Isaiah 37

This chapter is a direct continuation of the one before it. It describes the effect of Rabshakeh’s blasphemies and threats on Hezekiah, his humiliation, his message to Isaiah, and the answer, the retreat of Rabshakeh, Sennacherib’s letter, Hezekiah’s prayer, Isaiah’s prophecy, and its fulfillment, in the slaughter of Sennacherib’s army and his own flight and murder.

Isaiah 37:1

7:1 “And it was (or came to pass), when King Hezekiah heard (the report of his messengers), that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Jehovah.” He resorted to the temple, not only as a public place, but with reference to the promise made to Solomon (1 Kings 8:29) that God would hear the prayers of His people from that place when they were in distress. Under the old dispensation there were reasons for resorting to the temple, even to offer private supplications, which cannot possibly apply to any church or other place at present. This arose partly from the fact that prayer was connected with sacrifice, and this was rigidly confined to one spot.

Isaiah 37:2

7:2 “And he sent Eliakim who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, unto Isaiah, the son of Amoz, the prophet.” While he himself resorted to the temple, he sent to ask the counsel and the intercessions of the Prophet. Eliakim and Shebna are again employed in this case, as being qualified to make an exact report of what had happened, and in order to put honor on the prophet by an embassy of distinguished men. In the place of Joash, he sends the elders of the priests, (i.e., the heads of the sacerdotal families). The king applies to the prophet as the authorized expounder of the will of God. Similar applications are recorded elsewhere with sufficient frequency to show that they were customary and that the prophets were regarded in this light. Thus Josiah sent to Huldah (2 Kings 22:14), Zedekiah to Jeremiah (Jeremiah 37:3), etc.

The impious Ahab required Micaiah to come to him, and that only at the earnest request of King Jehoshaphat (1 Kings 22:9). Of the king’s prompt appeal to God in his extremity, Gill quaintly says: “Hezekiah does not sit down to consider Rabshakeh’s speech, to take it in pieces, and give an answer to it, but he applies unto God.”

Isaiah 37:3

7:3 “And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiah, A day of anguish and rebuke and contempt (is) this day, for the children are come to the birth (or to the place of birth), and there is not strength to bring forth.” As the execution of a command is often left to be inferred from the command itself (Isaiah 7:3; Isaiah 8:1, etc.) so here the details of the command are to be gathered from the record of its execution. The common version ‘trouble’, seems too weak for the occasion and for the figure in the other clause. It denotes, not external danger merely, but the complicated distress, both of a temporal and spiritual nature, in which Hezekiah was involved by the threats and blasphemies of the Assyrian. Rebuke signifies the divine rebuke or chastisement, as in Psalms 73:14; Psalms 149:7. It is characteristic of the Scriptures and the ancient saints to represent even the malignity of human enemies as a rebuke from God. The very same phrase (day of rebuke) is used in the same sense by Hosea (Hosea 5:9). The metaphor in the last clause expresses, in the most affecting manner, the ideas of extreme pain, imminent danger, critical emergency, utter weakness, and entire dependence on the aid of others. (Compare the similar expressions of Isa 26:18).

Isaiah 37:4

7:4 “If peradventure Jehovah thy God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which Jehovah thy God hath heard, then shalt thou lift up a prayer for the remnant (that is still) found (here).” It was because Hezekiah thought Jehovah might hear, that he asked Isaiah’s prayers in his behalf. The reproach and blasphemy of the Assyrian consisted mainly in his confounding Jehovah with the gods of the surrounding nations (2 Chronicles 32:19) in antithesis to whom, as being impotent and lifeless, He is here and elsewhere called the living God. To lift up a prayer is not simply to utter one, but has allusion to two common idiomatic phrases, that of lifting up the voice, in the sense of speaking loud or beginning to speak, and that of lifting up the heart or soul, in the sense of earnestly desiring. The passive participle found is often used in Hebrew to denote what is present in a certain place, or more generally what is extant, in existence, or forthcoming. The meaning ‘lift’, which is expressed in the English version, is suggested wholly by the noun with which the participle here agrees. As to the application of the whole phrase, it may either be a general description of the straits or low condition to which the chosen people were reduced (as the church at Sardis is exhorted to strengthen the things which remain - Revelation 3:2), or be more specifically understood in reference to Judah as surviving the destruction of the ten tribes (compare Isaiah 28:5), or to Jerusalem as spared amidst the general desolation of Judah (compare Isaiah 1:8).

In either case, the king requests the prophet to pray for their deliverance from entire destruction. This application was made to Isaiah, not as a private person, however eminent in piety, but as one who was recognized as standing in an intimate relation to Jehovah, and as a constituted medium of communication with Him. In like manner God Himself said to Abimelech of Abraham: ‘he is a prophet, and shall pray for thee, and thou shalt live’ (Genesis 20:7). In recognition of this same relation, Hezekiah twice says ‘thy God’, (i.e., ‘thine in a peculiar and distinctive sense’). This phrase is, therefore, not to be regarded as an expression of despondency, nor even of humility, on Hezekiah’s part, but as a kind of indirect explanation of his reason for resorting to the Prophet at this juncture.

Isaiah 37:5

7:5 “And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah.” This is a natural and simple resumption of the narrative, common in all artificial history.

Isaiah 37:6

7:6 “And Isaiah said to them, Thus shall ye say to your master, Thus saith Jehovah, Be not afraid of (literally from before or from the face of) the words which thou hast heard, (with) which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me.” The last verb means to rail at or revile, and when applied to God must be translated by a still stronger term. The word translated servants is not the same with that in the preceding verse, but strictly means young men or boys. Many regard it as a contemptuous description.

Isaiah 37:7

7:7 “Behold I am putting (or about to put) a spirit in him, and he shall hear a noise, and shall return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” The English Version renders the first clause, ‘behold I will send a blast upon him’, meaning either a pestilential blast or a destructive tempest. But the phrase refers to an effect to be produced upon the mind of the Assyrian. The most probable conclusion is, that it does not denote a specific change, but divine influence as governing his movements. Most writers understand the phrase, ‘he shall hear a noise’, as referring to the news mentioned in v. 9 below. But as this news, far from driving Sennacherib home, led to a fresh defiance of Jerusalem, it has been ingeniously suggested that this expression has reference to the news of the destruction of his host before Jerusalem while he himself was absent. But in the next verse Rabshakeh is said to have rejoined his master, nor is there any further mention of an army at Jerusalem. It is possible, indeed, though not recorded, that Rabshakeh left the troops behind him when he went to Libnah, under the command of Tartan or Rabsaris (2 Kings 18:17), and this is still more probable if, as some suppose, Rabshakeh was a mere ambassador or herald, and Tartan the real military chief. If it can be assumed, on any ground, that the great catastrophe took place in the absence of Sennacherib, which would account for his personal escape, then the explanation given above is more satisfactory than any other.

Isaiah 37:8

7:8 “And Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against (i.e., besieging) Libnah, for he heard that he had decamped from Lachish.” Both these towns were in the plain or lowlands of Judah south-west of Jerusalem (Joshua 15:39; Joshua 15:42), originally seats of Canaanitish kings or chiefs, conquered by Joshua (Joshua 12:11; Joshua 12:15). Lachish was one of the fifteen places fortified by Rehoboam (2Chron l1:9), and one of the last towns taken by Nebuchadnezzar (Jeremiah 34:7). It was still in existence after the exile (Nehemiah 11:30). Libnah was a city of the Levites and of refuge (Joshua 21:13), and appears to have been nearer to Jerusalem. The last verb in this verse properly denotes the removal of a tent or an encampment.

Isaiah 37:9

7:9 “And he (Sennacherib) heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He is come forth to make war with thee; and he heard (it) and sent (or when he heard it he sent) messengers to Hezekiah, saying” (what follows in the next verse). For the meaning of the Hebrew name Cush, see the notes on Isaiah 18:1 and Isaiah 20:3. Tirhakah was one of the most famous conquerors of ancient times. Magasthenes, as quoted by Strabo, puts him between Sesostris and Nebuchadnezzar. He is also named by Manetho as one of the Ethiopian dynasty in Egypt. He was at this time either in close alliance with that country, or more probably in actual possession of Thebais or Upper Egypt.

The fact that an Ethiopian dynasty did reign there, is attested by the ancient writers, and confirmed by still existing monuments. The Greek forms of the name vary but little from the Hebrew. It is unnecessary to suppose that Tirhakah had crossed the desert to invade Syria, or that he was already on the frontier of Judah. The bare fact of his having left his own dominions, with the purpose of attacking Sennacherib, would be sufficient to alarm the latter, especially as his operations in the Holy Land had been so unsuccessful. He was naturally anxious therefore to induce Hezekiah to capitulate before the Ethiopians should arrive, perhaps before the Jews should hear of their approach. That he did not march upon Jerusalem himself, is very probably accounted for on the ground that his strength lay chiefly in cavalry, which could not be employed in the highlands, and that the poliorcetic part of warfare was little known to any ancient nation but the Romans, as Tacitus explicitly asserts. To this may be added the peculiar difficulty arising from the scarcity of water in the environs of Jerusalem, which has been an obstacle to all the armies that have ever besieged it. (See the notes on Isaiah 22:9-11).

Isaiah 37:10

:10 “Thus shall ye say to Hezekiah, king of Judah, Let not thy God deceive thee, in whom thou trustest, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” This recognition of Hezekiah’s royal dignity, of which Rabshakeh seemed to take no notice, if significant at all, as some interpreters imagine, may be accounted for upon the ground, that in this message the design of the Assyrian was not to destroy the people’s confidence in Hezekiah, but the king’s own confidence in God. For the same reason, Sennacherib’s blasphemy is much more open and direct than that of Rabshakeh. The word saying may be referred either to Hezekiah or to God. The English Version makes the last construction necessary, by changing the collocation of the words; but many others understand the sense to be, ‘in whom thou trustest, saying’. On the whole, it is best, in a case so doubtful, to retain the Hebrew collocation with all its ambiguity.

Isaiah 37:11

:11 “Behold thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, by utterly destroying them, and thou shalt be delivered!” The interjection behold appeals to these events as something perfectly notorious; as if he had said, ‘see what has happened to others, and then judge whether thou art likely to escape’. The pronoun thou, in the first clause, not being necessary to the sense, is, according to analogy, distinctive and emphatic, and may be explained to mean, thou at least hast heard, if not the common people. In the last clause, the same pronoun stands in opposition to the other kings or kingdoms who had been destroyed. This clause is, in most versions, rendered as an interrogation, but is properly an exclamation of contemptuous incredulity. All the lands may be either an elliptical expression for all the lands subdued by them, or, which is more in keeping with the character of the discourse, a hyperbolical expression of the speaker’s arrogance.

Isaiah 37:12

:12 “Did the gods of the nations deliver them, which my fathers destroyed, (to wit) Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which is (or who were) in Telassar?” Here again the collocation of the words makes the construction doubtful, though the general sense is clear. With respect to the places mentioned in the second clause, all that is absolutely necessary to the just understanding of the sentence, is that they were well known, both to speaker and hearer, as Assyrian conquests. The difficulty of identifying some of them affords an incidental argument in favor of the antiquity and genuineness of the passage. Gozan is probably the modern Kaushan, the Gauzanitis of Ptolemy, a region of Mesopotamia, situated on the Chaboras, to which a portion of the ten tribes were transferred by Shalmaneser. Haran was a city of Mesopotamia, where Abraham’s father died, the Carrae of the Romans, and famous for the great defeat of Crassus. Rezeph, a common name in oriental geography, here denotes probably the Rhessapha of Ptolemy, a town and province in Palmyrene Syria.

Eden means pleasure or delight, and seems to have been given as a name to various places. Having been thus applied to a district in the region of Mount Lebanon the native Christians have been led to regard that as the site of the terrestrial paradise.

Equally groundless are the conclusions of some learned critics as to the identity of the place here mentioned with the garden of Eden. Such allusions prove no more, as to the site of the garden, than the similar allusions of modern orators and poets to any delightful region as an Eden or Paradise. Even the continued application of the name, in prose, as a geographical term, proves no more than the use of such a name as Mount Pleasant in American geography. The inference, in this place, is especially untenable, because the word sons or children, prefixed to Eden, leaves it doubtful whether the latter is the name of a place at all, and not rather that of a person, whose descendants were among the races conquered by Assyria. The relative pronoun may agree grammatically either with sons or Eden, and the form of the verb to be supplied must be varied accordingly. Telassar, which some think may be identical with the Ellasar of Gen 14:1, appears to be analogous in form to the Babylonian names, Tel-abib, Tel-melah, Tel-hasha, in all which tel means hill and corresponds to the English mount in names of places.

Isaiah 37:13

:13 “Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city Sepharvaim, Hena and Ivvah?” The question implies that they were nowhere, or had ceased to be. The first three names occur in the same order in Rabshakeh’s speech (Isaiah 36:19), and the remaining two also in the parallel passage (2 Kings 18:34). Of Hena nothing whatever is known, and of Ivvah only that it may be identical with the Ivvah of 2 Kings 17:24, from which Assyrian colonists were transferred to Samaria. It has been suggested that they are the names of the deities worshipped at Hamath, Arpad, and Sepharvaim. In favor of this exposition, besides the fact that the names, as names of places, occur nowhere else, it may be urged that it agrees not only with the context in this place, but also with 2 Kings 18:34.

Isaiah 37:14

:14 “And Hezekiah took the letters from the hand of the messengers, and read it, and went up (to) the house of Jehovah, and Hezekiah spread it before Jehovah.” As nothing had been previously said respecting letters, we must either suppose that the preceding address was made not orally but in writing, or that both modes of communication were adopted. The latter is most probable in itself, and agrees best with the statement in 2 Chronicles 32:17, that besides the speeches which his servants spake against the Lord God and against his servant Hezekiah, Sennacherib wrote letters to rail on the Lord God of Israel and to speak against him. The singular pronoun (it) refers to the plural antecedent (letters), which like the Latin literae had come to signify a single letter, and might be therefore treated indiscriminately either as a singular or plural form. The parallel passage (2 Kings 19:14) removes all appearance of irregularity by reading them instead of it. As any man might carry an open letter, which troubled or perplexed him, to a friend for sympathy and counsel, so the pious king spreads this blasphemous epistle before God, as the occasion and the subject of his prayers. Josephus says he left it afterwards rolled up in the temple, of which fact there is no record in the narrative before us.

Isaiah 37:15

:15 “And Hezekiah prayed to Jehovah, saying “(what follows in the next verse). Gill quaintly says that, instead of answering the letter himself, he prays the Lord to answer it. Instead of ‘to’, the parallel passage (2 Kings 19:15) has ‘before Jehovah’.

Isaiah 37:16

:16 “Jehovah of Hosts, God of Israel, dwelling between (or sitting upon) the cherubim, Thou art He, the God (i.e., the only true God), Thou alone, to all the kingdoms of the earth; Thou hast made the heavens and the earth.” The cherubim were symbolical representations of the superhuman orders of beings, or, as some suppose, of the perfection of the creature in its highest form. Whether Jehovah’s riding on the cherubim (Psalms 18:10) or His being enthroned above the material cherubs in the temple, or His dwelling between the cherubim (Exodus 25:22) be specifically meant, there is obvious allusion to His manifested presence over the mercy-seat, called by the later Jews shechinah, which word is itself used in the Chaldee Paraphrase of the verse before us. ‘The God of all the kingdoms of the earth’ is not an exact translation of the Hebrew words, in which the God stands by itself as an emphatic phrase, meaning the only God, the true God, and what follows is intended to suggest a contrast with the false gods of the nations. Not simply of all, in all, for all, or over all, but with respect to all. ‘Thou art the one true God, not only with respect to us, but with respect to all the nations of the earth.’ The reason follows: ‘because Thou hast made them all,’ and not the earth only, but the heavens also. All this is indirectly a reply to the Assyrian blasphemies, which questioned the almighty power of Jehovah, and put Him on a, level with the idols of the heathen. The same antithesis between the impotence of idols and the power of God, as shown in the creation of the world, occurs in Psalms 96:5 and Jeremiah 10:11.

Isaiah 37:17

:17 “Bow thine ear, O Jehovah, and hear; open Thine eyes, O Jehovah, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent (or who hath sent) to reproach the living God.” These expressions are entirely analogous to those in many other places, where God is entreated to see and hear, (i.e., to act as if He saw and heard). The simplest version is, who has sent. To express the idea, which he has sent, usage would seem to require a personal pronoun with the verb, as in 2 Kings 19:16, where the relative may refer to the plural words, or to Rabshakeh, which last is the construction given in the English Version of that passage.

Isaiah 37:18

:18 “It is true, O Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have wasted all the lands and their land.” The first word in the original is a particle of concession, admitting the truth of what Sennacherib had said, so far as it related merely to his conquest of the nations and destruction of their idols. The repetition, lands and land, has much perplexed interpreters. The best construction is that which brings the sentence into strict agreement, not as to form but as to sense, with the parallel passage (2 Kings 19:17) where we have the unambiguous term nations.

Isaiah 37:19

:19 “And given (or put) their gods into the fire, for they (were) no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men’s hands-and destroyed them.” The application of the word gods to the mere external image is common in profane as well as sacred writings, and arises from the fact that all idolaters, whatever they may theoretically hold as to the nature of their deities, identify them practically with the stocks and stones to which they pay their adorations.

Isaiah 37:20

:20 “And now, oh Jehovah our God, save us from his hand, and all the kingdoms of the earth shall know, that Thou Jehovah art alone (or that Thou alone art Jehovah).” The adverb now is here used both in a temporal and logical sense, as equivalent, not only to at length, or before it is too late, but also to therefore, or since these things are so. The fact that Sennacherib had destroyed other nations, is urged as a reason why the Lord should interpose to rescue His own people from a like destruction; and the fact that He had really triumphed over other gods, as a reason why he should be taught to know the difference between them and Jehovah. The construction of the verb as an optative (let all the kingdoms of the earth know), or a subjunctive (that all the kingdoms of the earth may know), although admissible, ought not to be preferred to the future proper, where the latter yields a sense so good in itself and so well suited to the context. The last words of the verse may either mean, that Thou Jehovah art the only one (i.e., as appears from the connection, the only true God), or, that Thou alone art Jehovah, with particular allusion to the proper import of that name as signifying absolute, eternal, independent existence. The first is recommended by its more exact agreement with the masoretic accents. These questions of construction do not affect the general sense, which is, that the deliverance of His people from Sennacherib would prove Jehovah to be infinitely more than the gods of the nations whom he gloried in destroying.

Isaiah 37:21

:21 “And Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah saying, Thus saith Jehovah, the God of Israel, (as to) what thou hast prayed to me (with respect) to Sennacherib king of Assyria” (the apodosis follows in the next verse). The supposition that the communication was in writing, is favored by the analogy of v. 14, and by the length and metrical form of the message itself.

Isaiah 37:22

:22 “This is the word which Jehovah hath spoken concerning (or against) him. The virgin daughter of Zion hath despised thee, she hath laughed thee to scorn, the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head after thee.” The simple meaning is that what follows is a revelation from God in answer to the vaunting of Sennacherib and the prayers of Hezekiah. For the meaning of the phrase daughter of Zion, see the note on Isaiah 1:8; for the construction of virgin, that on Isaiah 23:12. The virgin daughter Zion, (i.e., Zion considered as a daughter and a virgin). It may be a personification either of the whole church and nation, or of the city of Jerusalem, which last seems more appropriate in this connection. Not merely ‘at thee’, but ‘after thee as thou fleest’.

Some understand by shaking a derisive nodding or vertical motion of the head accompanied by laughter. Others suppose that a wagging or lateral motion of the head, although not used by us for such a purpose, may have been common as a gesture of derision in the east, the rather as such signs are to a great extent conventional, and as other derisive gestures mentioned in the Scriptures are equally foreign from our habits and associations. Others again suppose that the shaking of the head, with the Hebrews as with us, was a gesture of negation, and that the expression of scorn consisted in a tacit denial that Sennacherib had been able to effect his purpose. Thus understood, the action is equivalent to saying in words, no, no! (i.e., he could not do it. See my note on Psalms 22:8.) The meaning of the whole verse, divested of its figurative dress, is that the people of God might regard the threats of the Assyrian with contempt.

Isaiah 37:23

:23 “Whom hast thou reproached and reviled, and against Whom hast thou raised (thy) voice, and lifted thine eyes (on) high towards (or against) the Holy One of Israel?” This is equivalent to saying, dost thou know Who it is that thou revilest? To raise the voice may simply mean to speak, or more emphatically to speak boldly, perhaps with an allusion to the literal loudness of Rabshakeh’s address to the people on the wall (Isaiah 36:13). The construction loftiness of eyes (meaning pride) is inconsistent both with the pointing and accentuation. The English and many other versions make the last words of the second clause an answer to the foregoing question. (Against whom? Against the Holy One of Israel.) But the other construction is more natural.

Isaiah 37:24

:24 “By the hand of thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord and said, With the multitude of my chariots (or cavalry) I have ascended the height of mountains, the sides of Lebanon, and I will cut down the loftiness of its cedars and the choice of its firs (or cypresses), and I will reach its extreme height (literally, the height of its extremity), its garden-forest (literally, the garden of its forest).” This may be regarded either as the substance of another message actually sent by Sennacherib, or as a translation of his feelings and his conduct into words. ‘By the hand’ may then mean simply through (as in Isaiah 20:1), or refer particularly to the letters mentioned in v. 14. The fruitful field, vineyard, garden, orchard, or the like, is here combined with forest, either for the purpose of describing the cedar groves of Lebanon as similar to parks and orchards, or of designating the spot where the cultivated slope of the mountain is gradually changed into a forest. It was long supposed that the only cedar grove of Lebanon was the one usually visited near the highest summit of the range; but in 1805, Seetzen discovered two others of greater extent, and the American missionaries have since found many trees in different parts of the mountain. (See Robinson’s Palestine, III 440.) If we take into consideration the whole context, and the strongly hyperbolical expressions of the other messages and speeches of Sennacherib, it will be found most natural to understand this verse as a poetical assertion of the speaker’s power to overcome all obstacles.

Isaiah 37:25

:25 “I have digged and drunk water, and I will dry up with the sole of my feet (literally, steps) all the streams of Egypt.” As in the preceding verse, he begins with the past tense and then changes to the future, to denote that he had begun his enterprise successfully and expected to conclude it triumphantly. The confusion of the tenses, as all futures or all preterits, is entirely arbitrary, and the translation of them all as presents is at least unnecessary, when a stricter version not only yields a good sense, but adds to the significance and force of the expressions. The best interpretation, on the whole, is that which understands the verse to mean that no difficulties or privations could retard his march, that where there was no water he had dug for it and found it, and that where there was he would exhaust it, both assertions implying a vast multitude of soldiers. The drying up of the rivers with the soles of the feet is understood by some as an allusion to the Egyptian mode of drawing water with a tread-wheel (Deuteronomy 11:10). Others suppose it to mean, that they would cross the streams dry-shod, or that the dust raised by their march would choke and dry up rivers. In favor of supposing an allusion to the drawing out of water, is the obvious reference to digging and drinking in the other clause.

Isaiah 37:26

:26 “Hast thou not heard? From afar I have done it, from the days of old, and have formed it. Now I have caused it to come, and, it shall be (or come to pass), to lay waste, (as or into) desolate heaps, fortified cities.” Most writers, ancient and modern, are agreed in applying the first clause, either to express predictions, or to the purpose and decree of God. The sense is then substantially the same with that of Isa 10:5; Isaiah 10:15, to wit, that the Assyrian had wrought these conquests only as an instrument in the hand of God, who had formed and declared His purpose long before, and was now bringing it to pass. Hast thou not heard? may either be a reference to history and prophecy, or a more general expression of surprise that he could be ignorant of what was so notorious.

Isaiah 37:27

:27 “And their inhabitants are short of hand; they are broken and confounded; they are grass of the field and green herbage, grass of the house-tops, and afield before the stalk” (or standing corn), (i.e., before the grain has grown up). This may be regarded either as a description of the weakness of those whom the Assyrian had subdued, or as a description of the terror with which they were inspired at his approach. In the former case this verse extenuates the glory of his conquest; in the latter it enhances it. A short hand or arm implies inability to reach the object, but does not necessarily suggest the idea of mutilation. In a negative sense, it is applied to God (Numbers 11:23; Isaiah 50:2; Isaiah 59:1). The general meaning of the whole verse evidently is that they were unable to resist him.

Isaiah 37:28

:28 “And thy sitting down, and thy going out, and thy coming in, I have known, and thy raging (or provoking of thyself) against me.” These phrases are combined to signify all the actions of his life, like sitting down and rising up in Psalms 139:2, going out and coming in (Deuteronomy 28:6; 1 Kings 3:7), and elsewhere, the latter especially in reference to military movements (1 Samuel 18:16; 2 Samuel 5:2).

Isaiah 37:29

:29 “Because of thy raging against me, and (because) thy arrogance has come up into my ears, I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips, and I will cause thee to return by the way by which thou camest.” The figures in the last clause are drawn from the customary method of controlling horses, and from a less familiar mode of treating buffaloes and other wild animals, still practiced in the east and in menageries. (Compare Ezekiel 19:4; Ezekiel 29:4; Ezekiel 38:4; Job 41:1). The figure may be taken in a general sense as signifying failure and defeat, or more specifically as referring to Sennacherib’s hasty flight.

Isaiah 37:30

:30 “And this to thee (oh Hezekiah, shall be) the sign (of the fulfillment of the promise) eat, the (present) year, that which groweth of itself, and the second year that which springeth of the same, and in the third year sow ye, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.” The preceding verse closes the address to the Assyrian, begun in v. 22, and the Prophet now continues his message to Hezekiah. As to the general meaning of the verse, there are two opinions. One is that although the cultivation of the land had been interrupted for the last two years, yet now in this third year they might safely resume it. To this interpretation it may be objected, that it arbitrarily makes the year mean the year before the last, and no less arbitrarily assumes that the infinitive is here used for the preterit. The later writers seem to have gone back to the old and obvious interpretation, which refers the whole verse to the future. This is grammatically more exact, because it takes the year in a sense analogous to that of the day, the common Hebrew phrase for this day, and assimilates the infinitive to the imperatives which follow, Thus understood, the verse is a prediction that for two years the people should subsist upon the secondary fruits of what was sown two years before, but that in the third year they should till the ground, as usual, implying that Sennacherib’s invasion should before that time be at an end.

But why should this event be represented as so distant, when the context seems to speak of Sennacherib’s discomfiture and flight as something which immediately ensued? Of this two explanations have been given.

Most probably the year in which these words were uttered was a sabbatical year, and the next the year of Jubilee, during neither of which the Jews were allowed to cultivate the ground, so that the resumption of tillage was of course postponed to the third. It is no conclusive objection to this theory, that the chronological hypothesis which it involves cannot be positively proved. The difficulty in all such cases arises from the very absence of positive proof, and the necessity of choosing between different possibilities. The only remaining question is, wherein the sign consisted, or in what sense the word sign is to be understood. Some take it in its strongest sense of miracle, and refer it, either to the usual divine interposition for the subsistence of the people during the sabbatical years, or to the miraculous provision promised in this particular case. Others understand it here as simply meaning an event inseparable from another, either as an antecedent or a consequent, so that the promise of the one is really a pledge of the other. Thus the promise that the children of Israel should worship at Mount Sinai was a sign to Moses that they should first leave Egypt, and the promised birth of the Messiah was a sign that the Jewish nation should continue till He came.

Isaiah 37:31

:31 “And the escaped (literally the escape) of Judah, that is left, shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.” This verse foretells, by a familiar figure, the returning prosperity of Judah. For the peculiar use of the abstract noun escape, see above, Isaiah 4:2; Isaiah 10:20; Isaiah 15:9.

Isaiah 37:32

:32 “For out of Jerusalem shalt go with a remnant, and an escape from Mount Zion; the zeal of Jehovah of Hosts shall do this.” For the meaning of the last clause, see the commentary on Isaiah 9:7. The first clause is an explanation of the use of the words escape and left in the foregoing verse. The verse denotes simply that some in Jerusalem or Zion shall be saved.

Isaiah 37:33

:33 “Therefore (because Jehovah has determined to fulfil these promises), thus saith Jehovah (with respect) to the king of Assyria, he shall not come to this city, and shall not shoot an arrow there, and shall not come before it with a shield (or a shield shall not come before it), and shall not cast up a mound against it.” Some understand this as meaning simply that he should not take the city, others that he should not even attack it. This verse seems to show that Jerusalem was not actually besieged by the Assyrians, or at least not by the main body of the army under Sennacherib himself, unless we assume that he had already done so and retreated, and regard this as a promise that the attempt should not be repeated.

Isaiah 37:34

:34 “By the way that he came shall he return, and to this city shall he not come, saith Jehovah.” The first clause may simply mean that he shall go back whence he came, or more specifically, that he shall retreat without turning aside to attack Jerusalem, either for the first or second time.

Isaiah 37:35

:35 “And I will cover over (or protect) this city, (so as) to save it, for my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant.” This does not mean that the faith or piety of David, as an individual, should be rewarded in his descendants, but that the promise made to him, respecting his successors, and especially the last and greatest of them, should be faithfully performed. (See 2 Samuel 7:12-13).

Isaiah 37:36

:36 “And the angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of Assyria a hundred and eighty and five thousand, and they (the survivors, or the Jews) rose early in the morning, and behold, all of them (that were smitten) were dead corpses.” Even if we give the phrase angel of the Lord its usual sense, “there is no more improbability in the existence of a good angel than there is in the existence of a good man, or in the existence of an evil spirit than there is in the existence of a bad man; there is no more improbability in the supposition that God employs invisible and heavenly messengers to accomplish his purposes than there is that he employs men.” (Barnes.) The terms used can naturally signify nothing but a single instantaneous stroke of divine vengeance, and the parallel passage (2 Kings 19:35) says expressly that the angel smote this number in that night. The parallel narrative in 2 Chronicles 32:21, instead of numbering the slain, says that all the mighty men of valor and the leaders and the captains in the camp of the Assyrian were cut off. Where this terrific overthrow took place, whether before Jerusalem, or at Libnah, or at some intervening point, has been disputed, and can never be determined, in the absence of all data, monumental or historical. Throughout the sacred narrative, it seems to be intentionally left uncertain, whether Jerusalem was besieged at all, whether Sennacherib in person ever came before it, whether his army was divided or united when the stroke befell them, and also what proportion of the host escaped. It is enough to know that one hundred and eighty-five thousand men perished in a single night.

Isaiah 37:37

:37 “Then decamped and departed and returned Sennacherib, king of Assyria, and dwelt (or remained) in Nineveh.” The form of expression in the first clause is thought by some writers to resemble Cicero’s famous description of Catiline’s escape (abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit), the rapid succession of the verbs suggesting the idea of confused and sudden flight. His dwelling in Nineveh is supposed by some interpreters to be mentioned as implying that he went forth no more to war, at least not against the Jews. An old tradition says that he lived only fifty days after his return; but according to other chronological hypotheses, he reigned eighteen years longer, and during that interval waged war successively against the Greeks and founded Tarsus in Cilicia.

Isaiah 37:38

:38 “And he was worshipping (in) the house of Nisroch his god, and Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword, and they escaped (literally, saved themselves) into the land of Ararat, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.” The Jews have a tradition that Sennacherib intended to sacrifice his sons, and that they slew him in self-defense. Another tradition is, that he had fled into the temple of his god as an asylum. A simpler supposition is, that the time of his devotions was chosen by his murderers, as one when he would be least guarded or suspicious. The name Adrammelech occurs in 2 Kings 17:31, as that of a Mesopotamian or Assyrian idol. Ararat, both here and in Genesis 8:4, is the name of a region, corresponding more or less exactly to Armenia, or to that part of it in which the ark rested. The Armenians still call their country by this name.

From the expression mountains of Ararat (Genesis 8:4) has sprung the modern practice of applying this name to the particular eminence where Noah landed. The country of Ararat is described by Smith and Dwight, in their Researches in Armenia, vol. II pp. 73, etc.