1And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Jehovah. 2And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of trouble, and rebuke, and contempt; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring forth. 4It may be that Jehovah your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which Jehovah your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is found left. 5So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6And Isaiah said to them, Thus you shall say to your master, Thus says Jehovah: Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. 8And Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he has come out to wage war with you. So he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? 12Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? 13Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? 14And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of Jehovah, and spread it before Jehovah. 15And Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah, and said: O Jehovah the God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made the heavens and earth. 16Extend Your ear, O Jehovah, and hear; open Your eyes, O Jehovah, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17Truly, Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men's hands; wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. 19Now therefore, O Jehovah our God, I pray, save us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are Jehovah God, You alone. 20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says Jehovah the God of Israel: I have heard that which you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria. 21This is the word which Jehovah has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem Has shaken her head behind you! 22Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel! 23By your messengers you have reproached the Lord, and said: By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, next to Lebanon; I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; I will enter the ends of its lodging places, into its forest at Carmel. 24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of Egypt. 25Have you not heard? From long ago I have made it, and from ancient times I have formed it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into heaps of ruins. 26Therefore their inhabitants were short handed; they were shattered and put to shame; they were as the grass of the field and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and grain blighted before it is grown. 27But I know your abode, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me. 28Because your rage against Me and your arrogance have come up into My ears, therefore I will put my hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way which you have come. 29This shall be a sign to you: You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same; also in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 30And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Jehovah of Hosts shall do this. 32Therefore thus says Jehovah concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it. 33By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; and he shall not come into this city, says Jehovah. 34For I have defended this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David's sake. 35And it came to pass that night that the Angel of Jehovah went out, and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when they arose early in the morning, behold, all of them were dead corpses. 36So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh. 37Now it came to pass, as he was bowing down in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
Jamieson Fausset Brown Bible Commentary 1 HEZEKIAH IN DEEP AFFLICTION. (
2Kgs 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.
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.
6 COMFORTED BY ISAIAH. (
2Kgs 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.
8 SENNACHERIB SENDS A BLASPHEMOUS LETTER TO HEZEKIAH. (
2Kgs 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 (
Josh 10:29; compare
Josh 10:31;
Josh 15:42), where the chief-cup-bearer reported the execution of his mission.
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 [
2Kgs 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" (
2Kgs 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.
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.
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 (
2Kgs 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 (
2Kgs 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 (
2Kgs 19:32-34).
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].
35 AN ANGEL DESTROYS THE ASSYRIANS. (
2Kgs 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
2Kgs 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].
36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria . . . went and returned--the same way as he came (
2Kgs 19:33). The route is described (
Isa 10:28-
Isa 10:32). 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.
37 SENNACHERIB SLAIN. (
2Kgs 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.
