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Isaiah 37:36
Verse
Context
Jerusalem Delivered from the Assyrians
35‘I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’” 36Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
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David Wilkerson
David Ravenhill
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Commentary
- Adam Clarke
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- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Then the angel - Before "the angel, "the other copy, Kg2 19:35, adds "it came to pass the same night, that " - The Prophet Hosea, Hos 1:7, has given a plain prediction of the miraculous deliverance of the kingdom of Judah: - "And to the house of Judah I will be tenderly merciful: And I will save them by Jehovah their God. And I will not save them by the bow; Nor by sword, nor by battle; By horses, nor by horsemen." - L.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
To this culminating prophecy there is now appended an account of the catastrophe itself. "Then (K. And it came to pass that night, that) the angel of Jehovah went forth and smote (vayyakkeh, K. vayyakh) in the camp of Asshur a hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when men rose up in the morning, behold, they were all lifeless corpses. Then Sennacherib king of Asshur decamped, and went forth and returned, and settled down in Nineveh. And it cam to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Misroch, his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons (L. chethib omits 'his sons') smote him with the sword; and when they escaped to the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon ascended the throne in his stead." The first pair of histories closes here with a short account of the result of the Assyrian drama, in which Isaiah's prophecies were most gloriously fulfilled: not only the prophecies immediately preceding, but all the prophecies of the Assyrian era since the time of Ahaz, which pointed to the destruction of the Assyrian forces (e.g., Isa 10:33-34), and to the flight and death of the king of Assyrian (Isa 31:9; Isa 30:33). If we look still further forward to the second pair of histories (chapters 38-39), we see from Isa 38:6 that it is only by anticipation that the account of these closing events is finished here; for the third history carries us back to the period before the final catastrophe. We may account in some measure for the haste and brevity of this closing historical fragment, from the prophet's evident wish to finish up the history of the Assyrian complications, and the prophecy bearing upon it. But if we look back, there is a gap between Isa 37:36 and the event narrated here. For, according to Isa 37:30, there was to be an entire year of trouble between the prophecy and the fulfilment, during which the cultivation of the land would be suspended. What took place during that year? There can be no doubt that Sennacherib was engaged with Egypt; for (1.) when he made his second attempt to get Jerusalem into his power, he had received intelligence of the advance of Tirhakah, and therefore had withdrawn the centre of his army from Lachish, and encamped before Libnah (Isa 37:8-9); (2.) according to Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 4), there was a passage of Berosus, which has been lost, in which he stated that Sennacherib "made an expedition against all Asia and Egypt;" (3.) Herodotus relates (ii. 141) that, after Anysis the blind, who lost his throne for fifty years in consequence of an invasion of Egypt by the Ethiopians under Sabakoa, but who recovered it again, Sethon the priest of Hephaestus ascended the throne. The priestly caste was so oppressed by him, that when Sanacharibos, the king of the Arabians and Assyrians, led a great army against Egypt, they refused to perform their priestly functions. but the priest-king went into the temple to pray, and his God promised to help him. He experienced the fulfilment of this prophecy before Pelusium, where the invasion was to take place, and where he awaited the foe with such as continued true to him. "Immediately after the arrival of Sanacharibos, an army of field-mice swarmed throughout the camp of the foe, and devoured their quivers, bows, and shield-straps, so that when morning came on they had to flee without arms, and lost many men in consequence. This is the origin of the stone of Sethon in the temple of Hephaestus (at Memphis), which is standing there still, with a mouse in one hand, and with this inscription: Whosoever looks at me, let him fear the gods!" This Σέθως (possibly the Zet whose name occurs in the lists at the close of the twenty-third dynasty, and therefore in the wrong place) is to be regarded as one of the Saitic princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty, who seem to have ruled in Lower Egypt contemporaneously with the Ethiopians (Note: A seal of Pharaoh Sabakon has been found among the ruins of the palace of Kuyunjik. The colossal image of Tarakos is found among the bas-reliefs of Mediet-Habu. He is holding firmly a number of Asiatic prisoners by the hair of their head, and threatening them with a club. There are several other stately monuments in imitation of the Egyptian style in the ruins of Nepata, the northern capital of the Meriotic state, which belong to him (Lepsius, Denkmler, p. 10 of the programme).) (as, in fact, is stated in a passage of the Armenian Eusebius, Aethiopas et Saitas regnasse aiunt eodem tempore), until they succeeded at length in ridding themselves of the hateful supremacy. Herodotus evidently depended in this instance upon the hearsay of Lower Egypt, which transferred the central point of the Assyrian history to their own native princely house. The question, whether the disarming of the Assyrian army in front of Pelusium merely rested upon a legendary interpretation of the mouse in Sethon's hand, (Note: This Sethos monument has not yet been discovered (Brugsch, Reiseberichte, p. 79). The temple of Phta was on the south side of Memphis; the site is marked by the ruins at Mitrahenni.) which may possibly have been originally intended as a symbol of destruction; or whether it was really founded upon an actual occurrence which was exaggerated in the legend, (Note: The inhabitants of Troas worshipped mice, "because they gnawed the strings of the enemies' bows" (see Wesseling on Il. i. 39).) may be left undecided. But it is a real insult to Isaiah, when Thenius and G. Rawlinson place the scene of Isa 37:36 at Pelusium, and thus give the preference to Herodotus. Has not Isaiah up to this point constantly prophesied that the power of Asshur was to be broken in the holy mountain land of Jehovah (Isa 14:25), that the Lebanon forest of the Assyrian army would break to pieces before Jerusalem (Isa 10:32-34), and that there the Assyrian camp would become the booty of the inhabitants of the city, and that without a conflict? And is not the catastrophe that would befal Assyria described in Isa 18:1-7 as an act of Jehovah, which would determine the Ethiopians to do homage to God who was enthroned upon Zion? We need neither cite Ch2 32:21 nor Psa 76:1-12 (lxx ὠδὴ πρὸς τὸν Ἀσσύριον), according to which the weapons of Asshur break to pieces upon Jerusalem; Isaiah's prophecies are quite sufficient to prove, that to force this Pelusiac disaster (Note: G. Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 445.) into Isa 37:36 is a most thoughtless concession to Herodotus. The final catastrophe occurred before Jerusalem, and the account in Herodotus gives us no certain information even as to the issue of the Egyptian campaign, which took place in the intervening year. Such a gap as the one which occurs before Isa 37:36 is not without analogy in the historical writings of the Bible; see, for example, Num 20:1, where an abrupt leap is made over the thirty-seven years of the wanderings in the desert. The abruptness is not affected by the addition of the clause in the book of Kings, "It came to pass that night." For, in the face of the "sign" mentioned in Isa 37:30, this cannot mean "in that very night" (viz., the night following the answer given by Isaiah); but (unless it is a careless interpolation) it must refer to Isa 37:33, Isa 37:34, and mean illa nocte, viz., the night in which the Assyrian had encamped before Jerusalem. The account before us reads just like that of the slaying of the first-born in Egypt (Exo 12:12; Exo 11:4). The plague of Egypt is marked as a pestilence by the use of the word nâgaph in connection with hikkâh in Exo 12:23, Exo 12:13 (compare Amo 4:10, where it seems to be alluded to under the name דּבר); and in the case before us also we cannot think of anything else than a divine judgment of this kind, which even to the present day defies all attempts at an aetiological solution, and which is described in 2 Sam as effected through the medium of angels, just as it is here. Moreover, the concise brevity of the narrative leaves it quite open to assume, as Hensler and others do, that the ravages of the pestilence in the Assyrian army, which carried off thousands in the night (Psa 91:6), even to the number of 185,000, may have continued for a considerable time. (Note: The pestilence in Mailand in 1629 carried off, according to Tadino, 160,000 men; that in Vienna, in 1679, 122,849; that in Moscow, at the end of the last century, according to Martens, 670,000; but this was during the whole time that the ravages of the pestilence lasted.) The main thing is the fact that the prophecy in Isa 31:8 was actually fulfilled. According to Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 5), when Sennacherib returned from his unsuccessful Egyptian expedition, he found the detachment of his army, which he had left behind in Palestine, in front of Jerusalem, where a pestilential disease sent by God was making great havoc among the soldiers, and that on the very first night of the siege. The three verses, "he broke up, and went away, and returned home," depict the hurried character of the retreat, like "abiit excessit evasit erupit" (Cic. ii. Catil. init.). The form of the sentence in Isa 37:38 places Sennacherib's act of worship and the murderous act of his sons side by side, as though they had occurred simultaneously. The connection would be somewhat different if the reading had been ויּכּהוּ (cf., Ewald, 341, a). Nisroch apparently signifies the eagle-like, or hawk-like (from nisr, nesher), possibly like "Arioch from 'ărı̄. (The lxx transcribe it νασαραχ, A. ασαραχ, א ασαρακ (K. ἐσθραχ, where B. has μεσεραχ), and explorers of the monuments imagined at one time that they had discovered this god as Asarak; (Note: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xii. 2, pp. 426-7.) but they have more recently retracted this, although there really is a hawk-headed figure among the images of the Assyrian deities or genii. (Note: Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 265.) The name has nothing to do with that of the supreme Assyrian deity, Asur, Asshur. A better derivation of Nisroch would be from סרך, שׂרך, שׂרג; and this is confirmed by Oppert, who has discovered among the inscriptions in the harem of Khorsabad a prayer of Sargon to Nisroch, who appears there, like the Hymen of Greece, as the patron of marriage, and therefore as a "uniter." (Note: Expdition Scientifique en Mesopotamie, t. ii. p. 339.) The name 'Adrammelekh (a god in Kg2 17:31) signifies, as we now known, gloriosus ('addı̄r) est rex;" and Sharetser (for which we should expect to find Saretser), dominator tuebitur. The Armenian form of the latter name (in Moses Chroen. i. 23), San-asar (by the side of Adramel, who is also called Arcamozan), probably yields the original sense of "Lunus (the moon-god Sin) tuebitur." Polyhistorus (in Euseb. chron. arm. p. 19), on the authority of Berosus, mentions only the former, Ardumuzan, as the murderer, and gives eighteen years as the length of Sennacherib's reign. The murder did not take place immediately after his return, as Josephus says (Ant. x. 1, 5; cf., Tobit i. 21-25, Vulg.); and the expression used by Isaiah, he "dwelt (settled down) in Nineveh," suggests the idea of a considerable interval. This interval embraced the suppression of the rebellion in Babylon, where Sennacherib made his son Asordan king, and the campaign in Cilicia (both from Polyhistorus), (Note: Vid., Richter, Berosi quae supersunt (1825), p. 62; Mller, Fragmenta Hist. Gr. ii. 504.) and also, according to the monuments, wars both by sea and land with Susiana, which supported the Babylonian thirst for independence. The Asordan of Polyhistorus is Esar-haddon (also written without the makkeph, Esarhaddon), which is generally supposed to be the Assyrian form of אשׁור־ח־ידן, Assur fratrem dedit. It is so difficult to make the chronology tally here, that Oppert, on Isa 36:1, proposes to alter the fourteenth year into the twenty-ninth, and Rawlinson would alter it into the twenty-seventh. (Note: Sargonides, p. 10, and Monarchies, ii. 434.) They both of them assign to king Sargon a reign of seventeen (eighteen) years, and to Sennacherib (in opposition to Polyhistorus) a reign of twenty-three (twenty-four) years; and they both agree in giving 680 as the year of Sennacherib's death. This brings us down below the first decade of Manasseh's reign, and would require a different author from Isaiah for Isa 37:37, Isa 37:38. But the accounts given by Polyhistorus, Abydenus, and the astronomical canon, however we may reconcile them among themselves, do not extend the reign of Sennacherib beyond 693. (Note: See Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums. i. pp. 708-9.) It is true that even then Isaiah would have been at least about ninety years old. But the tradition which represents him as dying a martyr's death in the reign of Manasseh, does really assign him a most unusual old age. Nevertheless, Isa 37:37, Isa 37:38 may possibly have been added by a later hand. The two parricides fled to the "land of Ararat," i.e., to Central Armenia. The Armenian history describes them as the founders of the tribes of the Sassunians and Arzerunians. From the princely house of the latter, among whom the name of Sennacherib was a very common one, sprang Leo the Armenian, whom Genesios describes as of Assyrio-Armenian blood. If this were the case, there would be no less than ten Byzantine emperors who were descendants of Sennacherib, and consequently it would not be till a very late period that the prophecy of Nahum was fulfilled. (Note: Duncker, on the contrary (p. 709), speaks of the parricides as falling very shortly afterwards by their brother's hand, and overlooks the Armenian tradition (cf., Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 465), which transfers the flight of the two, who were to have been sacrificed, as is reported by their own father, to the year of the world 4494, i.e., b.c. 705 (see the historical survey of Prince Hubbof in the Miscellaneous Translations, vol. ii. 1834). The Armenian historian Thomas (at the end of the ninth century) expressly states that he himself had sprung from the Arzerunians, and therefore from Sennacherib; and for this reason his historical work is chiefly devoted to Assyrian affairs (see Aucher on Euseb. chron. i. p. xv.).)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Some attribute the destruction to the agency of the plague (see on Isa 33:24), which may have caused Hezekiah's sickness, narrated immediately after; but Isa 33:1, Isa 33:4, proves that the Jews spoiled the corpses, which they would not have dared to do, had there been on them infection of a plague. The secondary agency seems, from Isa 29:6; Isa 30:30, to have been a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning (compare Exo 9:22-25). The simoon belongs rather to Africa and Arabia than Palestine, and ordinarily could not produce such a destructive effect. Some few of the army, as Ch2 32:21 seems to imply, survived and accompanied Sennacherib home. HERODOTUS (2.141) gives an account confirming Scripture in so far as the sudden discomfiture of the Assyrian army is concerned. The Egyptian priests told him that Sennacherib was forced to retreat from Pelusium owing to a multitude of field mice, sent by one of their gods, having gnawed the Assyrians' bow-strings and shield-straps. Compare the language (Isa 37:33), "He shall not shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields," which the Egyptians corrupted into their version of the story. Sennacherib was as the time with a part of his army, not at Jerusalem, but on the Egyptian frontier, southwest of Palestine. The sudden destruction of the host near Jerusalem, a considerable part of his whole army, as well as the advance of the Ethiopian Tirhakah, induced him to retreat, which the Egyptians accounted for in a way honoring to their own gods. The mouse was the Egyptian emblem of destruction. The Greek Apollo was called Sminthian, from a Cretan word for "a mouse," as a tutelary god of agriculture, he was represented with one foot upon a mouse, since field mice hurt corn. The Assyrian inscriptions, of course, suppress their own defeat, but nowhere boast of having taken Jerusalem; and the only reason to be given for Sennacherib not having, amidst his many subsequent expeditions recorded in the monuments, returned to Judah, is the terrible calamity he had sustained there, which convinced him that Hezekiah was under the divine protection. RAWLINSON says, In Sennacherib's account of his wars with Hezekiah, inscribed with cuneiform characters in the hall of the palace of Koyunjik, built by him (a hundred forty feet long by a hundred twenty broad), wherein even the Jewish physiognomy of the captives is portrayed, there occurs a remarkable passage; after his mentioning his taking two hundred thousand captive Jews, he adds, "Then I prayed unto God"; the only instance of an inscription wherein the name of GOD occurs without a heathen adjunct. The forty-sixth Psalm probably commemorates Judah's deliverance. It occurred in one "night," according to Kg2 19:35, with which Isaiah's words, "when they arose early in the morning," &c., are in undesigned coincidence. they . . . they--"the Jews . . . the Assyrians."
John Gill Bible Commentary
And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god,.... Josephus says (z), in his temple, called Arasce; but Nisroch was the name of his deity he worshipped; though who he was is not certain. Jarchi says, in one of their expositions it is said to be "neser", a plank of the ark of Noah; in Tobit 1:24 (a) it is called his idol Dagon; according to Hillerus, the word signifies a prince; and with Vitringa, a king lifted up, or glorious, and whom he takes to be the Assyrian Belus, worshipped in the form and habit of Mars: that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; the former of these had his name from an idol so called, Kg2 17:31, which signifies a glorious king; and the other may signify a prince of treasure. Josephus says they were his eldest sons; what should move them to be guilty of this parricide is not known. Jarchi says that he prayed to his god, and vowed, if he would deliver him, that he might not be slain, he would offer up his two sons to him, who standing by, and hearing him, therefore slew him; the reason given for it in the Apocrypha: "And there passed not five and fifty days, before two of his sons killed him, and they fled into the mountains of Ararath; and Sarchedonus his son reigned in his stead; who appointed over his father's accounts, and over all his affairs, Achiacharus my brother Anael's son.'' (Tobit 1:21) According to Munster's edition, is, that Sennacherib asked his counsellors and senators why the holy blessed God was so zealous for Israel and Jerusalem, that an angel destroyed the host of Pharaoh, and all the firstborn of Egypt, but the young men the Lord gave them, salvation was continually by their hands; and his wise men and counsellors answered him, that Abraham the father of Israel led forth his son to slay him, that the Lord his God might be propitious to him, and hence it is he is so zealous for his children, and has executed vengeance on thy servants; then, said the king, I will slay my sons; by this means, perhaps, he may be propitious to me, and help me; which word, when it came to Adrammelech and Sharezer, they laid in wait for him, and killed him with the sword at the time he went to pray before Dagon his god: and they escaped into the land of Armenia; or "Ararat;" on the mountains of which the ark rested, Gen 8:4. Both the Septuagint version and Josephus say it was Armenia into which he escaped; and Jerom observes, that Ararat is a champaign country in Armenia, through which the river Araxes flows, at the foot of Mount Taurus, whither it is extended. The Targum calls it the land of Kardu; and the Syriac version the land of the Keredeans, which also belonged to Armenia; in these mountainous places they might think themselves most safe: and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead; whom Josephus calls Assarachoddas; and in Ptolemy's Caron he is named Assaradinus; the same, as some think, whom the Greeks call Sardanapalus; in the Apocrypha: "And Achiacharus intreating for me, I returned to Nineve. Now Achiacharus was cupbearer, and keeper of the signet, and steward, and overseer of the accounts: and Sarchedonus appointed him next unto him: and he was my brother's son.'' (Tobit 1:22) he is called Sarchedon, which some take to be the same with Sargon, Isa 20:1. (a) I could not verify this reference. Editor. (z) Ibid. (Antiqu. l. 10. c. 1. sect. 5.) Next: Isaiah Chapter 38
Tyndale Open Study Notes
37:36 The angel of the Lord was a special heavenly agent through whom God worked on earth. Often his role was to communicate special messages (see Gen 16:7-14), but sometimes he brought judgment (see 2 Sam 24:16). • killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers: The Lord began to fulfill what he had repeatedly promised—rescue of Jerusalem and judgment of Assyria (see Isa 10:16, 33-34; 30:31; 31:8).
Isaiah 37:36
Jerusalem Delivered from the Assyrians
35‘I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’” 36Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies!
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A Letter From the Devil
By David Wilkerson9.3K57:04Devil2KI 19:142KI 19:35ISA 37:36MAT 6:331CO 10:11HEB 4:12In this sermon, the preacher shares a personal story about his father's struggles and how the devil tried to tempt him with thoughts of financial success. The preacher emphasizes the importance of not compromising one's faith and values for worldly gain. He warns against the devil's tactics of offering attractive opportunities to those who are down and out. The preacher also highlights the power of prayer and seeking God's guidance in times of temptation.
An Old Testament Revival - Part 2
By David Ravenhill9781:02:19DEU 20:42CH 31:20ISA 37:36ROM 15:4EPH 6:17JAS 5:16
This sermon focuses on the story of Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles, highlighting the challenges he faced and how he overcame them through faith, prayer, and taking action. Hezekiah's life exemplifies the importance of trusting in God's deliverance, standing firm in the face of the enemy's threats, and seeking help from others in times of need. The sermon emphasizes the need for believers to be vigilant, to use the Word of God as a weapon, and to rely on God's strength to overcome any battle they may face.
Ninth River -- Lying
By Martin Knapp0EXO 20:16PRO 12:22ISA 37:36JHN 8:44ACT 5:5EPH 4:25Martin Knapp delivers a powerful sermon on the sin of lying, emphasizing that all lies, regardless of size or intent, are abominable to God and hinder our relationship with Him. He warns that Satan deceives people into thinking there are different levels of lies, but even a half-truth is considered a black lie. Knapp stresses the importance of being truthful in all aspects of life, as God detests lies and all liars. He urges believers to examine their hearts closely to ensure they are not being deceived by the enemy.
- Adam Clarke
- Keil-Delitzsch
- Jamieson-Fausset-Brown
- John Gill
- Tyndale
Adam Clarke Bible Commentary
Then the angel - Before "the angel, "the other copy, Kg2 19:35, adds "it came to pass the same night, that " - The Prophet Hosea, Hos 1:7, has given a plain prediction of the miraculous deliverance of the kingdom of Judah: - "And to the house of Judah I will be tenderly merciful: And I will save them by Jehovah their God. And I will not save them by the bow; Nor by sword, nor by battle; By horses, nor by horsemen." - L.
Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch Old Testament Commentary
To this culminating prophecy there is now appended an account of the catastrophe itself. "Then (K. And it came to pass that night, that) the angel of Jehovah went forth and smote (vayyakkeh, K. vayyakh) in the camp of Asshur a hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when men rose up in the morning, behold, they were all lifeless corpses. Then Sennacherib king of Asshur decamped, and went forth and returned, and settled down in Nineveh. And it cam to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Misroch, his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons (L. chethib omits 'his sons') smote him with the sword; and when they escaped to the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon ascended the throne in his stead." The first pair of histories closes here with a short account of the result of the Assyrian drama, in which Isaiah's prophecies were most gloriously fulfilled: not only the prophecies immediately preceding, but all the prophecies of the Assyrian era since the time of Ahaz, which pointed to the destruction of the Assyrian forces (e.g., Isa 10:33-34), and to the flight and death of the king of Assyrian (Isa 31:9; Isa 30:33). If we look still further forward to the second pair of histories (chapters 38-39), we see from Isa 38:6 that it is only by anticipation that the account of these closing events is finished here; for the third history carries us back to the period before the final catastrophe. We may account in some measure for the haste and brevity of this closing historical fragment, from the prophet's evident wish to finish up the history of the Assyrian complications, and the prophecy bearing upon it. But if we look back, there is a gap between Isa 37:36 and the event narrated here. For, according to Isa 37:30, there was to be an entire year of trouble between the prophecy and the fulfilment, during which the cultivation of the land would be suspended. What took place during that year? There can be no doubt that Sennacherib was engaged with Egypt; for (1.) when he made his second attempt to get Jerusalem into his power, he had received intelligence of the advance of Tirhakah, and therefore had withdrawn the centre of his army from Lachish, and encamped before Libnah (Isa 37:8-9); (2.) according to Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 4), there was a passage of Berosus, which has been lost, in which he stated that Sennacherib "made an expedition against all Asia and Egypt;" (3.) Herodotus relates (ii. 141) that, after Anysis the blind, who lost his throne for fifty years in consequence of an invasion of Egypt by the Ethiopians under Sabakoa, but who recovered it again, Sethon the priest of Hephaestus ascended the throne. The priestly caste was so oppressed by him, that when Sanacharibos, the king of the Arabians and Assyrians, led a great army against Egypt, they refused to perform their priestly functions. but the priest-king went into the temple to pray, and his God promised to help him. He experienced the fulfilment of this prophecy before Pelusium, where the invasion was to take place, and where he awaited the foe with such as continued true to him. "Immediately after the arrival of Sanacharibos, an army of field-mice swarmed throughout the camp of the foe, and devoured their quivers, bows, and shield-straps, so that when morning came on they had to flee without arms, and lost many men in consequence. This is the origin of the stone of Sethon in the temple of Hephaestus (at Memphis), which is standing there still, with a mouse in one hand, and with this inscription: Whosoever looks at me, let him fear the gods!" This Σέθως (possibly the Zet whose name occurs in the lists at the close of the twenty-third dynasty, and therefore in the wrong place) is to be regarded as one of the Saitic princes of the twenty-sixth dynasty, who seem to have ruled in Lower Egypt contemporaneously with the Ethiopians (Note: A seal of Pharaoh Sabakon has been found among the ruins of the palace of Kuyunjik. The colossal image of Tarakos is found among the bas-reliefs of Mediet-Habu. He is holding firmly a number of Asiatic prisoners by the hair of their head, and threatening them with a club. There are several other stately monuments in imitation of the Egyptian style in the ruins of Nepata, the northern capital of the Meriotic state, which belong to him (Lepsius, Denkmler, p. 10 of the programme).) (as, in fact, is stated in a passage of the Armenian Eusebius, Aethiopas et Saitas regnasse aiunt eodem tempore), until they succeeded at length in ridding themselves of the hateful supremacy. Herodotus evidently depended in this instance upon the hearsay of Lower Egypt, which transferred the central point of the Assyrian history to their own native princely house. The question, whether the disarming of the Assyrian army in front of Pelusium merely rested upon a legendary interpretation of the mouse in Sethon's hand, (Note: This Sethos monument has not yet been discovered (Brugsch, Reiseberichte, p. 79). The temple of Phta was on the south side of Memphis; the site is marked by the ruins at Mitrahenni.) which may possibly have been originally intended as a symbol of destruction; or whether it was really founded upon an actual occurrence which was exaggerated in the legend, (Note: The inhabitants of Troas worshipped mice, "because they gnawed the strings of the enemies' bows" (see Wesseling on Il. i. 39).) may be left undecided. But it is a real insult to Isaiah, when Thenius and G. Rawlinson place the scene of Isa 37:36 at Pelusium, and thus give the preference to Herodotus. Has not Isaiah up to this point constantly prophesied that the power of Asshur was to be broken in the holy mountain land of Jehovah (Isa 14:25), that the Lebanon forest of the Assyrian army would break to pieces before Jerusalem (Isa 10:32-34), and that there the Assyrian camp would become the booty of the inhabitants of the city, and that without a conflict? And is not the catastrophe that would befal Assyria described in Isa 18:1-7 as an act of Jehovah, which would determine the Ethiopians to do homage to God who was enthroned upon Zion? We need neither cite Ch2 32:21 nor Psa 76:1-12 (lxx ὠδὴ πρὸς τὸν Ἀσσύριον), according to which the weapons of Asshur break to pieces upon Jerusalem; Isaiah's prophecies are quite sufficient to prove, that to force this Pelusiac disaster (Note: G. Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 445.) into Isa 37:36 is a most thoughtless concession to Herodotus. The final catastrophe occurred before Jerusalem, and the account in Herodotus gives us no certain information even as to the issue of the Egyptian campaign, which took place in the intervening year. Such a gap as the one which occurs before Isa 37:36 is not without analogy in the historical writings of the Bible; see, for example, Num 20:1, where an abrupt leap is made over the thirty-seven years of the wanderings in the desert. The abruptness is not affected by the addition of the clause in the book of Kings, "It came to pass that night." For, in the face of the "sign" mentioned in Isa 37:30, this cannot mean "in that very night" (viz., the night following the answer given by Isaiah); but (unless it is a careless interpolation) it must refer to Isa 37:33, Isa 37:34, and mean illa nocte, viz., the night in which the Assyrian had encamped before Jerusalem. The account before us reads just like that of the slaying of the first-born in Egypt (Exo 12:12; Exo 11:4). The plague of Egypt is marked as a pestilence by the use of the word nâgaph in connection with hikkâh in Exo 12:23, Exo 12:13 (compare Amo 4:10, where it seems to be alluded to under the name דּבר); and in the case before us also we cannot think of anything else than a divine judgment of this kind, which even to the present day defies all attempts at an aetiological solution, and which is described in 2 Sam as effected through the medium of angels, just as it is here. Moreover, the concise brevity of the narrative leaves it quite open to assume, as Hensler and others do, that the ravages of the pestilence in the Assyrian army, which carried off thousands in the night (Psa 91:6), even to the number of 185,000, may have continued for a considerable time. (Note: The pestilence in Mailand in 1629 carried off, according to Tadino, 160,000 men; that in Vienna, in 1679, 122,849; that in Moscow, at the end of the last century, according to Martens, 670,000; but this was during the whole time that the ravages of the pestilence lasted.) The main thing is the fact that the prophecy in Isa 31:8 was actually fulfilled. According to Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 5), when Sennacherib returned from his unsuccessful Egyptian expedition, he found the detachment of his army, which he had left behind in Palestine, in front of Jerusalem, where a pestilential disease sent by God was making great havoc among the soldiers, and that on the very first night of the siege. The three verses, "he broke up, and went away, and returned home," depict the hurried character of the retreat, like "abiit excessit evasit erupit" (Cic. ii. Catil. init.). The form of the sentence in Isa 37:38 places Sennacherib's act of worship and the murderous act of his sons side by side, as though they had occurred simultaneously. The connection would be somewhat different if the reading had been ויּכּהוּ (cf., Ewald, 341, a). Nisroch apparently signifies the eagle-like, or hawk-like (from nisr, nesher), possibly like "Arioch from 'ărı̄. (The lxx transcribe it νασαραχ, A. ασαραχ, א ασαρακ (K. ἐσθραχ, where B. has μεσεραχ), and explorers of the monuments imagined at one time that they had discovered this god as Asarak; (Note: Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, xii. 2, pp. 426-7.) but they have more recently retracted this, although there really is a hawk-headed figure among the images of the Assyrian deities or genii. (Note: Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 265.) The name has nothing to do with that of the supreme Assyrian deity, Asur, Asshur. A better derivation of Nisroch would be from סרך, שׂרך, שׂרג; and this is confirmed by Oppert, who has discovered among the inscriptions in the harem of Khorsabad a prayer of Sargon to Nisroch, who appears there, like the Hymen of Greece, as the patron of marriage, and therefore as a "uniter." (Note: Expdition Scientifique en Mesopotamie, t. ii. p. 339.) The name 'Adrammelekh (a god in Kg2 17:31) signifies, as we now known, gloriosus ('addı̄r) est rex;" and Sharetser (for which we should expect to find Saretser), dominator tuebitur. The Armenian form of the latter name (in Moses Chroen. i. 23), San-asar (by the side of Adramel, who is also called Arcamozan), probably yields the original sense of "Lunus (the moon-god Sin) tuebitur." Polyhistorus (in Euseb. chron. arm. p. 19), on the authority of Berosus, mentions only the former, Ardumuzan, as the murderer, and gives eighteen years as the length of Sennacherib's reign. The murder did not take place immediately after his return, as Josephus says (Ant. x. 1, 5; cf., Tobit i. 21-25, Vulg.); and the expression used by Isaiah, he "dwelt (settled down) in Nineveh," suggests the idea of a considerable interval. This interval embraced the suppression of the rebellion in Babylon, where Sennacherib made his son Asordan king, and the campaign in Cilicia (both from Polyhistorus), (Note: Vid., Richter, Berosi quae supersunt (1825), p. 62; Mller, Fragmenta Hist. Gr. ii. 504.) and also, according to the monuments, wars both by sea and land with Susiana, which supported the Babylonian thirst for independence. The Asordan of Polyhistorus is Esar-haddon (also written without the makkeph, Esarhaddon), which is generally supposed to be the Assyrian form of אשׁור־ח־ידן, Assur fratrem dedit. It is so difficult to make the chronology tally here, that Oppert, on Isa 36:1, proposes to alter the fourteenth year into the twenty-ninth, and Rawlinson would alter it into the twenty-seventh. (Note: Sargonides, p. 10, and Monarchies, ii. 434.) They both of them assign to king Sargon a reign of seventeen (eighteen) years, and to Sennacherib (in opposition to Polyhistorus) a reign of twenty-three (twenty-four) years; and they both agree in giving 680 as the year of Sennacherib's death. This brings us down below the first decade of Manasseh's reign, and would require a different author from Isaiah for Isa 37:37, Isa 37:38. But the accounts given by Polyhistorus, Abydenus, and the astronomical canon, however we may reconcile them among themselves, do not extend the reign of Sennacherib beyond 693. (Note: See Duncker, Gesch. des Alterthums. i. pp. 708-9.) It is true that even then Isaiah would have been at least about ninety years old. But the tradition which represents him as dying a martyr's death in the reign of Manasseh, does really assign him a most unusual old age. Nevertheless, Isa 37:37, Isa 37:38 may possibly have been added by a later hand. The two parricides fled to the "land of Ararat," i.e., to Central Armenia. The Armenian history describes them as the founders of the tribes of the Sassunians and Arzerunians. From the princely house of the latter, among whom the name of Sennacherib was a very common one, sprang Leo the Armenian, whom Genesios describes as of Assyrio-Armenian blood. If this were the case, there would be no less than ten Byzantine emperors who were descendants of Sennacherib, and consequently it would not be till a very late period that the prophecy of Nahum was fulfilled. (Note: Duncker, on the contrary (p. 709), speaks of the parricides as falling very shortly afterwards by their brother's hand, and overlooks the Armenian tradition (cf., Rawlinson, Monarchies, ii. 465), which transfers the flight of the two, who were to have been sacrificed, as is reported by their own father, to the year of the world 4494, i.e., b.c. 705 (see the historical survey of Prince Hubbof in the Miscellaneous Translations, vol. ii. 1834). The Armenian historian Thomas (at the end of the ninth century) expressly states that he himself had sprung from the Arzerunians, and therefore from Sennacherib; and for this reason his historical work is chiefly devoted to Assyrian affairs (see Aucher on Euseb. chron. i. p. xv.).)
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary
Some attribute the destruction to the agency of the plague (see on Isa 33:24), which may have caused Hezekiah's sickness, narrated immediately after; but Isa 33:1, Isa 33:4, proves that the Jews spoiled the corpses, which they would not have dared to do, had there been on them infection of a plague. The secondary agency seems, from Isa 29:6; Isa 30:30, to have been a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning (compare Exo 9:22-25). The simoon belongs rather to Africa and Arabia than Palestine, and ordinarily could not produce such a destructive effect. Some few of the army, as Ch2 32:21 seems to imply, survived and accompanied Sennacherib home. HERODOTUS (2.141) gives an account confirming Scripture in so far as the sudden discomfiture of the Assyrian army is concerned. The Egyptian priests told him that Sennacherib was forced to retreat from Pelusium owing to a multitude of field mice, sent by one of their gods, having gnawed the Assyrians' bow-strings and shield-straps. Compare the language (Isa 37:33), "He shall not shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields," which the Egyptians corrupted into their version of the story. Sennacherib was as the time with a part of his army, not at Jerusalem, but on the Egyptian frontier, southwest of Palestine. The sudden destruction of the host near Jerusalem, a considerable part of his whole army, as well as the advance of the Ethiopian Tirhakah, induced him to retreat, which the Egyptians accounted for in a way honoring to their own gods. The mouse was the Egyptian emblem of destruction. The Greek Apollo was called Sminthian, from a Cretan word for "a mouse," as a tutelary god of agriculture, he was represented with one foot upon a mouse, since field mice hurt corn. The Assyrian inscriptions, of course, suppress their own defeat, but nowhere boast of having taken Jerusalem; and the only reason to be given for Sennacherib not having, amidst his many subsequent expeditions recorded in the monuments, returned to Judah, is the terrible calamity he had sustained there, which convinced him that Hezekiah was under the divine protection. RAWLINSON says, In Sennacherib's account of his wars with Hezekiah, inscribed with cuneiform characters in the hall of the palace of Koyunjik, built by him (a hundred forty feet long by a hundred twenty broad), wherein even the Jewish physiognomy of the captives is portrayed, there occurs a remarkable passage; after his mentioning his taking two hundred thousand captive Jews, he adds, "Then I prayed unto God"; the only instance of an inscription wherein the name of GOD occurs without a heathen adjunct. The forty-sixth Psalm probably commemorates Judah's deliverance. It occurred in one "night," according to Kg2 19:35, with which Isaiah's words, "when they arose early in the morning," &c., are in undesigned coincidence. they . . . they--"the Jews . . . the Assyrians."
John Gill Bible Commentary
And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god,.... Josephus says (z), in his temple, called Arasce; but Nisroch was the name of his deity he worshipped; though who he was is not certain. Jarchi says, in one of their expositions it is said to be "neser", a plank of the ark of Noah; in Tobit 1:24 (a) it is called his idol Dagon; according to Hillerus, the word signifies a prince; and with Vitringa, a king lifted up, or glorious, and whom he takes to be the Assyrian Belus, worshipped in the form and habit of Mars: that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; the former of these had his name from an idol so called, Kg2 17:31, which signifies a glorious king; and the other may signify a prince of treasure. Josephus says they were his eldest sons; what should move them to be guilty of this parricide is not known. Jarchi says that he prayed to his god, and vowed, if he would deliver him, that he might not be slain, he would offer up his two sons to him, who standing by, and hearing him, therefore slew him; the reason given for it in the Apocrypha: "And there passed not five and fifty days, before two of his sons killed him, and they fled into the mountains of Ararath; and Sarchedonus his son reigned in his stead; who appointed over his father's accounts, and over all his affairs, Achiacharus my brother Anael's son.'' (Tobit 1:21) According to Munster's edition, is, that Sennacherib asked his counsellors and senators why the holy blessed God was so zealous for Israel and Jerusalem, that an angel destroyed the host of Pharaoh, and all the firstborn of Egypt, but the young men the Lord gave them, salvation was continually by their hands; and his wise men and counsellors answered him, that Abraham the father of Israel led forth his son to slay him, that the Lord his God might be propitious to him, and hence it is he is so zealous for his children, and has executed vengeance on thy servants; then, said the king, I will slay my sons; by this means, perhaps, he may be propitious to me, and help me; which word, when it came to Adrammelech and Sharezer, they laid in wait for him, and killed him with the sword at the time he went to pray before Dagon his god: and they escaped into the land of Armenia; or "Ararat;" on the mountains of which the ark rested, Gen 8:4. Both the Septuagint version and Josephus say it was Armenia into which he escaped; and Jerom observes, that Ararat is a champaign country in Armenia, through which the river Araxes flows, at the foot of Mount Taurus, whither it is extended. The Targum calls it the land of Kardu; and the Syriac version the land of the Keredeans, which also belonged to Armenia; in these mountainous places they might think themselves most safe: and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead; whom Josephus calls Assarachoddas; and in Ptolemy's Caron he is named Assaradinus; the same, as some think, whom the Greeks call Sardanapalus; in the Apocrypha: "And Achiacharus intreating for me, I returned to Nineve. Now Achiacharus was cupbearer, and keeper of the signet, and steward, and overseer of the accounts: and Sarchedonus appointed him next unto him: and he was my brother's son.'' (Tobit 1:22) he is called Sarchedon, which some take to be the same with Sargon, Isa 20:1. (a) I could not verify this reference. Editor. (z) Ibid. (Antiqu. l. 10. c. 1. sect. 5.) Next: Isaiah Chapter 38
Tyndale Open Study Notes
37:36 The angel of the Lord was a special heavenly agent through whom God worked on earth. Often his role was to communicate special messages (see Gen 16:7-14), but sometimes he brought judgment (see 2 Sam 24:16). • killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers: The Lord began to fulfill what he had repeatedly promised—rescue of Jerusalem and judgment of Assyria (see Isa 10:16, 33-34; 30:31; 31:8).