and laying Egypt waste. The digging of water is, of course, not merely "a reopening of the wells that had been choked with rubbish, and the cisterns that had been covered up before the approaching enemy" (Thenius), but the digging of wells in the waterless desert. זרים מים, strange water, is not merely water belonging to others, but water not belonging to this soil (Drechsler), i.e., water supplied by a region which had none at other times. By the perfects the thing is represented as already done, as exposed to no doubt whatever; we must bear in mind, however, that the desert of et Tih is not expressly named, but the expression is couched in such general terms, that we may also assume that it includes what the Assyrian had really effected in his expeditions through similar regions. The drying up of the rivers with the soles of the feet is a hyperbolical expression denoting the omnipotence with which the Assyrian rules over the earth. Just as he digs water in the desert where no water is to be had, so does he annihilate it where mighty rivers exist. (Note: Compare the similar boasting of Alarich, already quoted by earlier commentators, in Claudian, de bello Geth. v. 526ff.: cum cesserit omnis Obsequiis natura meis? subsidere nostris Sub pedibus montes, arescere vidimus amnes. v. 532. Fregi Alpes. galeis Padum victricibus hausi.) יאורי are the arms and canals of the Yeor, i.e., of the Nile. מצור, a rhetorical epithet for Egypt, used not only here, but also in Isa 19:6 and Mic 7:12. Kg2 19:25-34 To this foolish boasting the prophet opposes the divine purpose which had been formed long ago, and according to which the Assyrian, without knowing it or being willing to acknowledge it, had acted simply as the instrument of the Lord, who had given him the power to destroy, but who would soon restrain his ranting against Him, the true God. Kg2 19:25 "Hast thou not heard? Long ago have I done this, from the days of olden time have I formed it! Now have I brought it to pass, that fortified cities should be to be destroyed into waste heaps." Kg2 19:26. "And their inhabitants, short of hand, were dismayed and put to shame; they were herb of the field and green of the turf, grass of the roofs and blighted corn before the stalk." Kg2 19:27. "And thy sitting and thy going out and thy coming I know, and thy raging against me." Kg2 19:28. "Because of thy raging against me and thy safety, which rise up into my ears, I put my ring into thy nose, and my bridle into thy lips, and bring thee back by the way by which thou hast come." The words are still addressed to the Assyrian, of whom the Lord inquires whether he does not know that the destructive deeds performed by him had been determined very long before. "Hast thou not heart?" namely, what follows, what the Lord had long ago made known through His prophets in Judah (cf. Isa 7:7-9; Isa 8:1-4 and Isa 8:7, etc.). למרחוק, from distant time have I done it, etc., refers to the divine ordering and governing of the events of the universe, which God has purposed and established from the very beginning of time. The pronoun אתהּ, and the suffixes attached to יצרתּיה and הביאתיה, do not refer with vague generality to the substance of Kg2 19:23 and Kg2 19:24, i.e., to the boastings of the Assyrians quoted there (Drechsler), but to להשׁות וּתהי, i.e., to the conquests and devastations which the Assyrian had really effected. The ו before יצרתיה introduces the apodosis, as is frequently the case after a preceding definition of time (cf. Ges. 155, a). להשׁות וּתהי, "that it may be to destroy" (להשׁות, a contraction of להשׁאות, Keri and Isaiah, from שׁאה; see Ewald, 73, c., and 245, b.), i.e., that it shall be destroyed, - according to a turn which is very common in Isaiah, like לבער היה, it is to burn = it shall be burned (cf. Isa 5:5; Isa 6:13; Isa 44:15, and Ewald, 237, c.). The rendering given by Ges., Knob., Then., and others, "that thou mayest be for destruction," is at variance with this usage. Kg2 19:26-28 Kg2 19:26 is closely connected, so far as the sense is concerned, with the last clause of Kg2 19:25, but in form it is only loosely attached: "and their inhabitants were," instead of "that their inhabitants might be." יד קצרי, of short hand, i.e., without power to offer a successful resistance (cf. Num 11:23, and Isa 50:2; Isa 59:1). - They were herbage of the field, etc., just as perishable as the herbage, grass, etc., which quickly fade away (cf. Psa 37:2; Psa 90:5-6; Isa 40:6). The grass of the roofs fades still more quickly, because it cannot strike deep roots (cf. Psa 129:6). Blighted corn before the stalk, i.e., corn which is blighted and withered up, before it shoots up into a stalk. In Isaiah we have שׁדמה instead of שׁדפה, with a change of the labials, probably for the purpose of preserving an assonance with קמה, which must not therefore be altered into שׁדמה. The thought in the two verses is this: The Assyrian does not owe his victories and conquests to his irresistible might, but purely to the fact that God had long ago resolved to deliver the nations into his hands, so that it was possible to overcome them without their being able to offer any resistance. This the Assyrian had not perceived, but in his daring pride had exalted himself above the living God. This conduct of his the Lord was well acquainted with, and He would humble him for it. Sitting and going out and coming denote all the actions of a man, like sitting down and rising up in Psa 139:2. Instead of rising up, we generally find going out and coming in (cf. Deu 28:6 and Psa 121:8). התרגּזך, thy raging, commotio furibunda, quae ex ira nascitur superbiae mixta (Vitr.). We must repeat רען before שׁאננך; and באזני עלה is to be taken in a relative sense: on account of thy self-security, which has come to my ears. שׁאנן is the security of the ungodly which springs from the feeling of great superiority in power. The figurative words, "I put my ring into thy nose," are taken from the custom of restraining wild animals, such as lions (Eze 19:4) and other wild beasts (Eze 29:4 and Isa 30:28), in this manner. For "the bridle in the lips" of ungovernable horses, see Psa 32:9. To lead a person back by the way by which he had come, i.e., to lead him back disappointed, without having reached the goal that he set before him. Kg2 19:29 To confirm what he had said, the prophet gave to Hezekiah a sign (Kg2 19:29.): "Eat this year what groweth in the fallow, and in the second year what groweth wild, and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof." That the words are not addressed to the king of Assyria as in Kg2 19:28, but to Hezekiah, is evident from their contents. This sudden change in the person addressed may be explained from the fact that from Kg2 19:29 the words contain a perfectly fresh train of thought. For האות זה־לּך see Exo 3:12; Sa1 2:34 and Sa1 14:10; also Jer 44:29. In all these passages אות, σημεῖον, is not a (supernatural) wonder, a מופת as in Kg1 13:3, but consists simply in the prediction of natural events, which serve as credentials to a prediction, whereas in Isa 7:14 and Isa 38:7 a miracle is given as an אות. The inf. abs. אכול is not used for the pret. (Ges., Then., and others), but for the imperf. or fut.: "one will eat." השּׁנה, the (present) year. ספיח signifies the corn which springs up and grows from the grains that have been shaken out the previous year (Lev 25:5, Lev 25:11). סחישׁ (in Isa. שׁחיס) is explained by Abulw. as signifying the corn which springs up again from the roots of what has been sown. The etymology of the word is uncertain, so that it is impossible to decide which of the two forms is the original one. For the fact itself compare the evidence adduced in the Comm. on Lev 25:7, that in Palestine and other lands two or three harvests can be reaped from one sowing. - The signs mentioned do not enable us to determine with certainty how long the Assyrians were in the land. All that can be clearly gathered from the words, "in this and the following year will they live upon that which has sprung up without any sowing," is that for two years, i.e., in two successive autumns, the fields could not be cultivated because the enemy had occupied the land and laid it waste. But whether the occupation lasted two years, or only a year and a little over, depends upon the time of the year at which the Assyrians entered the land. If the invasion of Judah took place in autumn, shortly before the time for sowing, and the miraculous destruction of the Assyrian forces occurred a year after about the same time, the sowing of two successive years would be prevented, and the population of Judah would be compelled to live for two years upon what had sprung up without sowing. Consequently both the prophecy of Isaiah and the fulfilment recorded in vv. 35, 36 would fall in the autumn, when the Assyrians had ruled for a whole year in the land; so that the prophet was able to say: in this year and in the second (i.e., the next) will they eat after-growth and wild growth; inasmuch as when he said this, the first year had not quite expired. Even if the overthrow of the Assyrians took place immediately afterwards (cf. Kg2 19:35), with the extent to which they had carried out the desolation of the land, many of the inhabitants having been slain or taken prisoners, and many others having been put to flight, it would be utterly impossible in the same year to cultivate the fields and sow them, and the people would be obliged to live in the second or following year upon what had grown wild, until the harvest of the second year, when the land could be properly cultivated, or rather till the third year, when it could be reaped again. (Note: There is no necessity, therefore, to explain the sign here given, either by the assumption of a sabbatical year, with or without a year of jubilee following, or by supposing that the Assyrians did not depart immediately after the catastrophe described in Kg2 19:35, but remained till after they had attempted an expedition into Egypt, or indeed by any other artificial hypothesis.) Kg2 19:30-34 The sign is followed in Kg2 19:30, Kg2 19:31 by the distinct promise of the deliverance of Judah and Jerusalem, for which Isaiah uses the sign itself as a type. "And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again strike roots downwards and bear fruit upwards; for from Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and that which is escaped from Mount Zion; the zeal of Jehovah will do this." שׁרשׁ יסף, to add roots, i.e., to strike fresh roots. The meaning is, that Judah will not succumb to this judgment. The remnant of the nation that has escaped from destruction by the Assyrians will once more grow and flourish vigorously; for from Jerusalem will a rescued remnant go forth. פּליטה denotes those who have escaped destruction by the judgment (cf. Isa 4:2; Isa 10:20, etc.). The deliverance was attached to Jerusalem or to Mount Zion, not so much because the power of the Assyrians was to be destroyed before the gates of Jerusalem, as because of the greater importance which Jerusalem and Mount Zion, as the centre of the kingdom of God, the seat of the God-King, possessed in relation to the covenant-nation, so that, according to Isa 2:3, it was thence that the Messianic salvation was also to proceed. This deliverance is traced to the zeal of the Lord on behalf of His people and against His foes (see at Exo 20:5), like the coming of the Messiah in Isa 9:6 to establish an everlasting kingdom of peace and righteousness. The deliverance of Judah out of the power of Asshur was a prelude and type of the deliverance of the people of God by the Messiah out of the power of all that was ungodly. The צבאות of Isaiah is omitted after יהוה, just as in Kg2 19:15; though here it is supplied by the Masora as Keri. - In Kg2 19:32-34 Isaiah concludes by announcing that Sennacherib will not come to Jerusalem, nor even shoot at the city and besiege it, but will return disappointed, because the Lord will defend and save the city for the sake of His promise. The result of the whole prophecy is introduced with לכן: therefore, because this is how the matter stands, viz., as explained in what precedes. אל־מלך, with regard to the king, as in Kg2 19:20. מגן יקדּמנּה לא, "he will not attack it with a shield," i.e., will not advance with shields to make an attack upon it. קדּם with a double accusative, as in Psa 21:4. It only occurs here in a hostile sense: to come against, as in Psa 18:19, i.e., to advance against a city, to storm it. The four clauses of the verse stand in a graduated relation to one another: not to take, not even to shoot at and attack, yea, not even to besiege the city, will he come. In Kg2 19:33 we have Kg2 19:28 taken up again, and Kg2 19:32 is repeated in Kg2 19:33 for the purpose of strengthening the promise. Instead of בּהּ יבוא we have in Isaiah בּהּ בּא: "by which he has come." The perfect is actually more exact, and the imperfect may be explained from the fact that Sennacherib was at that very time advancing against Jerusalem. In Kg2 19:34 we have אל גּנּותי instead of the על גּנּותי of Isaiah: על is more correct than אל. "For my sake," as Hezekiah had prayed in v. 19; and "for my servant David's sake," because Jehovah, as the unchangeably true One, must fulfil the promise which He gave to David (sees at Kg1 11:13).

Verse 35

The fulfilment of the divine promise. - Kg2 19:35. "It came to pass in that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the army of the Assyrian 185,000 men; and when they (those that were left, including the king) rose up in the morning, behold there were they all (i.e., all who had perished) dead corpses," i.e., they had died in their sleep. מתים is added to strengthen פּגרים: lifeless corpses. ההוּא בּלּילה is in all probability the night following the day on which Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah the deliverance of Jerusalem. Where the Assyrian army was posted at the time when this terrible stroke fell upon it is not stated, since the account is restricted to the principal fact. One portion of it was probably still before Jerusalem; the remainder were either in front of Libnah (Kg2 19:8), or marching against Jerusalem. From the fact that Sennacherib's second embassy (Kg2 19:9.) was not accompanied by a body of troops, it by no means follows that the large army which had come with the first embassy (Kg2 18:17) had withdrawn again, or had even removed to Libnah on the return of Rabshakeh to his king (Kg2 19:8). The very opposite may be inferred with much greater justice from Kg2 19:32. And the smiting of 185,000 men by an angel of the Lord by no means presupposes that the whole of Sennacherib's army was concentrated at one spot. The blow could certainly fall upon the Assyrians wherever they were standing or were encamped. The "angel of the Lord" is the same angel that smote as המּשׁחית the first-born of Egypt (Exo 12:23, compared with Exo 12:12 and Exo 12:13), and inflicted the pestilence upon Israel after the numbering of the people by David (Sa2 24:15-16). The last passage renders the conjecture a very probable one, that the slaying of the Assyrians was also effected by a terrible pestilence. But the number of the persons slain - 185,000 in a single night - so immensely surpasses the effects even of the most terrible plagues, that this fact cannot be interpreted naturally; and the deniers of miracle have therefore felt obliged to do violence to the text, and to pronounce either the statement that it was "the same night" or the number of the slain a mythical exaggeration. (Note: The assertion of Thenius, that Kg2 19:35-37 are borrowed from a different source from Kg2 18:13-19, Kg2 18:34 and 20:1-19, rests upon purely arbitrary suppositions and groundless assumptions, and is only made in the interest of the mythical interpretation of the miracle. And his conclusion, that "since the catastrophe was evidently (?) occasioned by the sudden breaking out of a pestilence, the scene of it was no doubt the pestilential Egypt," is just as unfounded, - as if Egypt were the only land in which a pestilence could suddenly have broken out. - The account given by Herodotus (ii. 141), that on the prayer of king Sethon, a priest of Vulcan, the deity promised him victory over the great advancing army of Sennacherib, and that during the night mice spread among the enemy (i.e., in the Assyrian camp at Pelusium), and ate up the quivers and bows, and the leather straps of the shields, so that the next morning they were obliged to flee without their weapons, and many were cut down, is imply a legendary imitation of our account, i.e., an Egyptian variation of the defeat of Sennacherib in Judah. The eating up of the Assyrian weapons by mice is merely the explanation given to Herodotus by the Egyptian priests of the hieroglyphical legend on the standing figure of Sethos at Memphis, from which we cannot even gather the historical fact that Sennacherib really advanced as far as Pelusium.) Kg2 19:36 This divine judgment compelled Sennacherib to retreat without delay, and to return to Nineveh, as Isaiah 28 and 32, had predicted. The heaping up of the verbs: "he decamped, departed, and returned," expresses the hurry of the march home. בּנינוה ויּשׁב, "he sat, i.e., remained, in Nineveh," implies not merely that Sennacherib lived for some time after his return, but also that he did not undertake any fresh expedition against Judah. On Nineveh see at Gen 10:11. Kg2 19:37 Kg2 19:37 contains an account of Sennacherib's death. When he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer slew him, and fled into the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his stead. With regard to נסרך, Nisroch, all that seems to be firmly established is that he was an eagle-deity, and represented by the eagle-or vulture-headed human figure with wings, which is frequently depicted upon the Assyrian monuments, "not only in colossal proportions upon the walls and watching the portals of the rooms, but also constantly in the groups upon the embroidered robes. When it is introduced in this way, we see it constantly fighting with other mythical animals, such as human-headed oxen or lions; and in these conflicts it always appears to be victorious," from which we may infer that it was a type of the supreme deity (see Layard's Nineveh and its Remains). The eagle was worshipped as a god by the Arabs (Pococke, Specim. pp. 94, 199), was regarded as sacred to Melkarth by the Phoenicians (Nonnus, Dionys. xl. 495,528), and, according to a statement of Philo. Bybl. (in Euseb. Praepar. evang. i. 10), that Zoroaster taught that the supreme deity was represented with an eagle's head, it was also a symbol of Ormuzd among the Persians; consequently Movers (Phniz. i. pp. 68, 506, 507) regards Nisroch as the supreme deity of the Assyrians. It is not improbable that it was also connected with the constellation of the eagle (see Ideler, Ursprung der Sternnamen, p. 416). On the other hand, the current interpretation of the name from נשׁר (נשׁר, Chald.; nsr, Arab.), eagle, vulture, with the Persian adjective termination ok or ach, is very doubtful, not merely on account of the ס in נסרך, but chiefly because this name does not occur in Assyrian, but simply Asar, Assar, and Asarak as the name of a deity which is met with in many Assyrian proper names. The last is also adopted by the lxx, who (ed. Aldin. Compl.) have rendered נסרך by Ἀσαράχ in Isaiah, and Ἐσοράχ (cod. Vatic.) in 2 Kings, by the side of which the various readings Μεσεράχ in our text (cod. Vat.) and Νασαράχ in Isaiah are evidently secondary readings emended from the Hebrew, since Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 5) has the form Ἀρασκής, which is merely somewhat "Graecized." The meaning of these names is still in obscurity, even if there should be some foundation for the assumption that Assar belongs to the same root as the name of the people and land, Asshur. The connection between the form Nisroch and Asarak is also still obscure. Compare the collection which J. G. Mller has made of the different conjectures concerning this deity in the Art. Nisroch in Herzog's Cycl. - Adrammelech, according to Kg2 17:31, was the name of a deity of Sepharvaim, which was here borne by the king's son. שׁראצר, Sharezer, is said to mean "prince of fire," and was probably also borrowed from a deity. בּנין (Isa.) is wanting in our text, but is supplied by the Masora in the Keri. The "land of Ararat" was a portion of the high land of Armenia; according to Moses v. Chorene, the central portion of it with the mountains of the same name (see at Gen 8:4). The slaying of Sennacherib is also confirmed by Alex. Polyhistor, or rather Berosus (in Euseb. Chr. Armen. i. p. 43), who simply names, however, a son Ardumusanus as having committed the murder, and merely mentions a second Asordanius as viceroy of Babylon. (Note: With regard to the statement of Abydenus in Euseb. l. c. p. 53, that Sennacherib was followed by Nergilus, who was slain by his son Adrameles, who again was murdered by his brother Axerdis, and its connection with Berosus and the biblical account, see M. v. Niebuhr, Geschichte Assurs, pp. 361ff. Nergilus is probably the same person as Sharezer, and Axerdis as Esarhaddon.) The identity of the latter with Esarhaddon is beyond all doubt. The name אסר־חדּן, Esar-cha-don, consisting of two parts with the guttural inserted, the usual termination in Assyrian and Babylonian, Assar-ach, is spelt Ἀσορδάν in the lxx, Σαχερδονός in Tobit - probably formed from Ἀσερ-χ-δονοσορ by a transposition of the letters, - by Josephus Ἀσσαραχόδδας, by Berosus (in the armen. Euseb.) Asordanes, by Abyden. ibid. Axerdis, in the Canon Ptol. Ἀσαράδινος, and lastly in Ezr 4:10 mutilated into אסנפּר, Osnappar (Chald.), and in the lxx Ἀσσεναφάρ; upon the Assyrian monuments, according to Oppert, Assur-akh-iddin (cf. M. v. Niebuhr, Gesch. Ass. p. 38). The length of his reign is uncertain. The statements of Berosus, that he was first of all viceroy of Babylon, and then for eight years king of Assyria, and that of the Canon Ptol., that he reigned for thirteen years in Babylon, are decidedly incorrect. Brandis (Rerum Assyr. tempora emend. p. 41) conjectures that he reigned twenty-eight years, but in his work Ueber den histor. Gewinn, pp. 73, 74, he suggests seventeen years. M. v. Niebuhr (ut sup. p. 77), on the other hand, reckons his reign at twenty-four years.

Introduction

Jerusalem's great distress we read of in the foregoing chapter, and left it besieged, insulted, threatened, terrified, and just ready to be swallowed up by the Assyrian army. But in this chapter we have an account of its glorious deliverance, not by sword or bow, but by prayer and prophecy, and by the hand of an angel. I. Hezekiah, in great concern, sent to the prophet Isaiah, to desire his prayers (Kg2 19:1-5) and received from him an answer of peace (Kg2 19:6, Kg2 19:7). II. Sennacherib sent a letter to Hezekiah to fright him into a surrender (Kg2 19:8-13). III. Hezekiah thereupon, by a very solemn prayer, recommended his case to God, the righteous Judge, and begged help from him (Kg2 19:14-19). IV. God, by Isaiah, sent him a very comfortable message, assuring him of deliverance (Kg2 19:20-34). V. The army of the Assyrians was all cut off by an angel and Sennacherib himself slain by his own sons (Kg2 19:35-37). And so God glorified himself and saved his people.

Verse 1

The contents of Rabshakeh's speech being brought to Hezekiah, one would have expected (and it is likely Rabshakeh did expect) that he would call a council of war and it would be debated whether it was best to capitulate or no. Before the siege, he had taken counsel with his princes and his mighty men, Ch2 32:3. But that would not do now; his greatest relief is that he has a God to go to, and what passed between him and his God on this occasion we have here an account of. I. Hezekiah discovered a deep concern at the dishonour done to God by Rabshakeh's blasphemy. When he heard it, though at second hand, he rent his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, Kg2 19:1. Good men were wont to do so when they heard of any reproach cast on God's name; and great men must not think it any disparagement to them to sympathize with the injured honour of the great God. Royal robes are not too good to be rent, nor royal flesh too good to be clothed with sackcloth, in humiliation for indignities done to God and for the perils and terrors of his Jerusalem. To this God now called, and was displeased with those who were not thus affected. Isa 22:12-14, Behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen and killing sheep, though it was a day of trouble and perplexity in the valley of vision (Kg2 19:5), which refers to this very event. The king was in sackcloth, but many of his subjects were in soft clothing. II. He went up to the house of the Lord, according to the example of the psalmist, who, when he was grieved at the pride and prosperity of the wicked, went into the sanctuary of God and there understood their end, Psa 73:17. He went to the house of God, to meditate and pray, and get his spirit into a sedate composed frame, after this agitation. He was not considering what answer to return to Rabshakeh, but refers the matter to God. "Thou shalt answer, Lord, for me." - Herbert. In the house of the Lord he found a place both of rest and refuge, a treasury, a magazine, a council-chamber, and all he needed, all in God. Note, When the church's enemies are very daring and threatening it is the wisdom and duty of the church's friends to apply to God, appeal to him, and leave their cause with him. III. He sent to the prophet Isaiah, by honourable messengers, in token of the great respect he had for him, to desire his prayers, Kg2 19:2-4. Eliakim and Shebna were two of those that had heard the words of Rabshakeh and were the better able both to acquaint and to affect Isaiah with the case. The elders of the priests were themselves to pray for the people in time of trouble (Joe 2:17); but they must go to engage Isaiah's prayers, because he could pray better and had a better interest in heaven. The messengers were to go in sackcloth, because they were to represent the king, who was so clothed. 1. Their errand to Isaiah was, "Lift up thy prayer for the remnant that is left, that is, for Judah, which is but a remnant now that the ten tribes are gone - for Jerusalem, which is but a remnant now that the defenced cities of Judah are taken." Note, (1.) It is very desirable, and what we should be desirous of when we are in trouble, to have the prayers of our friends for us. In begging to have them we honour God, we honour prayer, and we honour our brethren. (2.) When we desire the prayers of others for us we must not think we are excused from praying for ourselves. When Hezekiah sent to Isaiah to pray for him he himself went into the house of the Lord to offer up his own prayers. (3.) Those who speak from God to us we should in a particular manner desire to speak to God for us. He is a prophet, and he shall pray for thee, Gen 20:7. The great prophet is the great intercessor. (4.) Those are likely to prevail with God that lift up their prayers, that is, that lift up their hearts in prayer. (5.) When the interests of God's church are brought very low, so that there is but a remnant left, few friends, and those weak and at a loss, then it is time to lift up our prayer for that remnant. 2. Two things are urged to Isaiah, to engage his prayers for them: - (1.) Their fears of the enemy (Kg2 19:3): "He is insolent and haughty; it is a day of rebuke and blasphemy. We are despised. God is dishonoured. Upon this account it is a day of trouble. Never were such a king and kingdom so trampled on and abused as we are: our soul is exceedingly filled with the contempt of the proud, and it is a sword in our bones to hear them reproach our confidence in God, and say, Where is now your God? and, which is worst of all, we see not which way we can help ourselves and get clear of the reproach. Our cause is good, our people are faithful; but we are quite overpowered with numbers. The children are brought to the birth; now is the time, the critical moment, when, if ever, we must be relieved. One successful blow given to the enemy would accomplish our wishes. But, alas! we are not able to give it: There is not strength to bring forth. Our case is as deplorable, and calls for as speedy help, as that of a woman in travail, that is quite spent with her throes, so that she has not strength to bear the child. Compare with this Hos 13:13. We are ready to perish; if thou canst do any thing, have compassion upon us and help us." (2.) Their hopes in God. To him they look, on him they depend, to appear for them. One word from him will turn the scale, and save the sinking remnant. If he but reprove the words of Rabshakeh (that is, disprove them, Kg2 19:4) - if he undertake to convince and confound the blasphemer - all will be well. And this they trust he will do, not for their merit's sake, but for his own honour's sake, because he has reproached the living God, by levelling him with deaf and dumb idols. They have reason to think the issue will be good, for they can interest God in the quarrel. Psa 74:22, Arise O God! plead thy own cause. "He is the Lord thy God," say they to Isaiah - "thine, whose glory thou art concerned for, and whose favour thou art interested in. He has heard and known the blasphemous words of Rabshakeh, and therefore, it may be, he will hear and rebuke them. We hope he will. Help us with thy prayers to bring the cause before him, and then we are content to leave it with him." IV. God, by Isaiah, sent to Hezekiah, to assure him that he would glorify himself in the ruin of the Assyrians. Hezekiah sent to Isaiah, not to enquire concerning the event, as many did that sent to the prophets (Shall I recover? or the like), but to desire his assistance in his duty. It was this that he was solicitous about; and therefore God let him know what the event should be, in recompence of his care to do his duty, Kg2 19:6, Kg2 19:7. 1. God interested himself in the cause: They have blasphemed me. 2. He encouraged Hezekiah, who was much dismayed: Be not afraid of the words which thou hast heard; they are but words (though swelling and fiery words), and words are but wind. 3. He promised to frighten the king of Assyria worse than Rabshakeh had frightened him: "I will send a blast upon him (that pestilential breath which killed his army), upon which terrors shall seize him and drive him into his own country, where death shall meet him." This short threatening from the mouth of God would do execution, when all the impotent menaces that came from Rabshakeh's mouth would vanish into air.

Verse 8

Rabshakeh, having delivered his message and received no answer (whether he took this silence for a consent or a slight does not appear), left his army before Jerusalem, under the command of the other generals, and went himself to attend the king his master for further orders. He found him besieging Libnah, a city that had revolted from Judah, Kg2 8:22. Whether he had taken Lachish or no is not certain; some think he departed from it because he found the taking of it impracticable, Kg2 19:8. However, he was now alarmed with the rumour that the king of the Cushites, who bordered upon the Arabians, was coming out against him with a great army, Kg2 19:9. This made him very desirous to gain Jerusalem with all speed. To take it by force would cost him more time and men than he could well spare, and therefore he renewed his attack upon Hezekiah to persuade him tamely to surrender it. Having found him an easy man once (Kg2 18:14), when he said, That which thou puttest on me I will bear, he hoped again to frighten him into a submission, but in vain. Here, I. Sennacherib sent a letter to Hezekiah, a railing letter, a blaspheming letter, to persuade him to surrender Jerusalem, because it would be to no purpose for him to think of standing it out. His letter is to the same purport with Rabshakeh's speech; there is nothing new offered in it. Rabshakeh had said to the people, Let not Hezekiah deceive you, Kg2 18:29. Sennacherib writes to Hezekiah, Let not thy God deceive thee, Kg2 18:10. Those that have the God of Jacob for their help, and whose hope is in the Lord their God, need not fear being deceived by him, as the heathen were by their gods. To terrify Hezekiah, and drive him from his anchor, he magnifies himself and his own achievements. See how proudly he boasts, 1. Of the lands he had conquered (Kg2 18:11): All lands, and destroyed utterly! How are the mole-hills of his victories swelled to mountains! So far was he from destroying all lands that at this time the land of Cush, and Tirhakah its king, were a terror to him. What vast hyperboles may one expect in proud men's praises of themselves! 2. Of the gods he had conquered, Kg2 18:12. "Each vanquished nation and its gods, which were so far from being able to deliver them that they fell with them: and shall thy God deliver thee?" 3. Of the kings he had conquered (Kg2 18:13), the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad. Whether he means the prince or the idol, he means to make himself appear greater than either, and therefore very formidable, and the terror of the mighty in the land of the living. II. Hezekiah encloses this in another letter, a praying letter, a believing letter, and sends it to the King of kings, who judges among the gods. Hezekiah was not so haughty as not to receive the letter, though we may suppose the superscription did not give him his due titles; when he had received it he was not so careless as not to read it; when he had read it he was not in such a passion as to write an answer to it in the same provoking language; but he immediately went up to the temple, presented himself, and then spread the letter before the Lord (Kg2 18:14), not as if God needed to have the letter shown to him (he knew what was in it before Hezekiah did), but hereby he signified that he acknowledged God in all his ways, - that he desired not to aggravate the injuries his enemies did him nor to make them appear worse than they were, but desired they might be set in a true light, - and that he referred himself to God, and his righteous judgment, upon the whole matter. Hereby likewise he would affect himself in the prayer he came to the temple to make; and we have need of all possible helps to quicken us in that duty. In the prayer which Hezekiah prayed over this letter, 1. He adores the God whom Sennacherib had blasphemed (Kg2 18:15), calls him the God of Israel, because Israel was his peculiar people, and the God that dwelt between the cherubim, because there was the peculiar residence of his glory upon earth; but he gives glory to him as the God of the whole earth, and not, as Sennacherib fancied him to be, the God of Israel only, and confined to the temple. "Let them say what they will, thou art sovereign Lord, for thou art the God, the God of gods, sole Lord, even thou alone, universal Lord of all the kingdoms of the earth, and rightful Lord, for thou hast made heaven and earth. Being Creator of all, by an incontestable title thou art owner and ruler of all." 2. He appeals to God concerning the insolence and profaneness of Sennacherib (Kg2 18:16): "Lord, hear; Lord, see. Here it is under his own hand; here it is in black and white." Had Hezekiah only been abused, he would have passed it by; but it is God, the living God, that is reproached, the jealous God. Lord, what wilt thou do for thy great name? 3. He owns Sennacherib's triumphs over the gods of the heathen, but distinguishes between them and the God of Israel (Kg2 18:17, Kg2 18:18): He has indeed cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, unable to help either themselves or their worshipers, and therefore no wonder that he has destroyed them; and, in destroying them, though he knew it not, he really served the justice and jealousy of the God of Israel, who has determined to extirpate all the gods of the heathen. But those are deceived who think they can therefore be too hard for him. He is none of the gods whom men's hands have made, but he has himself made all things, Psa 115:3, Psa 115:4. 4. He prays that God will now glorify himself in the defeat of Sennacherib and the deliverance of Jerusalem out of his hands (Kg2 19:19): "Now therefore save us; for if we be conquered, as other lands are, they will say that thou art conquered, as the gods of those lands were: but, Lord, distinguish thyself, by distinguishing us, and let all the world know, and be made to confess, that thou art the Lord God, the self-existent sovereign God, even thou only, and that all pretenders are vanity and a lie." Note, The best pleas in prayer are those which are taken from God's honour; and therefore the Lord's prayer begins with Hallowed be thy name, and concludes with Thine is the glory.

Verse 20

We have here the gracious copious answer which God gave to Hezekiah's prayer. The message which he sent him by the same hand (Kg2 19:6, Kg2 19:7), one would think, was an answer sufficient to his prayer; but, that he might have strong consolation, he was encouraged by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, Heb 6:18. In general, God assured him that his prayer was heard, his prayer against Sennacherib, Kg2 19:20. Note, The case of those that have the prayers of God's people against them is miserable. For, if the oppressed cry to God against the oppressor, he will hear, Exo 22:23. God hears and answers, hears with the saving strength of his right hand, Psa 20:6. This message bespeaks two things: - I. Confusion and shame to Sennacherib and his forces. It is here foretold that he should be humbled and broken. The prophet elegantly directs his speech to him, as he does, Isa 10:5. O Assyrian! the rod of my anger. Not that this message was sent to him, but what is here said to him he was made to know by the event. Providence spoke it to him with a witness; and perhaps his own heart was made to whisper this to him: for God has more ways than one of speaking to sinners in his wrath, so as to vex them in his sore displeasure, Psa 2:5. Sennacherib is here represented, 1. As the scorn of Jerusalem, Kg2 19:21. He thought himself the terror of the daughter of Zion, that chaste and beautiful virgin, and that by his threats he could force her to submit to him: "But, being a virgin in her Father's house and under his protection, she defies thee, despises thee, laughs thee to scorn. Thy impotent malice is ridiculous; he that sits in heaven laughs at thee, and therefore so do those that abide under his shadow." By this word God intended to silence the fears of Hezekiah and his people. Though to an eye of sense the enemy looked formidable, to an eye of faith he looked despicable. 2. As an enemy to God; and that was enough to make him miserable. Hezekiah pleaded this: "Lord, he has reproached thee," Kg2 19:16. "He has," saith God, "and I take it as against myself (Kg2 19:22): Whom hast thou reproached? Is it not the Holy One of Israel, whose honour is dear to him, and who has power to vindicate it, which the gods of the heathen have not?" Meno me impune lacesset - No one shall provoke me with impunity. 3. As a proud vainglorious fool, that spoke great swelling words of vanity, and boasted of a false gift, by his boasts, as well as by his threats, reproaching the Lord. For, (1.) He magnified his own achievements out of measure and quite above what really they were (Kg2 19:23, Kg2 19:24): Thou hast said so and so. This was not in the letter he wrote, but God let Hezekiah know that he not only saw what was written there, but heard what he said elsewhere, probably in the speeches he made to his councils or armies. Note, God takes notice of the boasts of proud men, and will call them to an account, that he may look upon them and abuse them, Job 40:11. What a mighty figure does Sennacherib think he makes! Driving his chariots to the tops of the highest mountains, forcing his way through woods and rivers, breaking through all difficulties, making himself master of all he had a mind to. Nothing could stand before him or be withheld from him; no hills too high for him to climb, no trees too strong for him to fell, no waters too deep for him to dry up; as if he had the power of a God, to speak and it is done. (2.) He took to himself the glory of doing these great things, whereas they were all the Lord's doing, Kg2 19:25, Kg2 19:26. Sennacherib, in his letter, had appealed to what Hezekiah had heard (Kg2 19:11): Thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done; but, in answer to that, he is reminded of what God has done for Israel of old, drying up the Red Sea, leading them through the wilderness, planting them in Canaan. "What are all thy doings to these? And as for the desolations thou hast made in the earth, and particularly in Judah, thou art but the instrument in God's hand, a mere tool: it is I that have brought it to pass. I gave thee thy power, gave thee thy success, and made thee what thou art, raised thee up to lay waste fenced cities and so to punish them for their wickedness, and therefore their inhabitants were of small power." What a foolish insolent thing was it for him to exalt himself above God, and against God, upon that which he had done by him and under him. Sennacherib's boasts here are expounded in Isa 10:13, Isa 10:14, By the strength of my hand I have done it, and by my wisdom, etc.; and they are answered (Kg2 19:15), Shall the axe boast itself against him that heweth therewith? It is surely absurd for the fly upon the wheel to say, What a dust do I make! or for the sword in the hand to say, What execution I do! If God be the principal agent in all that is done, boasting is for ever excluded. 4. As under the check and rebuke of that God whom he blasphemed. All his motions were, (1.) Under the divine cognizance (Kg2 19:27): "I have thy abode, and what thou dost secretly devise and design, thy going out and coming in, marches and counter-marches, and thy rage against me and my people, the tumult of thy passions, the tumult of thy preparations, the noise and bluster thou makest: I know it all." That was more than Hezekiah did, who wished for intelligence of the enemy's motions; but what need was there for this when the eye of God was a constant spy upon him? Ch2 16:9. (2.) Under the divine control (Kg2 19:28): "I will put my hook in thy nose, thou great Leviathan (Job 41:1, Job 41:2), my bridle in thy jaws, thou great Behemoth. I will restrain thee, manage thee, turn thee where I please, send thee home like a fool as thou camest, re infecta - disappointed of thy aim." Note, It is a great comfort to all the church's friends that God has a hook in the nose and a bridle in the jaws of all her enemies, can make even their wrath to serve and praise him and then restrain the remainder of it. Here shall its proud waves be stayed. II. Salvation and joy to Hezekiah and his people. This shall be a sign to them of God's favour, and that he is reconciled to them, and his anger is turned away (Isa 12:1), a wonder in their eyes (for so a sign sometimes signifies), a token for good, and an earnest of the further mercy God has in store for them, that a good issue shall be put to their present distress in every respect. 1. Provisions were scarce and dear; and what should they do for food? The fruits of the earth were devoured by the Assyrian army, Isa 32:9, Isa 32:10, etc. Why, they shall not only dwell in the land, but verily they shall be fed. If God save them, he will not starve them, nor let them die by famine, when they have escaped the sword: "Eat you this year that which groweth of itself, and you shall find enough of that. Did the Assyrians reap what you sowed? You shall reap what you did not sow." But the next year was the sabbatical year, when the land was to rest, and they must neither sow nor reap. What must they do that year? Why, Jehovah-jireh - The Lord will provide. God's blessing shall save them seed and labour, and, that year too, the voluntary productions of the earth shall serve to maintain them, to remind them that the earth brought forth before there was a man to till it, Gen 1:11. And then, the third year, their husbandry should return into its former channel, and they should sow and reap as they used to do. 2. The country was laid waste, families were broken up and scattered, and all was in confusion; how should it be otherwise when it was over-run by such an army? As to this, it is promised that the remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah (that is, of the country people) shall yet again be planted in their own habitations, upon their own estates, shall take root there, shall increase and grow rich, Kg2 19:30. See how their prosperity is described: it is taking root downwards, and bearing fruit upwards, being well fixed and well provided for themselves, and then doing good to others. Such is the prosperity of the soul: it is taking root downwards by faith in Christ, and then being fruitful in fruits of righteousness. 3. The city was shut up, none went out or came in; but now the remnant in Jerusalem and Zion shall go forth freely, and there shall be none to hinder them, or make them afraid, Kg2 19:31. Great destruction had been made both in city and country, bit in both there was a remnant that escaped, which typified the saved remnant of Israelites indeed (as appears by comparing Isa 10:22, Isa 10:23, which speaks of this very event, with Rom 9:27, Rom 9:28), and they shall go forth into the glorious liberty of the children of God. 4. The Assyrians were advancing towards Jerusalem, and would in a little time besiege it in form, and it was in great danger of falling into their hands. But it is here promised that the siege they feared should be prevented, - that, though the enemy had now (as it should seem) encamped before the city, yet they should never come into the city, no, nor so much as shoot an arrow into it (Kg2 19:32, Kg2 19:33), - that he should be forced to retire with shame, and a thousand times to repent his undertaking. God himself undertakes to defend the city (Kg2 19:34), and that person, that place, cannot but be safe, the protection of which he undertakes. 5. The honour and truth of God are engaged for the doing of all this. These are great things, but how will they be effected? Why, the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this, Kg2 19:31. He is Lord of hosts, has all creatures at his beck, therefore he is able to do it; he is jealous for Jerusalem with great jealousy (Zac 1:14); having espoused her a chaste virgin to himself, he will not suffer he to be abused, Kg2 19:21. "You have reason to think yourselves unworthy that such great things should be done for you; but God's own zeal will do it." His zeal, (1.) For his own honour (Kg2 19:34): "I will do it for my own sake, to make myself an everlasting name." God's reasons of mercy are fetched from within himself. (2.) For his own truth: "I will do it for my servant David's sake; not for the sake of his merit, but the promise made to him and the covenant made with him, those sure mercies of David." Thus all the deliverances of the church are wrought for the sake of Christ, the Son of David.

Verse 35

Sometimes it was long ere prophecies were accomplished and promises performed; but here the word was no sooner spoken than the work was done. I. The army of Assyria was entirely routed. That night which immediately followed the sending of this message to Hezekiah, when the enemy had just set down before the city and were preparing (as we now say) to open the trenches, that night was the main body of their army slain upon the spot by an angel, Kg2 19:35. Hezekiah had not force sufficient to sally out upon them and attack their camp, nor would God do it by sword or bow; but he sent his angel, a destroying angel, in the dead of the night, to make an assault upon them, which their sentinels, though ever so wakeful, could neither discover nor resist. It was not by the sword of a mighty man or of a mean man, that is, not of any man at all, but of an angel, that the Assyrians army was to fall (Isa 31:8), such an angel as slew the first-born of Egypt. Josephus says it was done by a pestilential disease, which was instant death to them. The number slain was very great, 185,000 men, and Rabshakeh, it is likely, among the rest. When the besieged arose, early in the morning, behold they were all dead corpses, scarcely a living man among them. Some think the 76th Psalm was penned on this occasion, where we read that the stout-hearted were spoiled and slept their sleep, their last, their long sleep, Kg2 19:5. See how great, in power and might, the holy angels are, when one angel, in one night, could make so great a slaughter. See how weak the mightiest of men are before almighty God: who ever hardened himself against him and prospered? The pride and blasphemy of the king are punished by the destruction of his army. All these lives are sacrificed to God's glory and Zion's safety. The prophet shows that therefore God suffered this vast rendezvous to be made, that they might be gathered as sheaves into the floor, Mic 4:12, Mic 4:13. II. The king of Assyria was hereby put into the utmost confusion. Ashamed to see himself, after all his proud boasts, thus defeated and disabled to pursue his conquests and secure what he had (for this, we may suppose, was the flower of his army), and continually afraid of falling under the like stroke himself, He departed, and went, and returned; the manner of the expression intimates the great disorder and distraction of mind he was in, Kg2 19:36. And it was not long before God cut him off too, by the hands of two of his own sons, Kg2 19:37. 1. Those that did it were very wicked, to kill their own father (whom they were bound to protect) and in the act of his devotion; monstrous villany! But, 2. God was righteous in it. Justly are the sons suffered to rebel against their father that begat them, when he was in rebellion against the God that made him. Those whose children are undutiful to them ought to consider whether they have not been so to their Father in heaven. The God of Israel had done enough to convince him that he was the only true God, whom therefore he ought to worship; yet he persists in his idolatry, and seeks to his false god for protection against a God of irresistible power. Justly is his blood mingled with his sacrifices, since he will not be convinced by such a plain and dear-bought demonstration of his folly in worshipping idols. His sons that murdered him were suffered to escape, and no pursuit was made after them, his subjects perhaps being weary of the government of so proud a man and thinking themselves well rid of him. And his sons would be looked upon as the more excusable in what they had done if it be true (as bishop Patrick suggested) that he was now vowing to sacrifice them to his god, so that it was for their own preservation that they sacrificed him. His successor was another son, Esarhaddon, who (as it should seem) did not aim, like his father, to enlarge his conquests, but rather to improve them; for he it was that first sent colonies of Assyrians to inhabit the country of Samaria, though it is mentioned before (Kg2 17:24), as appears, Ezr 4:2, where the Samaritans say it was Esarhaddon that brought them thither.

Verse 1

19:1 Hezekiah showed his grief in the same way his representatives had (see Joel 1:13). He wisely went to the Temple, where he laid bare his soul before God in heartfelt worship and supplication (see Pss 5:7; 48:9-10; 63:1-3).

Verse 2

19:2-3 Leaders often consulted prophets like Isaiah in emergencies (3:11-12) or before going into battle (1 Kgs 22:8-10); Isaiah was active throughout Hezekiah’s reign (2 Kgs 20:1, 14). • The expression a day of trouble describes the heart-wrenching distress the king was experiencing because of the blasphemous insults and disgrace that God and his people were being forced to endure. Hezekiah realized that he and the people were powerless without God’s intervention.

Verse 4

19:4 Hezekiah was not denying his own relationship to the Lord by referring to him as your God; rather, he was acknowledging God’s special call upon Isaiah.

Verse 8

19:8 Sennacherib had dispatched his officers and forces to Jerusalem while he was attacking Lachish (18:14, 17). He had now moved eight miles to the northeast, to Libnah.

Verse 9

19:9 King Tirhakah of Ethiopia would later become pharaoh over Egypt. At this time he was a commander in his brother Shebitku’s army.

Verse 10

19:10-13 Sennacherib’s second message reminded the people of Jerusalem of the Assyrians’ ruthless victories; it was common knowledge that the kings of Assyria had plundered, tortured, mutilated (see 19:28), and completely destroyed everyone who stood in their way. No nation, king, or god had been able to resist them. In the face of this threat, the people would be wiser to trust their common sense and surrender rather than trust Hezekiah and his deceptive piety.

Verse 14

19:14-19 Hezekiah received Sennacherib’s blasphemous letter and immediately took it to theinto the house of the Lord’s Temple. His prayer to God was a lament of praise (19:15) and petition (19:16-19).

Verse 16

19:16-19 Sennacherib’s successes were irrelevant because—unlike the gods of these nations, who were not gods at all—Yahweh was the living God.

Verse 21

19:21-28 The phrase virgin daughter is often used regarding civic identity (Isa 23:12; 37:22; 47:1; Jer 18:13). Here, the metaphor implies that as a young maiden is rescued from her attacker, so God will rescue Jerusalem. The Lord’s answer was delivered as a “taunt song,” a common literary form in the ancient Near East that rejoiced over an enemy’s humiliation (cp. Isa 14:3-20).

Verse 23

19:23-24 highest mountains . . . of Lebanon: In his annals, Sennacherib told of scaling high mountain passes and felling Lebanon’s great trees. Sennacherib felt invincible, but he was a mere man, no match for the omniscient Lord of the universe (1 Chr 28:9).

Verse 25

19:25-26 I am making it happen: All of Sennacherib’s great accomplishments were what God had planned for him.

Verse 27

19:27-28 I know you well: See Pss 44:21; 94:11. • hook . . . bit: The Assyrian annals mention similar mistreatment of prisoners; the Lord would do to Sennacherib what he and his predecessors had done to those they subjugated.

Verse 29

19:29-30 Here is the proof: The Lord’s message of encouragement included a sign that Jerusalem would be rescued from the siege. The sign was God’s provision of food. Because the land had suffered devastation by the Assyrians, the people would need to depend on random crop growth for their survival. The food supply would also remain scarce as the next year came. But by the third year, there would be a return to regular planting and harvesting.

Verse 31

19:31 The theme of the remnant occurs frequently in the Old Testament. God’s preservation of his people often serves as a promise of his care for them in the distant future (see Isa 4:2-6; 9:1-7; Zeph 3:8-20; cp. Rev 7:1-12). God’s people can be assured of their survival, for the commitment of the Lord . . . will make this happen.

Verse 32

19:32-34 Sennacherib’s armies did not enter Jerusalem but returned home. In Sennacherib’s own account, he gave details of capturing and despoiling forty-six cities of Judah. He made no mention of the capture of Jerusalem but recorded only that he shut up Hezekiah “in Jerusalem . . . like a bird in a cage.” • For my own honor—in light of Sennacherib’s blasphemies and arrogance against God (18:25, 28-30; 19:10-13, 21, 27-28)—and for the sake of my servant David, to whom God had made his covenant promise (2 Sam 7:8-16) and whose faith Hezekiah had emulated (2 Kgs 18:3), the Lord would defend this city (see 20:6). The Lord decisively demonstrated that he alone is God and that he is faithful to his people who trust in him.

Verse 35

19:35 The angel of the Lord had similarly been active in the rescue of God’s people from Egypt (Exod 12:12-13, 23).

Verse 36

19:36 Sennacherib . . . went home . . . and stayed there: Although this Assyrian king went on five more military campaigns, he did not return to attack Judah.

Verse 37

19:37 his sons . . . killed him: Although Sennacherib’s assassination took place twenty years later in 681 BC, the narrator includes it here to conclude his discussion of the Assyrian king and to point out the irony in his death. He had boasted that no gods were able to rescue the peoples he attacked, yet his god failed to defend him against assassins from his own family! • At Sennacherib’s death, his son, Esarhaddon, succeeded him and reigned until 669 BC.

A Letter From the Devil

Two Letters - Two Replies - Two Results

The Seven Levels of Judgment - Part 7

Hezekiah's Prayer

Take Root Downward

And Hezekiah Spread It Before the Lord.

The Enemy Frustrated

The Lies of the Enemy

Crusading On--Our Responsibility

Our Daily Homily - 2 Kings

Introduction

Verse 2

Verse 3

Verse 4

Verse 7

Verse 8

Verse 10

Verse 14

Verse 15

Verse 21

Verse 23

Verse 24

Verse 25

Verse 28

Verse 29

Verse 30

Verse 31

Verse 32

Verse 33

Verse 35

Verse 36

Verse 37

Introduction

Verse 4

Verse 6

Verse 8

Verse 9

Verse 14

Verse 20

Verse 33

Verse 35

Verse 36

Verse 37

Introduction

Verse 1

Verse 1

Verse 3

Verse 4

Verse 5

Verse 8

Verse 14

Verse 20

Verse 35

Introduction

Verse 1

Verse 8

Verse 20

Verse 35

Verse 1

Verse 2

Verse 4

Verse 8

Verse 9

Verse 10

Verse 14

Verse 16

Verse 21

Verse 23

Verse 25

Verse 27

Verse 29

Verse 31

Verse 32

Verse 35

Verse 36

Verse 37