Now in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked all of the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. The king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to king Hezekiah with a large army. He stood by the aqueduct from the upper pool in the fuller’s field highway. Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder came out to him.
Rabshakeh said to them, “Now tell Hezekiah, ‘The great king, the king of Assyria, says, “What confidence is this in which you trust? I say that your counsel and strength for the war are only vain words. Now in whom do you trust, that you have rebelled against me? Behold, you trust in the staff of this bruised reed, even in Egypt, which if a man leans on it, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who trust in him. But if you tell me, ‘We trust in Yahweh our God,’ isn’t that he whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away, and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar?’ ” Now therefore, please make a pledge to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them. How then can you turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, and put your trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? Have I come up now without Yahweh against this land to destroy it? Yahweh said to me, “Go up against this land, and destroy it.” ’ ”
Then Eliakim, Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Please speak to your servants in Aramaic, for we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Jews’ language in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”
But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you, to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, who will eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?” Then Rabshakeh stood, and called out with a loud voice in the Jews’ language, and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria! The king says, ‘Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you; for he will not be able to deliver you. Don’t let Hezekiah make you trust in Yahweh, saying, “Yahweh will surely deliver us. This city won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” ’ Don’t listen to Hezekiah, for the king of Assyria says, ‘Make your peace with me, and come out to me; and each of you eat from his vine, and each one from his fig tree, and each one of you drink the waters of his own cistern; until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, “Yahweh will deliver us.” Have any of the gods of the nations delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand? Who are they among all the gods of these countries that have delivered their country out of my hand, that Yahweh should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?’ ”
But they remained silent, and said nothing in reply, for the king’s commandment was, “Don’t answer him.”
Then Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 19, 21 When he had abolished superstition, and idolatry, and restored…
When he had abolished superstition, and idolatry, and restored religion, yet God would exercise his Church to try their faith and patience.
This history is rehearsed because it is as a seal and confirmation of the doctrine afore, both for the threatenings and promises: to wit, that God would suffer his Church to be afflicted, but at length would send deliverance.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On v1 Isa 36:1 Now it came to pass in the…
Isa 36:1 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, [that] Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them.
Ver. 1. See 2Ki 18:1-37 2Ki 19:1-37 with the notes; See also 2Ch 32:1-33.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On v22 The history related here, and in the three following…
The history related here, and in the three following chapters, is, for the substance of it, and almost wholly in the same words, contained 2Ki 18:1-20:21. It is fitly inserted here, to explain and confirm some of the foregoing predictions. It may seem to have been first written by this prophet, and from him to have been taken into the Book of Kings, to complete that history.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 11 We shall here only observe some practical lessons. 1.…
We shall here only observe some practical lessons. 1. A people may be in the way of their duty and yet meet with trouble and distress. Hezekiah was reforming, and his people were in some measure reformed; and yet their country is at that time invaded and a great part of it laid waste. Perhaps they began to grow remiss and cool in the work of reformation, were doing it by halves, and ready to sit down short of a thorough reformation; and then God visited them with this judgment, to put life into them and that good cause. We must not wonder if, when we are doing well, God sends afflictions to quicken us to do better, to do our best, and to press forward towards perfection. 2. That we must never be secure of the continuance of our peace in this world, nor think our mountain stands so strong that it cannot be moved. Hezekiah was not only a pious king, but prudent, both in his administration at home and in his treaties abroad. His affairs were in a good posture, and he seemed particularly to be upon good terms with the king of Assyria, for he had lately made his peace with him by a rich present (Kg2 18:14), and yet that perfidious prince pours an army into his country all of a sudden and lays it waste. It is good for us therefore always to keep up an expectation of trouble, that, when it comes, it may be no surprise to us, and then it will be the less a terror. 3. God sometimes permits the enemies of his people, even those that are most impious and treacherous, to prevail far against them. The king of Assyria took all, or most, of the defenced cities of Judah, and then the country would of course be an easy prey to him. Wickedness may prosper awhile, but cannot prosper always. 4. Proud men love to talk big, to boast of what they are, and have, and have done, nay and of what they will do, to insult over others, and set all mankind at defiance, though thereby they render themselves ridiculous to all wise men and obnoxious to the wrath of that God who resists the proud. But thus they think to make themselves feared, though they make themselves hated, and to carry their point by great swelling words of vanity, Jde 1:16. 5. The enemies of God's people endeavour to conquer them by frightening them, especially by frightening them from their confidence in God. Thus Rabshakeh here, with noise and banter, runs down Hezekiah as utterly unable to cope with his master, or in the least to make head against him. It concerns us therefore, that we may keep our ground against the enemies of our souls, to keep up our spirits by keeping up our hope in God. 6. It is acknowledged, on all hands, that those who forsake God's service forfeit his protection. If that had been true which Rabshakeh alleged, that Hezekiah had thrown down God's altars, he might justly infer that he could not with any assurance trust in him for succour and relief, Isa 36:7, We may say thus to presuming sinners, who say that they trust in the Lord and in his mercy. Is not this he whose commandments they have lived in the contempt of, whose name they have dishonoured, and whose ordinances they have slighted? How then can they expect to find favour with him? 7. It is an easy thing, and very common, for those that persecute the church and people of God to pretend a commission from him for so doing. Rabshakeh could say, Have I now come up without the Lord? when really he had come up against the Lord, Isa 37:28. Those that kill the servants of the Lord think they do him service and say, Let the Lord be glorified. But, sooner or later, they will be made to know their error to their cost, to their confusion.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–22 Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year…
Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah,.... The following piece of history is inserted from the books of Kings and Chronicles, as an illustration of some preceding prophecies, and as a confirmation of them; see Kg2 18:13.
that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah; who in the Apocrypha:
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"And if the king Sennacherib had slain any, when he was come, and fled from Judea, I buried them privily; for in his wrath he killed many; but the bodies were not found, when they were sought for of the king.'' (Tobit 1:18)
is said to be the son of Shalmaneser, as he certainly was his successor, who in the sixth year of Hezekiah, eight years before this, took Samaria, and carried the ten tribes captive, Kg2 18:10 he is called Sennacherib by Herodotus (c), who says he was king of the Arabians, and the Assyrians; who yet is blamed by Josephus (d), for not calling him the king of the Assyrians only of the Arabians, whereas he styles him both; and the same Josephus observes, that Berosus, a Chaldean writer, makes mention of this Sennacherib as king of Assyria; the same came up in a military way against the fortified cities of Judah, which were the frontier towns, and barriers of their country:
and took them; that is, some of them, not all of them; see Isa 37:8, he thought indeed to have took them to himself, this was his intent, Ch2 32:1, but was prevailed upon to desist, by a payment of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold to him, by the king of Judah, Kg2 18:14.
(c) In Euterpe c. 141. (d) Antiqu. Jud. l. 10. c. 1. sect. 4.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v1 Sennacherib invades Judah, ver. 1. He sends Rabshakeh, who…
Sennacherib invades Judah, ver. 1. He sends Rabshakeh, who by his blasphemous persuasions tempts Hezekiah to despair, and the people to revolt, ver. 2-22. The history related here, and in the three following chapters, is, almost in the same words contained 2 Kings 18, 19, 20. It is inserted here, to explain and confirm some of the foregoing predictions. It may seem to have first been written by this prophet, and from him taken into the book of Kings, to compleat that history.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, 12, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21 Sennacherib, king of Assyria, comes against Judah, and takes
CHAPTER XXXVI
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, comes against Judah, and takes
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all the fenced cities, 1.
He afterwards sends a great host against Jerusalem; and his
general Rabshakeh delivers an insulting and blasphemous message
to Hezekiah, 2-20.
Hezekiah and his people are greatly afflicted at the words of
Rabshakeh, 21, 22.
The history of the invasion of Sennacherib, and of the miraculous destruction of his army, which makes the subject of so many of Isaiah's prophecies, is very properly inserted here as affording the best light to many parts of those prophecies, and as almost necessary to introduce the prophecy in the thirty-seventh chapter, being the answer of God to Hezekiah's prayer, which could not be properly understood without it. We find the same narrative in the Second Book of Kings, 2Kg 18, 2Kg 19, 2Kg 20; and these chapters of Isaiah, Isa 36, Isa 37, Isa 38, Isa 39, for much the greater part, (the account of the sickness of Hezekiah only excepted,) are but a different copy of that narration. The difference of the two copies is little more than what has manifestly arisen from the mistakes of transcribers; they mutually correct each other, and most of the mistakes may be perfectly rectified by a collation of the two copies with the assistance of the ancient versions. Some few sentences, or members of sentences, are omitted in this copy of Isaiah, which are found in the other copy in the Book of Kings. Whether these omissions were made by design or mistake may be doubted. - L.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXXVI
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v1 In this and the three following chapters is contained…
A.M. 3292. — B.C. 712.
In this and the three following chapters is contained the historical part of the book of Isaiah, relating a memorable transaction, strongly confirmative of the divine mission of our prophet, and illustrative of some of the foregoing predictions. In this chapter we have the invasion of Judah by Sennacherib, Isa 36:1. He sends Rabshakeh, who, by his blasphemous persuasion, tempts Hezekiah to despair, and the people to revolt, Isa 36:2-22.
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Isa 36:1. Now it came to pass, &c. — The history related in this and the three following chapters is contained, almost wholly in the same words, 2 Kings 18., 19., 20.; where see the notes. It was probably first written by this prophet, and from him taken into the second book of Kings to complete that history: and we may conjecture that it is that part of the account of Hezekiah’s reign which is said to have been written by Isaiah, 2Ch 32:32. It is inserted here, because it casts great light on several particulars of the foregoing prophecies; and chapter 39. contains a prophecy of the captivity, and is an introduction to the remainder of Isaiah’s prophecies, a great part of which relate to the restoration of the Jews, and their return from Babylon to their own land. For the same reason, the history of the taking of Jerusalem by the Babylonians is annexed to Jeremiah’s prophecies, because it helps to explain and confirm several passages in them.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah - Of his…
In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah - Of his reign, 709 b.c.
That Sennacherib - Sennacherib was son and successor of Shalmaneser, king of Assyria, and began to reign A.M. 3290, or 714 b.c., and reigned, according to Calmet, but four years, according to Prideaux eight years, and according to Gesenius eighteen years. The immediate occasion of this war against Judah was the fact that Hezekiah had shaken off the yoke of Assyria, by which his father Ahaz and the nation had suffered so much under Tiglath-pileser, or Shalmaneser 2Ki 18:7. To reduce Judea again to subjection, as well as to carry his conquests into Egypt, appears to have been the design of this celebrated expedition. He ravaged the country, took the strong towns and fortresses, and prepared then to lay siege to Jerusalem itself. Hezekiah, however, as soon as the army of Sennacherib had entered Judea, prepared to put Jerusalem into a state of complete defense. At the advice of his counselors he stopped the waters that flowed in the neighborhood of the city, and that might furnish refreshment to a besieging army, built up the broken walls, enclosed one of the fountains within a wall, and prepared shields and darts in abundance to repel the invader 2Ch 32:2-5.
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Sennacherib, seeing that all hope of easily taking Jerusalem was taken away, apparently became inclined to hearken to terms of accommodation. Hezekiah sent to him to propose peace, and to ask the conditions on which he would withdraw his forces. He confessed his error in not paying the tribute stipulated by his father, and his willingness to pay now what should be demanded by Sennacherib. Sennacherib demanded three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold. This was paid by Hezekiah, by exhausting the treasury, and by stripping even the temple of its gold 2Ki 18:13-16. It was evidently understood in this treaty that Sennacherib was to withdraw his forces, and return to his own land. But this treaty he ultimately disregarded (see the note at Isa 33:8). He seems, however, to have granted Hezekiah some respite, and to have delayed his attack on Jerusalem until his return from Egypt. This war with Egypt he prosecuted at first with great success, and with a fair prospect of the conquest of that country.
But having laid siege to Pelusium, and having spent much time before it without success, he was compelled at length to raise the siege, and to retreat. Tirhakah king of Ethiopia having come to the aid of Sevechus, the reigning monarch of Egypt, and advancing to the relief of Pelusium, Sennacherib was compelled to raise the siege, and retreated to Judea. Here, having taken Lachish, and disregarding his compact with Hezekiah, he sent an army to Jerusalem under Rabshakeh to lay siege to the city. This is the point in the history of Sennacherib to which the passage before us refers (see Prideaux’s “Connection,” vol. i. pp. 138-141; Jos. “Ant.” x. 1; Gesenius “in loc;” and Robinson’s Calmet).
All the defended cities - All the towns on the way to Egypt, and in the vicinity of Jerusalem (see the notes at Isa 10:28-32).
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 10 And. These four chapters are taken from 4 Kings…
And. These four chapters are taken from 4 Kings xviii., &c., as a sort of explanation of what Isaias has been foretelling. (Calmet) --- An abridgment also occurs, 2 Paralipomenon xxxii.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 Isaiah 36-39
FIFTH SUBDIVISION
THE HISTORICAL PIECES: CONTAINING THE CONCLUSION OF THE ASSYRIAN AND THE PREPARATION FOR THE BABYLONIAN PERIOD.
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Isaiah 36-39
These four chapters run parallel with 2Ki_18:13 to 2Ki_20:19. It is not hard to see why they are here. Chaps. 36 and 37 represent to us the contemporaneous fulfilment of the prophecies relating to Assyria. Chaps, 38 and 39 show how “from afar” (מרחוק) was begun the spinning of the first threads of that web of Babylonish complications that were at last so fatal. There is good internal ground for putting side by side these two retrospective and prospective histories, which Delitzsch aptly compares to the head of Janus. It is, moreover, natural that the retrospective should come before the prospective piece. But researches among the Assyrian monuments have established beyond doubt that the overthrow of Sennacherib did not occur in the fourteenth, but in the twenty-eighth year of Hezekiah; therefore not in 714 B. C., but in 700 B.C.
According to the annals and according to the Canon of Ptolemy, Sargon ascended also the throne of Babylon in 709 B. C. (see on Isa_38:1). For the latter calls the year 709 the first of Ἀρκέανος, i.e., Sargon, Therefore Sennacherib cannot possibly have reigned as early as 714. The lists of regencies (comp. Schrader, p. 331, 268 sqq.) say distinctly that Sennacherib, after the murder of his father on the 12th Ab (July) of the year 705, ascended the throne. Lenormant, as learned as he is positive in his opinions (Les prem. civilis, 2. p. 237) says: “In fact the attack of Sennacherib on the kingdom of Judah is fixed in a precise way at the third campaign of that king and at the year 700 B. C. by the text of the annals of his reign inscribed on a cylinder of baked earth possessed by the British Museum. It is said, in fact, that it precedes by one year the installation of Asurnadinzum as viceroy in Babylon, an event which, in the astronomical Canon of Ptolemy, is inscribed in 699. Consequently the expedition against Judah took place in the twenty-eighth and not in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah.” It appears not clearly made out whether Sennacherib’s expedition against Judah occurred in 701 or in 700. Lenormant says 700, but Schrader (l. c.) is still in doubt. The difference is unessential. It appears to be occasioned by different computations of the beginnings of the years. I will follow that of Lenormant.
Now while it appears that chaps. 36 and 37 relate the events of 700 B. C., or of the twenty-eighth year of Hezekiah’s reign, it is equally certain chaps 38 and 39 relate the events of 714, or of the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. For according to Isa_38:5 (see comm. in loc.) the Lord prolongs Hezekiah’s life fifteen years. We know also from 2Ki_21:1 (2Ch_33:1) that Manasseh was twelve years old when he succeeded his father Hezekiah. From this results that he could only have been born after the seventeenth year of Hezekiah’s reign. In the fourteenth then he was not yet born. And this explains both the grief of Hezekiah (Isa_38:3) and his great joy (Isa_38:19). But the following considerations show that Hezekiah’s sickness and recovery and the embassy from Babylon did not occur before Sennacherib’s overthrow: 1) The treasury chambers, still full, in contrast with 2Ki_18:14 sqq. (see Isa_39:2 and comm.). Had this been the spoil of an enemy, Hezekiah would have displayed it as such, and the Prophet (see comm. at Isa_39:6) would not have called it “that which thy fathers have laid up in store.” 2) The deliverance from Assyria is spoken of as in the future (Isa_38:6). 3) We do not find in Hezekiah’s psalm (Psa_39:10 sqq.) the slightest reference to the miraculous deliverance spoken of in 36 and 37 which would be inexplicable if that glorious event were a thing of the past.
Accordingly it appears that chaps. 36–39 are not chronologically arranged, but according to their contents, as already explained. [On the misunderstandings to which this has led and the possible change of the captions, see Introduction, § § 3,4.] The important question arises: which of these records is the original one—this in Isaiah 36-39, or the parallel one in 2Ki_18:13 to 2Ki_20:19? It seems to me that no impartial reader can remain in doubt on this subject. The text of the Book of Kings is the older.
This appears probable from the fact that it is more comprehensive and stands in an historical book. For as certainly as prophecy needs history, so certainly it needs only such facts as verify its fulfilment. And the presumption is that this in Isaiah being the shorter, has been abbreviated for the ends of a prophetic book. Moreover it is better to think, if any alterations must be admitted, that they are of the nature of abbreviations, rather than arbitrary additions, which is the alternative, if the shorter text be regarded as the older. These probabilities become certainties when we view the difference in these passages in concreto. The differences on the part of Isaiah form two chief classes, abbreviations and corrections. Additions, i.e., where the text in Isaiah gives something more than the Book of Kings, there are none, except the psalm of thanksgiving, Isa_38:9-20. But this exception proves the rule. For it proves that the author of each book had in view his own object. Such a psalm suits better in a prophetic book to which song and prayer are kindred elements, than to historic annals. Moreover this psalm is so far important that it proves that, beside the two writings before us, there must have existed a third, that probably served as the source of both.
The abbreviations in Isaiah’s text are of two sorts. They are partly the omission of historical data that seemed unsuited to the aim of the prophetic book. To this sort belong Isa_36:1-2; Isa_37:36; Isa_38:4-7 (where the whole text is much contracted). And partly also they are omissions of rhetorical and grammatical redundancies. Such are Isa_36:2; Isa_36:6-7; Isa_36:11-14; Isa_36:17; Isa_37:4 (comp. Isa_36:17; Isa_39:2), 11, 21, 25; Isa_39:2. I will refer for the particulars to the following commentary. But here I will call special attention to a few passages. Can any one deny that the accumulation of predicates in 2Ki_18:17 b ויעלו ויבאו ירושלים ויעלו ויבאו ויעמדו are contracted into one word in Isa_36:2, wherein, besides, יעמדו must become יעמדִ because Isaiah leaves out two of the three ambassadors? Or can it be denied that the picturesque, circumstantial וידבר ויאמר of Kings has been contracted to the simple ויאמר, Isa_36:13? Or must the editor of 2Ki_18:29 have added the surprising מידו? Did not rather the editor of the Isaiah text leave that word out because it was superfluous for him and seemed harsh?
But still more common are the differences that are due to corrections. They are the following: Isa_36:5; Isa_36:7; Isa_36:10-11; Isa_36:13; Isa_36:15; Isa_36:19; Isa_36:21; Isa_37:2; Isa_37:6; Isa_37:9; Isa_37:12-15; Isa_37:17-19; Isa_37:23-24; Isa_37:26-27; Isa_37:29-30; Isa_37:32; Isa_37:34-37; Isa_38:2-3; Isa_39:1-3; Isa_39:5-8. I will notice here the following: Isa_36:5 we have אָמַרְתִּי instead of אָמַרְתָּ. The latter—though at first sight strange—is undoubtedly correct (see comm.). Can המקום have come from הארץ (2Ki_18:25 and Isa_36:10), or והחרישו 2Ki_18:36, have come from ויחרישו, Isa_36:21? Is the ויחרישו of Isa_39:8 changed into הֲלֹא אִם 2Ki_20:19? These few examples and the others that are commented on more at length in the exposition below seem to prove irrefragably that we have in 2 Kings a more original text. Delitzsch (in Drechsler’s Comm. ii. p. 151 sqq. and in his own Comm., p. 373) is certainly right in saying that our chapters were not composed by the author of the Book of Kings himself, or drawn from the annals of the kingdom. I agree perfectly with his explanation of the difference between annalistic and prophetic writing of history, and according to which he ascribes our chapters to a prophetic source. I also quite agree with him, that an account composed by Isaiah must essentially be that source. For he justly appeals to the fact that, according to 2Ch_26:22, Isaiah wrote a history of king Uzziah, and elsewhere weaves historical accounts into his prophecies (7, 8, 20), and in them speaks of himself partly in the third person, as he does in 36–39 I moreover willingly admit that the mention of the locality Isa_36:2, on account of almost literal agreement, connects with Isa_7:3, in fact presupposes it. And finally I have no objection to the statement that the author of 2 Kings had Isaiah’s book before him, and that 2Ki_16:5 compared with Isa_7:1, may be adduced as proof. I even add to this that the two passages now reviewed are proof of this. For the author of 2 Kings could have accepted for his book the arrangement according to the contents and contrary to the chronology, only on the ground of the book of prophecy that lay before him. But I must controvert the view that 2Ki_18:13-30 is drawn from Isaiah 36-39 as its source. For reasons already given I think the text of 2 Kings the more original and better.
Isaiah may have written down an account of the remarkable events of which our chapters treat, a matter that is at least highly probable. From this source was first drawn what we have in 36–39. These chapters are so suitable and even necessary where they are, that we may refer the idea of them to the Prophet himself, and even admit that he directed his account to be adopted into his book of prophecy, not unaltered, but with a suitable transposition of events and abbreviation of the text. Both were done, but the latter not quite in the sense of the Prophet. The result was as described in the Introduction, § § 3, 4 (at the end). But we must not suppose the false dates of Isa_36:1; Isa_38:1; Isa_39:1 were put by this first editor. The author of the Book of Kings, too, who wrote in the exile (probably 562–536 B. C.) must have known the right relations of these chapters and the proper dates. For he had at the same time before him that historical account of the Prophet as his source, and reproduced it more perfectly and unaltered than his predecessors that had used it for the prophetic book. Possibly, while following the order of Isaiah, he may have retained the original dates of their common source. But in time, and for reasons easily conjectured, his text would experience the same alterations as to dates as did the parallel passages in Isaiah, and perhaps by the same hand. And if, in respect to chronological arrangement of the account, the Book of Kings differed from the prophetic book and agreed with their common original source, then it is probable that a later hand, perhaps the same that changed the dates in Isaiah, brought the Book of Kings in this respect into accord with the prophetic book.
Thus it is found, that the transposition of events in the prophetic book for material reasons has become the origin of that discrepancy between the Assyrian and Bible chronology of this historical epoch. We have seen in respect to the taking of Samaria that these two sources completely agree. Also for Manasseh’s time the agreement is satisfactory. Only for Hezekiah’s time there existed this fatal difference of fourteen years in reference to the all-important event of Sennacherib’s overthrow. This difference is seeming. It dissolves when we consider the misunderstandings occasioned by the transposition of the chapters.
So it can have been. I do not say that it must have been so. For in these ancient matters we will hardly be able ever to make out the exact course things have taken. Only that chap 36–39 are not derived from Isaiah in their present form, but have proceeded by alteration and abbreviation from the original account of Isaiah seems to me certain.1
Delitzsch, in proof of the authenticity of the present text of Isaiah, appeals to 2Ch_32:32 : “in the vision of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, (and) in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.” He finds in this that “an historical account of Hezekiah out of the collection of Isaiah’s prophecies with the superscription חזון passed over into the “book of the kings of Judah and Israel.” I admit that the words of the Chronicler have this sense, which is favored by 2Ch_20:34. But what is gained by that? Only that then, when the Chronicler wrote, the books of Isaiah and Kings were in existence, and that he supposed the text in Kings to be taken from Isaiah. He might have been moved to take this view by the recognized priority of Isaiah’s book, and by the conviction that Isaiah was certainly the author of the text contained in his book. But this view of the Chronicler does not weaken the fact that the text in 2 Kings is more original and purer than that in Isaiah.
It has been objected to the claim of originality for the text in 2 Kings, that 2Ki_24:18 to 2Ki_25:30, although the original text, is still more corrupt than the parallel text, Jeremiah 52. This is in general true (see my comm. on Jer_52:1). But there one sees that the text of 2 Kings, being the older and more disintegrated, is, on account of adverse experiences, less preserved. But the text of Isaiah 36-39, on the contrary, has not become worse in process of time and by unfavorable circumstances, but it is from its origin worse through the faulty epitomizing and unfortunate emendations of its author.
The division of the chapters is very simple. Embassies play a great part in them. Chapters 36 and 37 contain the conclusion of the relations between Israel and Assyria. This first part has six subdivisions. 1) The embassy of Sennacherib to Hezekiah, chap. 36. 2) The embassy of Hezekiah to Isaiah, Isa_37:1-7. 3) The writing of Sennacherib to Hezekiah, Isa_37:8-13. 4) Hezekiah’s prayer, Isa_37:14-20. 5) Isaiah’s message to Hezekiah, Isa_37:21-35, 6) The deliverance, Isa_37:36-38. The second part that paves the way for the relations to Babylon has three subdivisions: 1) Hezekiah’s sickness and recovery, chap. 38. (a. sickness, Isa_36:1-3; b. recovery, Isa_36:4-8; psalm of thanksgiving, Isa_36:9-20 [22]). 2) The Babylonian embassy, Isa_39:1-8.
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I.—THE CONCLUSION OF THE RELATIONS OF ISRAEL TO ASSYRIA
Isaiah 36, 37
1. THE EMBASSY OF SENNACHERIB TO HEZEKIAH
Isa_36:1-22
1Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah, that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them. 2And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish unto Jerusalem unto king Hezekiah with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field. 3Then came forth unto him Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son, which was over the house, and Shebna the23scribe, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the recorder.
4And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great 5king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou 4trustest? 5I say, sayest thou, (but they are but6 vain words) 7I have counsel and strength for war: now on whom dost thou trust, that thou rebellest against me? 6Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this 8broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand, and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all that trust in him. 7But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, 8Ye shall worship before this altar? Now therefore9 give pledges, I pray thee, to my master the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able 10on thy part to set riders upon them. 9How then wilt thou turn away the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants, 11and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? 10And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? The Lord said unto me, Go up against this land, and destroy it.
11Then said Eliakim and Shebna and Joah unto Rabshakeh, Speak, I pray thee, unto thy servants 12in the Syrian language; for we understand it: and speak not to us 13in the Jews’ language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall. 12But Rabshakeh said, Hath my master sent me to thy master and to thee to speak these words? hath he not sent me to the men that sit upon the wall, that they may eat their own dung, and drink their own piss with you?
13Then Rabshakeh stood, and cried with a loud voice iin the Jews’ language, and said, Hear ye the words of the great king, the king of Assyria. 14Thus saith the king, Let not Hezekiah deceive you: for he shall not be able to deliver you. 15Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the Lord, saying, The Lord will surely deliver us: this city shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. 16Hearken not to Hezekiah: for thus saith the king of Assyria, 1415Make an agreement with me by a present, and come out to me: and eat ye every one of his vine, and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one the waters of his own cistern; 17Until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and 18wine, a land of bread and vineyards. Beware lest Hezekiah 16persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out 19of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim? and 17have they delivered Samaria out of my 20hand? Who are they among all the gods of these lands, that have delivered their land out of my hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand? 21But they held their peace, and answered him not a word: for the king’s command ment was, saying, Answer him not. 22Then came Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, that was over the household, and Shebna the 1ascribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph the recorder, to Hezekiah with their clothes rent, and told him the words of Rabshakeh.
TEXTUAL AND GRAMMATICAL
Isa_36:2. The form חֵיל occurs only here and 2Ki_18:17 as stat. absol. Yet comp. חֵל, which differs in meaning Isa_26:1.—כבד in the sense of “considerable for number,” comp. Num_20:20; 1Ki_3:9; 1Ki_10:2; 2Ki_6:14.—יעמד, abbreviated compared with 2Ki_18:17 b.; see introduction to this chapter. 2Ki_18:18 begins with “And when they had called to the king,” which are wanting here in accordance with the tendency to abbreviate.
Isa_36:5. Instead of אמרתי 2 Kings has אָמַרְתָּ. I regard the latter as the correct reading, and that in Isaiah to be a correction, occasioned by not knowing that אך דבר שׂכּתים is parenthetical, and thus not understanding how Hezekiah could speak words that in the mouth of the Assyrian king could have good sense, but in Hezekiah’s none. According to the question Isa_36:4, “what confidence,” etc.? the contents of this confidence is set forth: “thou sayest namely: counsel and strength for war.” The words אך ד׳ שׁ׳ are parenthetical, and words of the Assyrian, by which he gives his opinion of the expression imputed to Hezekiah. This expression is put as an exclamation, thus as a clause without explicit predicate. This is a somewhat pathetic form of sentence. It reveals an intention of making Hezekiah’s words appear to be empty pathos, absurd boastfulness. If the entire first clause of verse 5 were to be construed as the utterance of the Assyrian, then the second clause must begin withכִּי instead of עתה. For then a reason would need to follow showing Hezekiah’s words to be empty boast. But if Isa_36:5 a contain in its chief clause Hezekiah’s words, then עתה is perfectly in place. For then by means of it Hezekiah is summoned to establish his (so-called) boast. Come, now! in what dost thou trust that thou rebellest against me?
Isa_36:6. עתה before הנה, and לך after בטחת are missing here for abbreviation’s sake.—אשׁר יסמך וגיis paratactic.
Isa_36:7. תאמר for תאמרון and the omission of בירושלים at the end of the verse are further marks of simplifying and abbreviating.
Isa_36:8. לְךָ after לתת evidently means “to thy advantage.” It is dat. commodi: meaning, “thou mayest use these horses for your advantage against me, in case you can mount them with riders.”
Isa_36:9. השיב כּנים elsewhere means “to turn away, refuse,” in reference to suppliants (comp. 1Ki_2:16-17; 1Ki_2:20). Only here is it used of turning away an attack. But comp. Isa_14:27.—כֶּחָה, which occurs first 1Ki_10:15, of Solomon’s כּחות הארץ, i.e., governors of the land, has been since Benfey (Monatsnamen, p. 195), derived from the Sanscrit, from pakscha, socius, amicus. But Schrader (p. 88 sq.) places the Semitic origin of the word beyond doubt. He lays stress on its appearance in such ancient Hebrew documents, and maintains that this is proved by the Assyrian documents. “In Assyrian the word is used and modified like any other word of pure Semitic origin. From a singular pahat is formed a plural pahati; not less immediately from the root the abstract pihat = satrapy.” The word does not occouragain in Isaiah; but does in Jer_51:23; Jer_51:28; Jer_51:57; Eze_23:6; Eze_23:23; Hag_1:1; Hag_1:14; Hag_2:2; Hag_2:21; Mal_1:8.—Preceding ותבטח there is no explicit verbal form on which the vav consecutive can support itself; but the Prophet connects it with the implied affirmation “thou canst thyself do nothing.”
Isa_36:10. 2Ki_18:25 begins withoutוְ. The ועתה here is likely imitated from Isa_36:7-9. But Isa_36:10 is not parallel with what precedes. For the Assyrian here turns their weapons against them. Hence the reading in 2 Kings is the correct one. Moreover the first clause of Isa_36:10 has על־הארץ instead of על־המקום 2Ki_18:25, which also appears to be a correction, occasioned either by the thought that Sennacherib did not come up merely against Jerusalem, or by the fact that הארץ stands also in the second clause, or both. That על is exchanged here for אל is of inferior significance (comp. Isaiah 39:9).
Isa_36:12. The consonants of the K’thibh, according to the view hitherto prevalent (comp. e.g., Fuerst in the Propylaea Masorœ, p.1366), are to be pointed חַרְאֵיהֶם (2Ki_18:27 חֲרֵהֶם) which word implies a singular חֶרֶא. But Delitzsch points חֲרָאֵיהֶם or חֲרָיהֶם taking חֲרִי as the ground form, which is quite possible. The word occurs beside only 2Ki_6:25, where perhaps simply חֲרִי יוֹנִים is to be read. The meaning is stercus, excrementum. For the Masorets the expression is indecent. Hence they substitute צוִאָתָם (from צֹאָה = יְצֹאָה exeuntia, comp. Isa_4:4; Isa_28:8; Pro_30:12); as immediately afterwards for שֵׁיגֵיהֶם (from שַׁיִן Plur. שֵׁינִים, urina, only here and 2Ki_18:27) they put מֵימֵי רַגְלֵּיהֶם.
Isa_36:11-12. The differences between the present readings and 2 Kings are inconsiderable. In verse 11 “son of Hilkiah” is omitted, אלינו before יהודיתinstead of עמנו (a correction because the latter seemed too familiar). In verse 12 אליהם is omitted before Rabshakeh; we have האל instead of העל before אדניך (in order to restore likeness of expression when there is likeness of meaning; 2 Kings however would avoid the many אֵל)חראיהם instead of חריהם (the א in Isaiah being intended likely to make the etymology more noticeable). Here then appears a tendency to abbreviate and correct.
Isa_36:13-14. נָשָׁא, unused in Kal, may be used in the Hiph., also in the direct causative sense, and hence may mean “to cause נֶשֶׁא, i.e., fraudem, deception,” which explains the construction (here and Jer_29:8) with the dative, along with the construction with the accusative (Gen_3:13; Jer_37:9; 2Ki_19:10, etc.).—In Isa_36:13 the נידבר of 2Ki_18:28 omitted as superfluous: we have, דברי instead of דבר because they are many words. Isa_36:14 does not end as 2Ki_18:29 with מידו, which is both abbreviation and removal of the harshness of combining “let not Hezekiah deceive,” which are the words of the king and “from his hand,” which are spoken by the ambassador.
Isa_36:15. העיר gives an easier construction than את־העיר2 Kings 18, though the latter is the correct reading. As to the third pers. fem. תנתן see 1Sa_30:6; 2Sa_13:2; Psa_33:9; Lam_3:37. On יַבְטח comp. Jer_28:15; Jer_29:31.
Isa_36:16. אִכְלוּ וּשְׁתוּ are imperatives by attraction of those preceding and supply the place of Futures.
Isa_36:17-18. The end of the verse shows considerable abbreviation compared with 2Ki_18:32, which see. Isaiah omits the description of the land of exile as superfluous, and also the repetition of the warning against Hezekiah.—כּן beginning Isa_36:18, (occasioned by the omission last mentioned), stands here independent of any foregoing verb, of which there are other examples (Job_36:18; Jer_51:46).—הִסִית or הֵסִית properly means “stimulare, to incite, set on,” from which develops the meaning “seduce, deceive” (comp. Jos_15:18; 1Sa_26:19; 2Sa_24:1).—The omission of חַצֵל found in the parallel of 2Ki_18:33 is again a plain proof of abbreviation.
Isa_36:19. If the text of the second clause be correct (וְכִי here instead of the simple כִּי 2Ki_18:34), the construction is bold and unusual. The subject of הצילו is wanting and must be supplied from what precedes. It might be, say: וְאַיֵה אלהי את־שׁמרון or ישׂראל?—Isaiah omits the words הֵנַע וְעִוָּה that appear in 2Ki_18:34. These words are in both texts, Isa_37:13 and 2Ki_19:13. Delitzsch supposes they are patched into 2 Kings from Isa_37:13. Tome it seems more probable that they were purposely omitted in our verse. For consider that Isa_37:10-13 Hezekiah is addressed. There it is said: “Let thy God not deceive thee; where is the king of Hamath,” etc.? Thus the sense there is: it will be no better for thee, king Hezekiah, than for the king of Hamath, etc. But Isa_36:14-20 the people are addressed: Let not Hezekiah deceive you by pointing you to Jehovah’s help. Where are the gods of Hamath, etc.? Readers that construed the words הנע ועוה as verbs (see on Isa_37:13) must have found it as improper to say: deos expulit et subvertit, as they found it proper to say: regem expulit et subvertit.
Isa_36:20. The plural הצילו does not conflict with מי, for this interrogative is found only in the singular: this singular may be taken as collective.—כִּי, after a question referring to the future, may be taken in the sense of ut; but fundamentally it means quod, and has a causal sense: Who has delivered? Are there any way gods (beside the Assyrian gods) that deliver? because (according to your opinion) Jehovah will deliver Jerusalem.—[“The parallel 2Ki_18:35 omits these before lands; another exception to the general statement that the narrative of Isaiah is an abridgement.—J. A. A.].
Isa_36:21. ויחרישׁו instead of והחריֹשו העם of 2Ki_18:36. Hezekiah had commanded his representatives to make no response. With that ויהרישׁו corresponds. The reading of 2 Kings is usually translated: “and they kept silence, the people,” עם being construed in apposition. Rather than this strange construction I think a more probable rendering is: “and they hushed the people.” חָרַשׁ means mutum esse, silere (Psa_28:1; Psa_35:22; Psa_1:3, etc). Hiphil means first mutum reddere, ad silentium redigere aliquem. Yet it is true that it occurs seldom in this sense (Job_11:3). Usually Hiphil is direct causative=“mutitatem facere, to make silence, to be silent.” Here, “they made the people be silent” would imply that many of them wanted to reply to the words of Isa_36:12 sqq., but that Hezekiah’s messengers, even before Rabshakeh had finished, had commanded silence and themselves made no response. According to this the perfect וההרישׁו does not merely continue the recital, but states an accompanying circumstance that had already occurred before Rabshakeh had done speaking. But the reviser of Isaiah’s text was not acquainted with this meaning of the Perfect [!]. He thought the word meant only to continue the recital. Therefore he changed it to the Imperfect with Vav consec.
Isa_36:22. קרועי בגדים, the participle in the construct state retains the construction of its verb with the accusative; comp. 2Sa_13:31.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. In the fourteenth year (after the sickness of) Hezekiah Sennacherib conquered all Judea excepting the capital. He sent Rabshakeh from Lacish with a considerable array to demand the surrender of the latter. Rabshakeh first seeks to convince the messengers of Hezekiah that they could rely neither on Egypt (Isa_36:6), nor on Jehovah (Isa_36:7), nor on their own might (Isa_36:8-9), especially as the king of Assyria had undertaken his expedition against Judea by Jehovah’s express commission (Isa_36:10). These words he had spoken in the dialect of Judea. Hezekiah’s messengers having requested him to speak in Aramaic (Isa_36:11), Rabshakeh answered that his mission was properly just to the dwellers of Jerusalem hearkening there on the city wall (Isa_36:12). Then he calls with a loud voice to them (Isa_36:13) not to let Hezekiah deceive them by any illusion about their own power, or about the aid of Jehovah (Isa_36:14-15). Let them rather give themselves up to the king of Assyria. He will for the present leave them in peaceful possession of their own (Isa_36:16), till He shall come for the purpose of deporting them to a good land like their own (Isa_36:17). They must the less expect help from Jehovah seeing no god had been able to protect his land from the power of Assyria (Isa_36:18-20). By Hezekiah’s command the messengers made no reply, but with rent garments, in token of dismay at what they heard, they conveyed the message to the king (Isa_36:21-22).
2. Now it came—took them.
Isa_36:1. According to the Assyrian monuments Sennacherib (Assyrian Sin-ahi-irib or Sin-ahi-ir-ba, i.e., Sin (=Luna) multiplicat fratres, Heb. אַחִים הִרְכָּה) became king in the year 705 B.C, on the 12th of the month Ab (Schrader, p. 331). He was the son and successor of Sargon, and reigned to the year 681. Sennacherib relates to us the events of his third campaign on two monuments with nearly identical inscriptions, viz.: an hexagonal clay cylinder, and the bulls at the portal of the palace at Kuyyundschik. Their contents is chiefly as follows. Sennacherib moved first against Phœnicia. King Eluläeus of Sidon fled to Cyprus. The Assyrians conquered all Phœnicia, and Sennacherib installed Etobal as king. The kings Menahem of Samaria (?), Etobal of Sidon, Abdilit of Arvad, Urniski of Byblos, Mitinti of Ashdod, Puduil of Amnion, Kamosnadab of Moab, Malikram of Edom, the whole of the kings of the westland (?) did homage and brought presents. But Zidka of Ascalon would not do homage. Hence he was expelled and another put in his place. Also the cities of his territory (?) Bet-Dagon, Joppa, Benebarak, Azur were conquered. The inhabitants of Ekron had imprisoned their king Padi, who held faithfully to the Assyrians, and “in the shadow of the night” had delivered him to Hezekiah. But the kings of Egypt and Meroe, as allies of the Palestinian opponents of Assyria, had led up a great army. In the vicinity of Altaku (Eltekeh Jos_19:44; Jos_21:23 in the territory of Dan, between Timnat and Ashdod) there was a battle. The Assyrians claimed the victory.
Thus it appears that what was undertaken against Judah formed merely an episode of this expedition. Sennacherib relates that he took forty-six of the fortified cities of Judah, and shut Hezekiah up in his capital “like a bird in its cage.” He then threw up fortifications against Jerusalem and caused the exit of the great gate to be broken through. The conquered cities he gave to Mitinti of Ashdod, Padi of Ekron, and Ismibil of Gaza. Thereupon Hezekiah was greatly alarmed and agreed to pay tribute, and by his messengers payed thirty (30) talents of gold and eight hundred (800) talents of silver. So far the Assyrian inscriptions.
One sees how accurately they agree with the Bible account, in our text and in 2 Kings 18. The Bible account says three hundred talents of silver (2Ki_18:14). This difference is only apparent. For 800 Assyrian talents are exactly equal to 300 Palestinian (Schrader,l. c. p. 197, 25).
But with this agreement there is a considerable discrepancy in these two accounts in respect to chronology. Both accounts agree in giving the year 722 B.C, for the taking of Samaria by Sargon. But before and after this the statements diverge. According to the monuments Sennacherib became king only 705 B.C, while the Biblical account places this expedition which he himself calls his third in the year 714. This difference between the Assyrian and Biblical chronology is limited for the time after 722 to the date of expedition of Sennacherib against Palestine and Egypt. For, as Schrader (p. 300) expressly says, in respect to the time of Mannasseh both reckonings “agree satisfactorily:” [For the Author’s method of reconciling this discrepancy in date, see the general Introd. § 3, and the introduction to chapters 36–39]. The omission of three verses 2Ki_18:14 sqq., relating to the payment of ransom show the designed abbreviation of this account.
3. And the king—the recorder.
Isa_36:2-3. Schrader (p. 199) remarks on Rabshakeh that there occurs no mention on the monuments of the chief cup-bearer, as a high dignitary and officer of state. But rab-sak is mentioned. That however is not the chief cup-bearer. For sak means chief, captain, collective chiefs. Therefore rab-sak is the chief of the captains (comp. rab sarisim, rab tabbachim), perhaps the chief of the general’s staff. Then the form רַבְשָׁקֵה is a Hebraizing occasioned by accordance of sound with מִשְׁקֶהGen_40:1 sqq. Chald. מַשְׁקֵי or שָׁקֵי which means pincerna, pocillator. The names Tartan and Rabsaris 2Ki_18:17 are omitted here. Lacish, whence this detachment of troops came, is the modern Umm-Lâkhis, in the S. W., of Judea near the border of Philistia, on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza. This was the extreme southern point to which Sennacherib penetrated at that time. On the approach of the Egyptian army he retired to Altaku (Eltekeh) that lay N. E. of Lacish. There is a bas-relief (Schrader, p. 170) with the inscription: “Sennacherib, the king of the nations, the king of the land of Assyria, sits on an exalted throne and receives the spoil of the city Lacish.”
And he stood,etc. The locality is described by exactly the same words that Isa_7:3 describe the place where Isaiah was to meet Ahaz. That now the Assyrians stand in such threatening attitude by the conduit of the upper pool is the fruit of Ahaz having so insolently rejected the promise given him at that time, and in the same place, and having preferred to call Assyria to his aid. We do not err, therefore, in understanding by this literal agreement of the naming of the place in both passages, that an intimation of the divine nemesis is intended. On Eliakim the chamberlain and Shebna the scribe see Isa_22:15; Isa_22:20 sqq. The סֹפֵר “scribe” appears as a state officer first under David, 2Sa_8:17, where he is distinguished from several other officers. He was the king’s secretary, who wrote all that the king’s service demanded. Thus his office would lead him to meddle with every branch of government, and we find him expressly mentioned in matters of finance (2Ki_22:3 sqq.), and of war (2Ki_25:19; Jer_52:25). The מַזְכִּיר (LXX. ὑπομνηματογράφος, ἐπὶ τῶν ὑπομνημάτων, Vulg.,a commentariis), is certainly not the monitor (Thenius), but the one that was charged with recording the res gestas of the king, and of the kingdom, and preserving them for posterity (comp. 2Sa_8:16; 2Sa_20:24; 2Ki_4:3; 2Ch_34:8). As is well-known, national archives are found not only among civilized but also among uncivilized people. Of Joah, Asaph’s son, nothing more is known. Both the names are Levitical, comp. 1Ch_6:6; 1Ch_29:12; 1Ch_26:4. In 2Ch_34:8 is mentioned a Joah son of Joahaz, who was recorder to king Josiah.
4. And Rabshakeh—destroy it.
Isa_36:4-10. On the Assyrian monuments the kings designate themselves, or are designated, “great king,” “mighty king,” “king of the nations.” The Assyrian seeks to prove to Hezekiah that his only recourse is to yield himself unconditionally to the great king. “That thou rebellest.” It may be asked: does this refer to the matter mentioned 2Ki_18:7, or to that mentioned 2Ki_18:14 sqq., viz.: the refusal to surrender the city in addition to the ransom? Both must be understood. For to the Assyrian, that refusal was only a symptom that the rebellious disposition was not sufficiently broken.
In showing further, how nugatory every thing was on which Hezekiah relied, he calls Egypt a bruised reed, that breaks when one rests on it and pierces the hand. This reproach was well founded. Isaiah himself says the same Isa_30:3; Isa_30:5; Isa_30:7 in other words. Eze_29:6-7, employs this figure, amplifying it. In another sense and connection Isaiah uses the image of the bruised reed Isa_42:3, where רצוץ and ישׁבר used together show that the former word does not mean “broken” but “bruised.” What the Assyrian says Isa_36:6 is an undeniable truth. But he omits making it general as the prophets did. For what was true of Egypt was equally true of Assyria, and of any other world-power. They do no favor for nothing, but sell their aid so dear, that it becomes doubtful whether friend or foe harms the most. [The charge of relying on Egypt may be true, or it may be a malicious fabrication, or a shrewd guess from analogy.—J. A. Alexander.]
Isa_36:7. As proof that even Jehovah cannot be expected to help; the Assyrian appeals to the fact that Hezekiah has done away with all the high-places and altars of Jehovah, and has left remaining only a single spot for worship in Jerusalem. As is well-known Hezekiah did away with all high-places in Judea, even those that were monotheistic, consecrated to Jehovah (2Ki_18:4, comp. J. G. Muller in Herz.R.-Encycl., VI. p. 176), and thus had stringently carried out the principle of the one, and only authorized central sanctuary. In 2Ch_32:12 it reads “ye shall worship before one altar, and burn incense upon it,” instead of, as here, “ye shall worship before this altar.” The Assyrian, ignorant of the higher commandment that had prompted Hezekiah’s obedience, saw in this conduct a reduction, an arrest of Jehovah-worship. Less probable is the explanation that the Assyrian has in mind what is related 2Ki_16:10-17, and has confounded Ahaz and Hezekiah. For such confusion is hardly credible. Isa_36:8. He next holds up to contempt Hezekiah’s own power. His derisive proposition intimates both the abundance of Assyria’s cavalry and war chariots (comp. Isa_5:28) and the weakness of Judah in this respect. עָרַב is “to pledge,” then “to pledge for others,” i.e., go security, and in fact in the double sense of a benefit to be done to a third party (e.g., עָרְבֵנִי38:14, אֶעֶרְבֶבּוּGen_43:9) or of a performance incumbent on a third party. But there is a pledging when two or more bind themselves to a performance in common, even when the pledging is not specifically made prominent or is silently presumed. Thus the word acquires the meaning, “to enter into, become one, to mix oneself in with.” Here the notion sponsio appears evident: pledge thyself, i.e., unite thyself by a mutual pledge with the king of Assyria. But as under the present circumstances the one party pledged himself to conditions he thinks impossible to the other, the pledging acquires the significance of a wager, in which sense also Clericus has taken the word.
Isa_36:9. Two inferences are drawn from the representation of Isa_36:8; the positive, that Hezekiah cannot hope to resist the least captain of Assyria, and the negative, that this personal inability explains how Judah must be leaning on Egypt. The relation of פחת אחד to what follows is not simple genitive of the subject (commander of the small servants, Knobel), but is a partitive genitive: of one captain from among the most inferior servants of my lord, i.e., who belongs to the most inferior servants of my lord. Isa_36:10. The Assyrian feigns to have received a commission direct from Jehovah to go against Judah and destroy it. That this was false appears from Isa_37:6; Isa_37:21 sqq., where the Lord Himself pronounces the words of the Assyrian blasphemous, and takes Judah in protection after a grand fashion. The Assyrian may possibly have heard something of Isaiah’s prophecies, who, he may have known, was then in Jerusalem, which prophecies treated of a subjection of Judah to Assyria (comp. Isa_7:17 sqq., Isa_10:5 sqq.). These and similar prophetic utterances may have afforded the occasion for this pretext. But no prophecy “go up against this land and destroy it,” nor anything like it exists in Isaiah, or any other Prophet.
5. Then said Eliakim—words of Rabshakeh.
Isa_36:11-22. Hezekiah’s messengers had so far hearkened in silence. But apprehensive of the effect of the words of Isa_36:10 on the people assembled on the wall, they beg the messenger of the Assyrian not to speak the Jewish tongue but to speak in Aramaic. The people might easily take this pretended mandate for reality. Had not the Lord Himself called Assyria “the rod of mine anger” (Isa_10:5)? Discouragement might arise from this among the people, and paralyze every effort at self-defense. יהודית means primarily the dialect of the tribe of Judah. It was thus spoken in Jerusalem and was the purest and best Hebrew. Rabshakeh spoke this dialect. A considerable time had elapsed since that fatal resort of Ahaz to Assyria spoken of in chap. 7, certainly more than twenty-five years. During this time the Assyrian rulers were in constant intercourse with Judah, and were properly attentive to Jewish affairs. This explains how there would be in their court persons that could speak the dialect of Judah. Besides the Assyrian and Hebrew languages were daughters of the same Semitic stem, and an Assyrian would find no great difficulty in learning Hebrew. See the Assyrian Grammars of Oppert 1859 and of Menant, 1868. Eliakim would not have called the dialect of the northern Israelites, Jewish had Rabshakeh spoken that. For at that time the name Judah had not become the national name as it did after the exile. At the latter period יהודית comprised all that was Hebrew, even what had perhaps attached itself to the tribe of Judah from the isolated elements of the other tribes (comp. Neh_13:24). By ארמית Eliakim understood, not the mother-tongue of the Assyrian, but the Syro-Chaldaic-Aramaic, thus the language whose territory lay between that of the Hebrew and of the Assyrian and that was suited for mediating between them. According to Alex. Polyhistor. in Eusebius,Chron., arm. I. p. 43, Sennacherib erected a monument to himself with a Chaldaic inscription, and with the later Persian kings Aramaic seems to have been the government language for intercourse with the nations of western Asia (Ezr_4:7). Our passage shows that Aramaic would not be known to all people of Judah without study and of course.
Eliakim’s remonstrance only exposed a weak place, of which Rabshakeh immediately took advantage. He noticed, that his words were regarded as likely to produce an impression among the people prejudicial to Hezekiah’s intention, and at once he acts as if his mission were to the people, and not at all to Hezekiah, though Isa_36:4 and 2Ki_18:18-19 show the contrary. He proceeds therefore to warn the people to save themselves from the dreadful fate that impended, and to beware of letting Hezekiah deceive them. In עמכם, “with you,” end of Isa_36:12, there is emphasis implying reproach for those addressed. The Assyrian means: those sitting on the wall will fare well with us (comp. “come out to me” Isa_36:16), but they will have to endure the dreadfulest distress with you. Isa_36:16-17. Rabshakeh makes definite proposals in the name of the king of Assyria, in opposition to the designs of Hezekiah against which he warns them. “Make with me a blessing,” i.e., an alliance of blessing, he says. ברכה is not merely the blessing itself, but also, by metonymy, either what the blessing involves (comp. Gen_12:2והיה ברכה), or what the blessing produces (e.g., a rich gift 1Sa_25:27, etc.). Thus here the alliance, the treaty is called ברכה because, in the opinion of the Assyrian, it would be a source of blessing. The word occurs in this sense nowhere else. יצא with אל often occurs in the sense of deditio:1Sa_11:3; 1Ki_20:31; Jer_21:9; Jer_38:2; Jer_38:21. To eat his vine and his fig tree, and drink his waters (metonymic expressions, comp. on Isa_1:7; Isa_5:18) is a figurative description of a peaceful and undisturbed existence (comp. Mic_4:4; 1Ki_5:5). On Isa_36:17 Schrader remarks: “Such a recommendation of surrender to the Assyrian were even for an Assyrian a little maladroit.” I cannot see that. The fate that Rabshakeh proposed was relatively a mild one. Humanly speaking, there was no hope of deliverance. If the Assyrian would revenge the revolt of Hezekiah on the capital, who would hinder him? Even after a glorious defence, which was sure to be attended with much suffering, they must prepare for entire destruction attended with great cruelties. This or the proposition of Isa_36:16-17 were the alternatives to the Assyrian. It certainly never entered into his mind to treat them with sentimental mildness. “A land of bread and vineyards” is a more comprehensive expression than “a land of corn and wine.” For “bread” (see Isa_28:28) represents here every sort of vegetable that gives bread, and in vine-yards not only vines grow, but also other noble trees (comp. כרם זיתJdg_15:5).
Isa_36:18-20. Rabshakeh repeats the warning against illusive hopes of help from Jehovah, and would prove that they are illusive by appealing to facts that showed how the heathen gods had been unable to save their lands. The question where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad?etc., is not meant as denying the existence of these gods generally, but only to demonstrate their inability and unworthiness to let themselves be seen, i.e., to show themselves in a clear light. They are brought to shame and must hide themselves. On Hamath and Arpad see Isa_10:9. According to the Assyrian monuments (see Schrader, p. 152), Sargon, in the second year of his reign, therefore a year after the conquest of Samaria, conquered king Ilubid of Hamath, and took as the royal share of the spoils 200 chariots and 600 horsemen. From this is inferred that he transported most of the rest of the inhabitants. And in fact we read 2Ki_17:24 that, among others, people from Hamath were transplanted in Samaria. Arpad, that is never named except with Hamath, does not appear in the inscriptions after Sargon (Schrader, p. 204). It likely shared therefore the fate of Hamath. Rabshakeh does not mean to enumerate here the conquests of Sennacherib. But he would remind the men of Judah of examples of transplanted nations well-known to them. By which Assyrian king it was done was unimportant. It was enough that Assyrian kings could do this. The words Isa_36:18-19, are, besides a fulfilment of the prophecy Isa_10:7-11.
Isa_36:21-22. Hezekiah’s prohibition of any reply was wise. A single incautious word might occasion great harm, as was in fact proved by Eliakim’s blundering interruption Isa_36:11. Every reply needed to be maturely considered. Those were serious and significant moments in which only he ought to speak who was qualified, and authorized to represent the entire nation.
Footnotes:
[1][The reader versed in studies belonging to the general subject of Introduction will be reminded by the foregoing of the Urevangelium, the original Gospel, the fascination of German critics of the New Testament. Its foundation is conjecture, and nothing better than probability at best. Though one accumulate a mountain of such conjectural probabilities, they will no more sustain a fact or make a fact than a cloud will sustain a pebble or condense into a pebble. The same may be said of the Author’s original Isaiah history. On the general subject treated of in the foregoing, J. A. Alexander, in his introduction to chapter 36, says: “The simple, common-sense view of the matter is, that since the traditional position of these chapters among the writings of Isaiah corresponds exactly to the known fact of his having written a part of the history of Judah, the presumption in favor of his having written both the passages in question cannot be shaken by the mere possibility, or even intrinsic probability of other hypotheses, for which there is not the least external evidence.” And again on Isa_38:1 he says: “Why may we not suppose that the overthrow of Sennacherib occurred in the interval between Hezekiah’s sickness and the embassy from Merodach-baladan? It is altogether natural that the Prophet, after carrying the history of Sennacherib to its conclusion, should go back to complete that of Hezekiah also”—TR.]
[2]Or, secretary.
[3]the chancellor.
[4]confidest.
[5]I say it is mere lip work the counsel and strength for carrying on war.
[6]Heb. a word of lips.
[7]Or, but counsel and strength are for war.
[8]bruised.
[9]make a wager.
[10]for thee(i. e., for thy advantage).
[11]And trustest thou, etc.?
[12]in Aramaic.
[13]in Judaic.
[14]Or, seek my favor by a present.
[15]Heb. make with me a blessing.
[16]incite.
[17](where were your gods) that delivered Samaria, etc.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22 Rab-shakeh--In Kg2 18:17, Tartan and Rab-saris are joined with…
Rab-shakeh--In Kg2 18:17, Tartan and Rab-saris are joined with him. Rab-shakeh was probably the chief leader; Rab is a title of authority, "chief-cup-bearer."
Lachish--a frontier town southwest of Jerusalem, in Judah; represented as a great fortified city in a hilly and fruitful country in the Koyunjik bas-reliefs, now in the British Museum; also, its name is found on a slab over a figure of Sennacherib on his throne.
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upper pool--the side on which the Assyrians would approach Jerusalem coming from the southwest (see on Isa 7:3).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 19, 20 1. Now it came to pass — The parallel…
1. Now it came to pass — The parallel passage in 2 Kings is preceded by a summary account of Hezekiah’s reforms, the extirpation of idolatry in Judah, and the complete apostasy and consequent capture and deportation of the ten tribes of Israel by Shalmanezer of Assyria.
In the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah — Rawlinson (Monarchies, 2:161) asserts a discrepancy of date from the fourteenth (here and in 2 Kings) to the twenty-seventh of the Assyrian Inscriptions. (See SMITH’S Bible Dictionary, art. “Sennacherib.”) But nothing is more common than mistakes found in Scripture numbers; nor, from the cause (generally that of transcription) of such mistakes, is the matter of them very material.
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Sennacherib — The son of Sargon, and the second king from Shalmanezer IV. He was among the mightiest of the Assyrian kings. (See George Smith’s Tables in his Assyrian Inscriptions of 1874, according to which Sennacherib reigned from B.C. 705 to 681 — twenty-four years.) He came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them — That is, the numerous cities or villages between Lachish and Jerusalem, on the southwest and west of the latter. For the occasion of this, see the comments of Terry in 2 Kings xviii, 19.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21 1. (Cf. 2Ki_18:13) in the fourteenth year] The year…
1. (Cf. 2Ki_18:13) in the fourteenth year] The year of Sennacherib’s expedition was beyond question 701 b.c. If this was really the fourteenth year of Hezekiah his accession must have taken place in 715. On the objections to this date, see Chronological Note, pp. lxxvi f. Assuming that the arguments there given are valid, the error in this verse might be accounted for in either of two ways. (1) It has been suggested that ch. 38 f. stood originally before ch. 36 f., and that in the process of transposition the precise specification of time, which really belonged to ch. 38, was retained as the introduction to the whole group of narratives. The 14th year of Hezekiah would thus be the true date, not necessarily of Sennacherib’s invasion, but of Hezekiah’s sickness and the embassy of Merodach-Baladan. (2) A second supposition is that the date was inserted here by an editor, who arrived at it by a calculation based on ch. Isa_38:5. Deducting the 15 years’ lease of life assured to Hezekiah by the prophet from the 29 years of his reign, he rightly concluded that his sickness must have occurred in the 14th year of his reign, and supposing further that all these events were nearly contemporaneous, he substituted this exact date for some vaguer statement which he may have found in his original. A third hypothesis,—that the date is correct, but that the name Sennacherib has been wrongly written for Sargon,—falls to the ground with the whole theory of an invasion of Judah by the latter monarch.
all the defenced cities of Judah] Sennacherib himself boasts that he captured forty-six of them in this campaign.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, 18, 19, 21, 22 (1) It came to pass in the fourteenth year…
XXXVI.
(1) It came to pass in the fourteenth year of king Hezekiah . . .—In the judgment of nearly all Assyriologists (Sir Henry Rawlinson, Sayce, Hinckes, Lenormant, Schrader, Cheyne), we have to rectify the chronology. The inscriptions of Sennacherib fix the date of his campaign against Hezekiah in the third year of his reign (B.C. 700), and that coincides not with the fourteenth, but with the twenty-seventh year of the king of Judah. The error, on this assumption, arose from the editor of Isaiah’s prophecies taking for granted that the illness of Hezekiah followed on the destruction of Sennacherib’s army, or, at least, on his attack, and then reckoning back the fifteen years for which his life was prolonged from the date of his death. Most of the scholars named above have come to the conclusion that the illness preceded Sennacherib’s campaign by ten or eleven years, and this, of course, involves throwing back the embassy from Babylon (Isaiah 39) to about the same period. Lenormant (Manual of Ancient History, 1:181) keeping to the Biblical sequence, real or apparent, of the events, meets the difficulty by assuming that Hezekiah reigned for forty-one instead of twenty-nine years, and that Manasseh was associated with him in titular sovereignty even from his birth, and the fifty years of his reign reckoned from that epoch.
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Sennacherib king of Assyria.—According to the Assyrian inscriptions, the king succeeded Sargon, who was assassinated in his palace, B.C. 704, and after subduing the province of Babylon which had rebelled under Merôdach-baladan, turned his course southward against Hezekiah with four or five distinct complaints—(1) that the king had refused tribute (2Ki_18:14); (2) that he had opened negotiations with Babylon and Egypt (2Ki_18:24) with a view to an alliance against Assyria; (3) that he had helped the Philistines of Ekron to rise against their king who supported Assyria. and had kept that king as a prisoner in Jerusalem (Records of the Past, i. 36-39).
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22 IF the Book of Isaiah be regarded as the…
IF the Book of Isaiah be regarded as the result of a gradual accretion (see the General Introduction), whether that accretion is to be ascribed to the action of the prophet himself or to that of later editors, we may equally consider the present chapters (ch. 36-39.) to have been originally an "Appendix," attached, as furnishing illustration to the preceding prophecies, and at one time terminating the book. They will thus stand to the preceding chapters in much the same relation as that in which the last chapter of Jeremiah stands to the rest of that prophet"s work, differing only in the fact that they are almost entirely the prophet"s own composition. Isaiah wrote the history of the reign of Hezekiah for the general "Book of the Chronicles of the Kings of Judah". (2Ch_32:32) From this "book" the account of the reign which we have in 2 Kings (18-20.) is almost certainly taken. (2Ki_20:20) The close verbal resemblance between the present chapters and those in Kings, and the differences, which are chiefly omissions, are best accounted for by supposing that both are abbreviations of a more extensive narrative. such as that composed for the original "Book of the Chronicles" probably was. The abbreviation here inserted may have been made either by the prophet himself, or by a "coeditor." The point is one which is not very important, and which it is quite impossible to determine, unless arbitrarily.
It came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. There is an irreconcilable difference between this note of time, in the passage as it stands, and the Assyrian inscriptions. The fourteenth year of Hezekiah was B.C. 714 or 713. Sargon was then King of Assyria, and continued king till B.C. 705. Sennacherib did not ascend the throne till that year, and he did not lead an expedition into Palestine till B.C. 701. Thus the date, as it stands, is cloven or twelve years too early. It is now the common opinion of critics that the chronology of the Books of Kings, speaking generally, is "a later addition to the Hebrew narrative" (Cheyne, "Isaiah," vol. 1. p. 199, note 1). It is uncertain when the dates were added; but it would not be long from the time when the addition was made before Isaiah" would be brought into accord with "Kings." Another view is that the date belongs to the original writings, but that it has suffered corruption, "fourteenth" having been substituted for "twenty-sixth," from an overstrict rendering of the expression, "in those days," which introduces the narrative of ch. 38. That narrative undoubtedly belongs to Hezekiah"s fourteenth year. A third view is that of Dr. Hincks, who suggests a derangement of the text, which has attached to an expedition of Sennacherib a date originally belonging to an attack by Sargon. He supposes the original text to have run thus: "And it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that the King of Assyria came up (against him). In those days was King Hezekiah sick unto death, etc. (ch. 38., 39.). And Sennacherib, King of Assyria, came up against all the defenced cities of Judah, and took them," etc. (ch. 36., 37.). The subject has been treated at considerable length by Mr. Cheyne ("Prophecies of Isaiah," vol. 1. pp. 196-204), who has accidentally ascribed to Sir H. Rawlinson the second of the above theories, which really originated with the present writer. Sennacherib, King of Assyria. The Hebrew rendering of the name is Sankherib, the Greek Sanacharibus or Senacheribus. In the Assyrian the literation is Sin-akhi-irib and the meaning" Sin (the moon-god) multiplies brothers." Sin-akhi-irib was the son and successor of Sargon. His father was murdered, and he ascended the throne in B.C. 705 (G. Smith, "Epunym Canon," p. 67). Came up against all the defenced cities; rather, all the fenced cities, as in 2Ki_18:13, or "all the fortified cities" (Cheyne). And took them. Sennacberib tells us that, in the campaign of his fourth year (B.C. 701), he "captured forty-six of the strong cities" belonging to Hezekiah, King of Judah, while of the "fortresses and small cities" he took "a countless number" ("Eponym Canon," p. 134). (On the causes of the war and its general course, see the Introduction to the book.)
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HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-22. Hezekiah and the Assyrian.
The Assyrian king made a campaign against Judah, Lachish was taken, and the event was commemorated on bas-reliefs in Sennacherib"s palace. The place commanded the direct road from Egypt to Judah. Hence the Rabshakeh, one of the chief officers of the Assyrians, was sent against Hezekiah, and by the "conduit of the upper pool the very spot where Ahaz had spoken with Isaiah (Isa_7:3) he took up his quarters. "Unbelief was then represented by an Israelite, now more naturally by an Assyrian" (Cheyne). To meet him there go forth Eliakim, son of Hilkiah, disciple of Isaiah; Shebna, the secretary; (cf. Isa_22:15-25) and Joah, the annalist.
I THE PRIDE AND POWER OF THE ASSYRIAN. It seems to be the very type of worldly pride and power.
1. His title. He is the sarru rabu, the great king, or the strong king, or the king of hosts. The ruler of Judah is no king at all in his thought, but a name and shadow, or a mere puppet in the hands of a giant.
2. His contemptuous trust in force. Hezekiah trusts in a "mere word of the lips," according to the insolent conqueror. What of the alliance of Egypt? On the banks of the Nile grow abundance of reeds; a "cracked reed" is the symbol of that alliance, and of the Pharaoh"s help. (cf. Eze_29:6, Eze_29:7) The Assyrian predicts that the alliance will be broken asunder, and that crushing defeat will follow. But what of the protection of Jehovah? The Assyrian taunts Hezekiah with inconsistency, and turns his own conduct as a reformer against himself. The latter had abolished the "high places", (2Ki_18:4 2Ch_31:1) and had centred worship at Jerusalem. To a superficial observer it looked as if the God of Israel had been robbed of his altars and a part of his due rites. How, then, could Judah expect the countenance of Jehovah? A reformation is always attended by evils, and it is a weapon in the hands of the enemy to charge these evils upon the reformation itself, instead of upon the human passions stirred up in the course of any great change. So the heathen charged the calamities of the Roman empire on Christianity, and the disorders attending the great Reformation of the sixteenth century were laid at the door of the reformers. Against these weaknesses in the position of Hezekiah, as the Assyrian deems them, he himself opposes brute force. He is strong in cavalry, and Judah is weak. Judah may have two thousand horses if she can find riders for them. How can she resist the attack of a single Assyrian satrap? She may well look to Egypt for chariots and horsemen.
II HIS APPEAL TO THE WEAKNESS OF DOUBTFUL MINDS.
1. The Assyrian pretends that he has even an oracle from Jehovah himself to destroy the land of Judah, because of the violation of the high places. Our spiritual enemies would not be so mighty if we were not so weak. In times of trial, it is the doubtful conscience which makes us weak; the self-betraying heart. The reaction and revival even from righteous efforts may be felt by good men. What if when they thought to serve God they have been displeasing him? And now, when danger and opposition have to be encountered, suppose that these assume the aspect, not of obstacles to be overcome in his strength, but of judgments sent in his wrath, to be withstood? There is, after all, no enemy to be feared like the traitor in our bosom, no force against us so formidable as that which is cloudily projected from an uneasy imagination; no bulwark so strong as a conscience void of offence toward God.
2. He endeavours to undermine the source of spiritual confidence. Hezekiah had encouraged the people, as he himself was encouraged by Isaiah by pointing to the Divine Saviour of the nation: Jehovah will surely deliver us, and the city shall not fall into the Assyrian"s hands". (cf. Isa_37:35) How typical this of spiritual temptation! If the devil can get men to question the words of God, his victory is assured. It is not so much the open warfare, the battles about the outposts and fortifications of the faith, that we have to dread, as the sapping and mining operations directed at the very principle and seat of faith itself. Is this world governed? Has it a righteous constitution and administration? Does all repose upon the mind and will of a just and holy Being? Then faith may live, and the weakest may be strong. Or is all the effect of chance? and are we at the mercy of some blind and fatal power, which neither loves nor knows? Then the stoutest knees will be loosened, anti the bravest heart will quail.
3. He holds out enticing promises. Let the people make a treaty with the Assyrian. Let them surrender to him, and he will secure them a happy future. They will be removed from their own land, it is true; but they shall find another home in a land equally goodly, abounding in corn and grapes, in bread-corn and orchards. There each family shall possess its vine and its fig tree and its cistern. Here, again, worldly hopes are made to take the field against the instincts of religious faith. Why cling to Judah? Because it was sacred soil the land of the fathers, the land whose holy centre was Jerusalem, the altar Of God, the meeting-place of the tribes, the earthly mirror of heaven. But was not this mere charm of imagination? Were not other lands as fair and as fertile? Could not a peaceful and a happy home be found in distant lands? Perhaps they are clinging to a pleasing illusion, a vain dream, and are blind to the good which lies at their feet. Perhaps they are defending themselves against their own happiness.
4. He appeals to seeming facts of history. The "gods of the nations" appear to have gone down before the victorious Assyrian. They, in the struggle, had not manifested a power to save. In ancient thought, religion and political power were closely connected. If a city or a nation stood, it was because of the protecting presence of the national god; its wanderings were his wanderings, its victories the effect of his prowess, its failures the signs of his defeat. Now, the gods of Hamath were captive in Assyrian shrines. And what probability was there, from a heathen point of view, that it would be otherwise with Jehovah, the national God of Israel? Such a rivalry between the long-vanished, power and religion of the Assyrian, and that of the living God, whom we at this day own, not only as national God of Israel, but as the Eternal himself may seem strange. To the eve of the heathen, and from the heathen view of politics and history, it was not so. Time alone can discover the short-sightedness of human calculation, and expose the superficiality of worldly views of history.
III THE ANSWER OF SILENCE. It was by Hezekiah"s command that no answer was returned. "For they had nothing that would seem, from an Assyrian point of view, a satisfactory answer." And the rent clothes of the Jewish officials confess the last extreme of helpless grief. And may not the facts of this situation remind us of spiritual situations? There are hours of perplexed thought when the mind turns its own weapons against itself. All circumstances conspire against us, or seem to do so. We seek for the "bright side" of the situation, but there is no bright side to look upon. We turn to the east, hoping for a ray of light: all is darkness. The known is distinct and threatening; the unknown veiled and, to the depressed imagination, more threatening still. We are cowed by our own reason, quelled by the pressure of our most fixed habits of thinking. Tim problem is without solution to the intelligence. But there is a secret sympathy of our being with the Unseen. There is a secret channel by which we may communicate with the Unseen, and pierce behind the veil. When temptations close around us like the serried ranks of the Assyrian host, shutting out from view every possible way of escape, we may, nevertheless, believe that there is such a way a passage into the clear light, which Jehovah has made, and which he will presently reveal. J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 11, 13, 19 Sennacherib King of Assyria came up
Isa_36:1
Sennacherib King of Assyria came up
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Sennacherib
Sennacherib was one of the most magnificent of the Assyrian kings.
He seems to have been the first who fixed the seat of government permanently at Nineveh, which he carefully repaired and adorned with splendid buildings. His greatest work is the grand palace at Koyunjik, which covered a space of about eight acres, and was adorned throughout with sculptures of finished execution. He built also, or repaired, a second palace at Nineveh, on the mound of Nebbi Yunus, confined the Tigris to its channel by an embankment of brick, restored the ancient aqueducts which had gone to decay, and gave to Nineveh that splendour which she thenceforth retained till the ruin of the empire. (G. Rawlinson.)
Sennacheribs invasion of Judah
Lessons:--
1. That a people may be in the way of their duty, and yet meet with trouble and distress. Hezekiah was reforming, and his people in some measure reformed; yet their country is at that time invaded, and a great part of it laid waste. Perhaps they began to grow remiss and cool in the work of reformation, were doing it by halves, and ready to sit down short of a thorough reformation; and then God visited them with this judgment, to put life into them and that good cause. We must not wonder if, when we are doing well, God sends afflictions to quicken us to do better, to do our best, and to press towards perfection.
2. That we must never be secure of the continuance of our peace in this world, nor think our mountain stands so strong as that it cannot be moved. Hezekiah was not only a pious king, but prudent, both in his administration at home and his treaties abroad. His affairs were in a good posture, and he seemed particularly to be upon good terms with the King of Assyria; for he had lately made his peace with him by a rich present (2Ki_18:14), and yet that perfidious prince pours an army into his country all of a sudden, and lays it waste. It is good for us, therefore, always to keep up an expectation of trouble, that when it comes it may be no surprise to us, and then it will be the less a terror.
3. That God sometimes permits the enemies of His people, even those that are most impious and treacherous, to prevail far against them. The King of Assyria took all, or most, of the defenced cities of Judah, and then the country would, of course, be an easy prey to him. Wickedness may prosper a while, but cannot prosper always. (M. Henry.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1
CHAPTER XXII
THE RABSHAKEH;
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OR, LAST TEMPTATIONS OF FAITH
701 B.C.
Isaiah 36
IT remains for us now to follow in chapters 36, 37, the historical narrative of the events, the moral results of which we have seen so vivid in chapter 33- the perfidious return of the Assyrians to Jerusalem after Hezekiah had bought them off, and their final disappearance from the Holy Land.
This historical narrative has also its moral. It is not annals, but drama. The whole moral of Isaiahs prophesying is here flung into a duel between champions of the two tempers, which we have seen in perpetual conflict throughout his book. The two tempers are-on Isaiahs side an absolute and unselfish faith in God, Sovereign of the world and Saviour of His people; on the side of the Assyrians a bare, brutal confidence in themselves, in human cleverness and success, a vaunting contempt of righteousness and of pity. The main interest of Isaiahs book has consisted in the way these tempers oppose each other, and alternately influence the feeling of the Jewish community. That interest is now to culminate in the scene which brings near such thorough representatives of the two tempers as Isaiah and the Rabshakeh, with the crowd of wavering Jews between. Most strikingly, Assyrias last assault is not of force, but of speech, delivering upon faith the subtle arguments of the worldly temper; and as strikingly, while all official religion and power of State stand helpless against them, these arguments are met by the bare word of God. In this mere statement of the situation, however, we perceive that much more than the quarrel of a single generation is being decided. This scene is a parable of the everlasting struggle between faith and force, with doubt and despair between them. In the clever, self-confident, persuasive personage with two languages on his tongue and an army at his back; in the fluttered representatives of official religion who meet him and are afraid of the effect of his speech on the common people; in the ranks of dispirited men who hear the dialogue from the wall; in the sensitive king so aware of faith, and yet so helpless to bring faith forth to peace and triumph; and, in the background of the whole situation, the serene prophet of God, grasping only Gods word, and by his own steadfastness carrying the city over the crisis and proving that faith indeed can be "the substance of things hoped for"-we have a phase of the struggle ordained unto every generation of men, and which is as fresh today as when Rabshakeh played the cynic and the scribes and elders filled the part of nervous defenders of the faith, under the walls of faiths fortress, two thousand five hundred years ago.
THE RABSHAKEH
This word is a Hebrew transliteration of the Assyrian Rab-sak, "chief of the officers." Though there is some doubt on the point, we may naturally presume from the duties he here discharges that the Rabshakeh was a civilian-probably the civil commissioner or political officer attached to the Assyrian army, which was commanded, according to 2Ki_18:16, by the Tartan or commander-in-chief himself.
In all the Bible there is not a personage more clever than this Rabshakeh, nor more typical. He was an able deputy of the king who sent him, but he represented still more thoroughly the temper of the civilisation to which he belonged. There is no word of this man which is not characteristic. A clever, fluent diplomatist, with the travellers knowledge of men and the conquerors contempt for them, the Rabshakeh is the product of a victorious empire like the Assyrian, or, say, like the British. Our services sometimes turn out the like of him-a creature able to speak to natives in their own language, full and ready of information, mastering the surface of affairs at a glance, but always baffled by the deeper tides which sway nations; a deft player upon party interests and the superficial human passions, but unfit to touch the deep springs of mens religion and patriotism. Let us speak, however, with respect of the Rabshakeh. From his rank (Sayce calls him the Vizier), as well as from the cleverness with which he explains what we know to have been the policy of Sennacherib towards the populations of Syria, he may well have been the inspiring mind at this time of the great Assyrian empire-Sennaeheribs Bismarck.
The Rabshakeh had strutted down from the great centre of civilisation, with its temper upon him, and all its great resources at his back, confident to twist these poor provincial tribes round his little finger. How petty he conceived them we infer from his never styling. Hezekiah "the king." This was to be an occasion for the Rabshakehs own glorification. Jerusalem was to fall to his clever speeches. He had indeed the army behind him, but the work to be done was not the rough work of soldiers. All was to be managed by him, the civilian and orator. This fellow, with his two languages and clever address, was to step out in front of the army and finish the whole business.
The Rabshakeh spoke extremely well. With his first words he touched the sore point of Judahs policy: her trust in Egypt. On this he spoke like a very Isaiah. But he showed a deeper knowledge of Judahs internal affairs, and a subtler deftness in using it, when he referred to the matter of the altars. Hezekiah had abolished the high places in all parts of the land, and gathered the people to the central sanctuary in Jerusalem. The Assyrian knew that a number of Jews must look upon this disestablishment of religion in the provinces as likely to incur Jehovahs displeasure and turn Him against them. Therefore he said, "But if thou say unto me, We trust in Jehovah our God, is not that He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away, and hath said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar"? And then, having shaken their religious confidence, he made sport of their military strength. And finally he boldly asserted, "Jehovah said unto me, Go up against this land and destroy it." All this shows a master in diplomacy, a most clever demagogue. The scribes and elders felt the edge, and begged him to sheathe it in a language unknown to the common people. But he, conscious of his power, spoke the more boldly, addressing himself directly to the poorer sort of the garrison, on whom the siege would press most heavily. His second speech to them is a good illustration of the policy pursued by Assyria at this time towards the cities of Palestine. We know from the annals of Sennacherib that his customary policy, to seduce the populations of a hostile State from allegiance to their rulers, had succeeded in other cases; and it was so plausibly uttered in this case, that it seemed likely to succeed again. To the common soldiers on the walls, with the prospect of being reduced to the foul rations of a prolonged siege (Isa_36:12), Sennacheribs ambassador offers rich and equal property and enjoyment. "Make a treaty with me, and come out to me, and eat every one of his vine and every one of his fig tree, and drink ye every one of the water of his cistern, until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of corn and grapes, a land of bread-corn and orchards. Everyone!"-it is a most subtle assault upon the discipline, comradeship, and patriotism of the common soldiers by the promises of a selfish, sensuous equality and individualism. But then the speakers native cynicism gets the better of him-it is not possible for an Assyrian long to play the part of clemency-and, with a flash of scorn, he asks the sad men upon the walls whether they really believe that Jehovah can save them: "Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered his land out of the hand of the King of Assyria that Jehovah should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?" All the range of their feelings does he thus run through, seeking with sharp words to snap each cord of faith in God, of honour to the king and love of country. Had the Jews heart to answer him, they might point out the inconsistency between his claim to have been sent by Jehovah and the contempt he now pours upon their God. But the inconsistency is characteristic. The Assyrian has some acquaintance with the Jewish faith; he makes use of its articles when they serve his purpose, but his ultimatum is to tear them to shreds in their believers faces. He treats the Jews as men of culture still sometimes treat barbarians, first scornfully humouring their faith and then savagely trampling it under foot.
So clever were the speeches of the Rabshakeh. We see why he was appointed to this mission. He was an expert both in the language and religion of this tribe, perched on its rock in the remote Judsean highlands. For a foreigner he showed marvellous familiarity with the temper and internal jealousies of the Jewish religion. He turned these on each other almost as adroitly as Paul himself did in the disputes between Sadducees and Pharisees. How the fellow knew his cleverness, strutting there betwixt army and town! He would show his soldier friends the proper way of dealing with stubborn barbarians. He would astonish those faith-proud highlanders by exhibiting how much he was aware of the life behind their thick walls and silent faces, "for the kings commandment was, Answer him not."
And yet did the Rabshakeh, with all his raking, know the heart of Judah? No, truly. The whole interest of this man is the incongruity of the expertness and surface-knowledge, which he spattered on Jerusalems walls, with the deep secret of God, that, as some inexhaustible well, the fortress of the faith carried within her. Ah, Assyrian, there is more in starved Jerusalem than thou canst put in thy speeches! Suppose Heaven were to give those sharp eyes of thine power to look through the next thousand years, and see this race and this religion thou puffest at, the highest-honoured, hottest-hated of the world, centre of mankinds regard and debate, but thou, and thy king and all the glory of your empire wrapped deep in oblivion. To this little fortress of highland men shall the heart of great peoples turn: kings for its nursing-fathers and queens for its nursing-mothers, the forces of the Gentiles shall come to it, and from it new civilisations take their laws; while thou and all thy paraphernalia disappear into blackness, haunted only by the antiquary, the world taking an interest in thee just in so far as thou didst once hopelessly attempt to understand Jerusalem and capture her faith by thine own interpretation of it. Curious pigmy, very grand thou thinkest thyself, and surely with some right as delegate of the king of kings, parading thy cleverness and thy bribes before these poor barbarians; but the world, called to look upon you both from this eminence of history, grants thee to be a very good head of an intelligence department, with a couple of languages on thy glib tongues end, but adjudges that with the starved and speechless men before thee lies the secret of all that is worth living and dying for in this world.
The Rabshakehs plausible futility and Jerusalems faith, greatly distressed before him, are typical. Still as men hang moodily over the bulwarks of Zion, doubtful whether life is worth living within the narrow limits which religion prescribes, or righteousness worth fighting for with such privations and hope deferred, comes upon them some elegant and plausible temptation, loudly calling to give the whole thing up. Disregarding the official arguments and evidences that push forward to parley, it speaks home in practical tones to mens real selves-their appetites and selfishness. "You are foolish fellows," it says, "to confine yourselves to such narrowness of life and self-denial! The fall of your faith is only a matter of time: other creeds have gone; yours must follow. And why fight the world for the sake of an idea, or from the habits of a discipline? Such things only starve the human spirit; and the world is so generous, so free to every one, so tolerant of each enjoying his own, unhampered by authority or religion."
In our day what has the greatest effect on the faith of many men is just this mixture, that pervades the Rabshakehs address, -of a superior culture pretending to expose religion, with the easy generosity, which offers to the individual a selfish life, unchecked by any discipline or religious fear. That modern Rabshakeh, Ernest Renan, with the forces of historical criticism at his back, but confident rather in his own skill of address, speaking to us believers as poor picturesque provincials, patronising our Deity, and telling us that he knows His intentions better than we do ourselves, is a very good representative of the enemies of the Faith, who owe their impressiveness upon common men to the familiarity they display with the contents of the Faith, and the independent, easy life they offer to the man who throws his strict faith off. Superior knowledge, with the offer on its lips of a life on good terms with the rich and tolerant world-pretence of promising selfishness-that is today, as then under the walls of Jerusalem, the typical enemy of the Faith. But if faith be held simply as the silent garrison of Jerusalem held it, faith in a Lord God of righteousness, who has given us a conscience to serve Him, and has spoken to us in plain explanation of this by those whom we can see, understand, and trust-not only by an Isaiah, but by a Jesus-then neither mere cleverness nor the ability to promise comfort can avail against our faith. A simple conscience of God and of duty may not be able to answer subtle arguments word for word, but she can feel the incongruity of their cleverness with her own precious secret; she can at least expose the fallacy of their sensuous promises of an untroubled life. No man, who tempts us from a good conscience with God in the discipline of our religion and the comradeship of His people, can ensure that there will be no starvation in the pride of life, no captivity in the easy tolerance of the world. To the heart of man there will always be captivity in selfishness; there will always be exile in unbelief. Even where the romance and sentiment of faith are retained, after the manner of Renan, it is only to mock us with mirage. "As in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is, our heart and flesh shall cry out for the living God, as we have aforetime seen Him in the sanctuary." The land in which the tempter promises a life undisturbed by religious restraints is not our home, neither is it freedom. By the conscience that is within us, God has set us on the walls of faith, with His law to observe, with His people to stand by; and against us are the world and its tempters, with all their wiles to be defied. If we go down from the charge and shelter of so simple a religion, then, whatever enjoyment we have, we shall enjoy it only with the fears of the deserter and the greed of the slave.
In spite of scorn and sensuous promise from Rabshakeh to Renan, let us lift the hymn which these silent Jews at last lifted from the walls of their delivered city: "Walk about Zion and go round about her; tell ye the towers thereof. Mark ye well her bulwarks, and consider her palaces, that ye may tell it to the generation to come. For this God is our God forever and ever. He will be our Guide even unto death."
CHAPTER XXVI
HAD ISAIAH A GOSPEL FOR THE INDIVIDUAL?
THE two narratives, in which Isaiahs career culminates-that of the Deliverance of Jerusalem {Isaiah 36-37} and that of the Recovery of Hezekiah {Isaiah 38-39}-cannot fail, coming together as they do, to suggest to thoughtful readers a striking contrast between Isaiahs treatment of the community and his treatment of the individual, between his treatment of the Church and his treatment of single members. For in the first of these narratives we are told how an illimitable future, elsewhere so gloriously described by the prophet, was secured for the Church upon earth; but the whole result of the second is the gain for a representative member of the Church of a respite of fifteen years. Nothing, as we have seen, is promised to the dying Hezekiah of a future life; no scintilla of the light of eternity sparkles either in Isaiahs promise or in Hezekiahs prayer. The net result of the incident is a reprieve of fifteen years: fifteen years of a character strengthened, indeed, by having met with death, but, it would sadly seem, only in order to become again the prey of the vanities of this world (chapter 39). So meagre a result for the individual stands strangely out against the perpetual glory and peace assured to the community. And it suggests this question: Had Isaiah any real gospel for the individual? If so, what was it?
First of all, we must remember that God in His providence seldom gives to one prophet or generation more than a single main problem for solution. In Isaiahs day undoubtedly the most urgent problem-and Divine problems are ever practical, not philosophical-was the continuance of the Church upon earth. It had really got to be a matter of doubt whether a body of people possessing the knowledge of the true God, and able to transfuse and transmit it, could possibly survive among the political convulsions of the world, and in consequence of its own sin. Isaiahs problem was the reformation and survival of the Church. In accordance with this, we notice how many of his terms are collective, and how he almost never addresses the individual. It is the people, upon whom he calls-"the nation," "Israel," "the house of Jacob My vineyard," "the men of Judah His pleasant plantation." To these we may add the apostrophes to the city of Jerusalem, under many personifications: "Ariel, Ariel," "inhabitress of Zion," "daughter of Zion." When Isaiah denounces sin, the sinner is either the whole community or a class in the community, very seldom an individual, though there are some instances of the latter, as Ahaz and Shebna. It is "This people hath rejected," or "The people would not." When Jerusalem collapsed, although there must have been many righteous men still within her, Isaiah said, "What aileth thee that all belonging to thee have gone up to the housetops?". {Isa_22:1} His language is wholesale. When he is not attacking society, he attacks classes or groups: "the rulers," the land-grabbers, the drunkards, the sinners, the judges, the house of David, the priests and the prophets, the women. And the sins of these he describes in their social effects, or in their results upon the fate of the whole people; but he never, except in two cases, gives us their individual results. He does not make evident, like Jesus or Paul, the eternal damage a mans sin inflicts on his own soul. Similarly when Isaiah speaks of Gods grace and salvation the objects of these are again collective-"the remnant; the escaped" (also a collective noun); a "holy seed"; a " stock" or "stump." It is a "restored nation" whom he sees under the Messiah, the perpetuity and glory of a city and a State. What we consider to be a most personal and particularly individual matter-the forgiveness of sin-he promises, with two exceptions, only to the community: "This people that dwelleth therein hath its iniquity forgiven." We can understand all this social, collective, and wholesale character of his language only if we keep in mind his Divinely appointed work-the substance and perpetuity of a purified and secure Church of God.
Had Isaiah then no gospel for the individual? This will indeed seem impossible to us if we keep in view the following considerations:-
1. ISAIAH HIMSELF had passed through a powerfully individual experience. He had not only felt the solidarity of the peoples sin-"I dwell among a people of unclean lips"-he had first felt his own particular guilt: "I am a man of unclean lips." One who suffered the private experiences which are recounted in chapter 6; whose "own eyes" had "seen the King, Jehovah of hosts"; who had gathered on his own lips his guilt and felt the fire come from heavens altar by an angelic messenger specially to purify him; who had further devoted himself to Gods service with so thrilling a sense of his own responsibility, and had so thereby felt his solitary and individual mission-he surely was not behind the very greatest of Christian saints in the experience of guilt, of personal obligation to grace and of personal responsibility. Though the record of Isaiahs ministry contains no narratives, such as fill the ministries of Jesus and Paul, of anxious care for individuals, could he who wrote of himself that sixth chapter have failed to deal with men as Jesus dealt with Nicodemus, or Paul with the Philippian gaoler? It is not picturesque fancy, nor merely a reflection of the New Testament temper, if we realise Isaiahs intervals of relief from political labour and religious reform occupied with an attention to individual interests, which necessarily would not obtain the permanent record of his public ministry. But whether this be so or not, the sixth chapter teaches that for Isaiah all public conscience and public labour found its necessary preparation in personal religion.
2. But, again, Isaiah had an INDIVIDUAL FOR HIS IDEAL. To him the future was not only an established State; it was equally, it was first, a glorious king. Isaiah was an Oriental. We moderns of the West place our reliance upon institutions; we go forward upon ideas. In the East it is personal influence that tells, persons who are expected, followed, and fought for. The history of the West is the history of the advance of thought, of the rise and decay of institutions, to which the greatest individuals are more or less subordinate. The history of the East is the annals of personalities; justice and energy in a ruler, not political principles, are what impress the Oriental imagination. Isaiah has carried this Oriental hope to a distinct and lofty pitch. The Hero whom he exalts on the margin of the future, as its Author, is not only a person of great majesty, but a character of considerable decision. At first only the rigorous virtues of the ruler are attributed to Him, {Isa_11:1 ff.} but afterwards the graces and: influence of a much broader and sweeter humanity. {Isa_32:2} Indeed, in this latter oracle we saw that Isaiah spoke not so much of his great Hero, as of what any individual might become. "A man," he says, "shall be as a hiding-place from the wind." Personal influence is the spring of social progress, the shelter and fountain force of the community. In the following verses the effect of so pure and inspiring a presence is traced in the discrimination of individual character-each man standing out for what he is-which Isaiah defines as his second requisite for social progress. In all this there is much for the individual to ponder, much to inspire him with a sense of the value and responsibility of his own character, and with the certainty that by himself he shall be judged and by himself stand or fall. "The worthless person shall be no more called princely, nor the knave said to be bountiful."
3. If any details of character are wanting in the picture of Isaiahs hero, they are supplied by HEZEKIAHS SELF-ANALYSIS (chapter 38). We need not repeat what we have said in the previous chapter of the kings appreciation of what is the strength of a mans character, and particularly of how character grows by grappling with death. In this matter the most experienced of Christian saints may learn from Isaiahs pupil.
Isaiah had then, without doubt, a gospel for the individual; and to this day the individual may plainly read it in his book, may truly, strongly, joyfully live by it-so deeply does it begin, so much does it help to self-knowledge and self-analysis, so lofty are the ideals and responsibilities which it presents. But is it true that Isaiahs gospel is for this life only?
Was Isaiahs silence on the immortality of the individual due wholly to the cause we have suggested in the beginning of this chapter-that God gives to each prophet his single problem, and that the problem of Isaiah was the endurance of the Church upon earth? There is no doubt that this is only partly the explanation.
The Hebrew belonged to a branch of humanity-the Semitic-which, as its history proves, was unable to develop any strong imagination of, or practical interest in, a future life apart from foreign influence or Divine revelation. The pagan Arabs laughed at Mahommed when he preached to them of the Resurrection; and even to-day, after twelve centuries of Moslem influence, their descendants in the centre of Arabia, according to the most recent authority, fail to form a clear conception of, or indeed to take almost any practical interest in, another world. The northern branch of the race, to which the Hebrews belonged, derived from an older civilisation a prospect of Hades, that their own fancy developed with great elaboration. This prospect, however, which we shall describe fully in connection with chapters 14 and 26, was one absolutely hostile to the interests of character in this life. It brought all men, whatever their life had been on earth, at last to a dead level of unsubstantial and hopeless existence. Good and evil, strong and weak, pious and infidel, alike became shades, joyless and hopeless, without even the power to praise God. We have seen in Hezekiahs case how such a prospect unnerved the most pious souls, and that revelation, even though represented at his bedside by an Isaiah, offered him no hope of an issue from it. The strength of character, however, which Hezekiah professes to have won in grappling with death, added to the closeness of communion with God which he enjoyed in this life, only brings out the absurdity of such a conclusion to life as the prospect of Sheol offered to the individual. If he was a pious man, if he was a man who had never felt himself deserted by God in this life, he was bound to revolt from so God-forsaken an existence after death. This was actually the line along which the Hebrew spirit went out to victory over those gloomy conceptions of death, that were yet unbroken by a risen Christ. "Thou wilt not," the saint triumphantly cried, "leave my soul in Sheol, nor wilt Thou suffer Thine holy one to see corruption." It was faith in the almightiness and reasonableness of Gods ways, it was conviction of personal righteousness, it was the sense that the Lord would not desert His own in death, which sustained the believer in face of that awful shadow through which no light of revelation had yet broken.
If, these, then, were the wings by which a believing soul under the Old Testament soared over the grave, Isaiah may be said to have contributed to the hope of personal immortality just in so far as he strengthened them. By enhancing as he did the value and beauty of individual character, by emphasising the indwelling of Gods Spirit, he was bringing life and immortality to light, even though be spoke no word to the dying about the fact of a glorious life beyond the grave. By assisting to create in the individual that character and sense of God, which alone could assure him he would never die, but pass from the praise of the Lord in this life to a nearer enjoyment of His presence beyond, Isaiah was working along the only line by which the Spirit of God seems to have assisted the Hebrew mind to an assurance of heaven.
But further in his favourite gospel of the REASONABLENESS OF GOD - that God does not work fruitlessly, nor create and cultivate with a view to judgment and destruction-Isaiah was furnishing an argument for personal immortality, tile force of which has not been exhausted. In a recent work on "The Destiny of Man" the philosophic author maintains the reasonableness of the Divine methods as a ground of belief both in the continued progress of the race upon earth and in the immortality of the individual. "From the first dawning of life we see all things working together toward one mighty goal-the evolution of the most exalted and spiritual faculties which characterise humanity. Has all this work been done for nothing? Is it all ephemeral, all a bubble that bursts, a vision that fades? On such a view the riddle of the universe becomes a riddle without a meaning. The more thoroughly we comprehend the process of evolution by which things have come to be what they are, the more we are likely to feel that to deny the everlasting persistence of the spiritual element in man is to rob the whole process of its meaning. It goes far toward putting us to permanent intellectual confusion. For my own part, I believe in the immortality of the soul, not in the sense in which I accept demonstrable truths of science, but as a supreme act of faith in the reasonableness of Gods work."
From the same argument Isaiah drew only the former of these two conclusions. To him the certainty that Gods people would survive the impending deluge of Assyrias brute force was based on his faith that the Lord is "a God of judgment," of reasonable law and method, and could not have created or fostered so spiritual a people only to destroy them. The progress of religion upon earth was certain. But does not Isaiahs method equally make for the immortality of the individual? He did not draw this conclusion, but he laid down its premises with a confidence and richness of illustration that have never been excelled.
We, therefore answer the question we put at the beginning of the chapter thus:-Isaiah had a gospel for the individual for this life, and all the necessary premises of a gospel for the individual for the life to come.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv4, 5, 21 Isa_36:4. What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?
MODERN RABSHAKEHS, AND THEIR ATTEMPTS TO TERRIFY GOD’S PEOPLE INTO A HUMBLE SURRENDER
Isa_36:4. What confidence is this wherein thou trustest?
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Sennacherib is surprised at the attitude of resistance taken by Hezekiah, and sends an embassy to dissuade him from his mad project. When they appear outside the walls, some officers of Hezekiah’s court come out to confer with them, and Rabshakeh opens upon them with the taunting question, “What confidence,” &c. The proud king of Assyria had another end beyond that of conquest. His aim was to show that Jehovah was on a level with the gods of the nations. This was, therefore, a religious war. Every country he subdued was another god overcome, and if only Jerusalem were taken, his triumph would be complete. The situation here described is an image of the Christian faith assailed by modern unbelief. The forces of infidelity have become bold and insolent. The Bible is subjected to the hostile criticism of men who would rejoice to see it overthrown. Unbelief is marshalling her forces against the citadel of revealed truth. She has on her side some prominent leaders of modern thought, and employs both press and lecture room for accomplishing her destructive designs. If she can only get the Christian faith out of the way, the world will be her own. Our modern Rabshakehs are hurling against us the taunting question, “What confidence,” &c.
I. What is this confidence of ours which is so assailed
The question implies that we have a confidence. Our opponents admit it, though to them it is inexplicable. They are forced to bear testimony to a strange but courageous faith by which we are supported in life and death. Jerusalem had nothing to rest on but God’s presence and promise. Their king had encouraged them with the noble words of 2Ch_32:7-8. Here is the secret of the confidence which so surprised the Assyrian king; and on the same ground do we take our stand against the opposing hosts of unbelief. God’s presence and faithfulness are the bulwarks behind which we may safely entrench ourselves. We have believed God’s Word and have taken shelter in Christ (Php_3:3). On His exalted throne He is directing the Church’s energies, restraining her enemies, and giving success to her enterprises.
II. What assaults are made upon our confidence?
They correspond to those by which Rabshakeh tried to subvert Hezekiah’s confidence. He puts the question in a contemptuous tone, and then proceeds to answer it, and to show that the confidence cherished had no solid basis.
1. He points to the slenderness of Hezekiah’s resources (Isa_36:5-6; Isa_36:8-9). “The Egyptians can no more be relied on than the frail reeds that grow on the banks of their Nile. No help can come from abroad; and see how weak you are in yourselves. If you can find riders, I will supply 2000 horses.” How could such a puny kingdom withstand the power of Assyria with its magnificent military equipment? So unbelief tries to undermine faith, not knowing that God’s strength is perfected in human weakness. Cardinal Cajetan tried to browbeat Luther,—“Do you think that your electors will take up arms for you? I tell you, no; and where then will you be?” The brave answer was, “Then, as now, in the hands of God.”
2. Rabshakeh tries to close the door of Divine help (Isa_36:7). “How can you expect support from a God whose worship you have suppressed?” But this was a needful reform, for these rural places of worship had degenerated into scenes of idolatry. So the enemies of the faith in our day try to make capital out of the changes and reforms that have taken place. They point to our ecclesiastical divisions and theological controversies as an argument against us. “How can that be true about which there is so much diversity of opinion? How can Divine help be expected to defend the Christian faith, when there are so many sects and parties, disestablishment agitations, and ecclesiastical rivalries?” We answer that there is a unity among all who love the Lord Jesus, and however much we may deplore the need of change and reform, we are not to be deterred from effecting them by any fear of God’s displeasure. It can never offend God to maintain His truth and worship in all their purity (H. E. I. 1372–1374).
3. Another reason for surrender is urged in Isa_36:10, where the Assyrian claims to be commissioned by God to destroy the land. This was only a piece of bluster intended to alarm Jerusalem. It has its counterpart in our day in those men of science, who come to us in the name of God with the truths they have discovered, and throw them in our face as inconsistent with faith in the Scriptures. But there can be no real disagreement between science and revelation. We are not going to open our gates to arrogant scientists who claim that their department embraces everything; to materialists who tell us that our heaven is six feet below the ground. Let science keep to its legitimate sphere. It was a good remark made by Professor Ball to a lady who put to him some questions about comets, to each of which he replied, “I do not know.” “Then,” she said, “may I ask what is the use of your science?” “To let me know, madam,” he replied, “that I cannot know some things” (H. E. I. 538, 539).
4. Rabshakeh presses a surrender in view of the hardships the people would have to endure. He threatens them with famine and thirst, and (Isa_36:16-17) promises them ease and plenty if they will but suppress the sentiment of patriotism, abandon their confidence, and give up their city into his hands. This is an old and well-used device to make the believer cower in the face of trials and privations. But the men of faith are proof against such selfish considerations. They will fight the Lord’s battles at whatever cost; for however hard their outward lot may be, they have inward joys which more than counterbalance the loss of all things.
5. The last argument which Rabshakeh employed is this (Isa_36:18-20): Other gods were unable to defend their worshippers against his victorious march, and why should the Lord be able to defend Jerusalem? This was his last thrust, and was intended to bring home to the people the utter baselessness of their confidence. This reasoning is not unlike the patronising tone in which infidels speak of the Christian religion, as one of the many superstitions, all well enough for their day, but now effete, or destined to perish before the advance of intelligence; as one of those venerable systems, all of which are now losing their hold on the intellect and heart.
III. Why should we still hold to our Christian confidence in spite of these attempts to overthrow it?
The agnosticism and infidelity which in our time are so loud and pretentious are only systems of negation; they have no substitute for that which they endeavour to destroy. If we allow them to rob us of our faith, we are spiritually bankrupt, for these destructive agencies have nothing to satisfy the heart and conscience. Never let us lower our flag for all their threats and boastful arrogance. Perhaps the best way to deal with them is that which was followed by Hezekiah’s officers (Isa_36:21; Mat_7:6).
IV. What will be the end of all the assaults made upon the Christian faith?
We know what came of the boastful insolence of Rabshakeh. Not only did he fail to unhinge the confidence of Hezekiah, but he brought upon himself confusion and defeat. God answered his blasphemies. God employs the hostile efforts of unbelief to confirm us in our confidence. What our enemies intend for the subversion of the truth only places it on a more solid basis. Christianity can never suffer from the most rigid investigation, for this only reveals its immovable strength. We throw back on our opponents their own question, “What confidence have you, what light in the dark lonesome hour of death?” Oh, the strange “credulity of unbelief,” which accepts the most glaring fallacies, whose reason is clouded by a proud and insolent defiance of God! We have nothing to fear, then, from the boastful Rabshakehs of our day. The assaults to which our faith is now subjected are nothing new. Old weapons are refurbished, old stratagems resorted to; but it has survived attacks as clever as those now made upon it (H. E. I. 1165).
CONCLUSION.—Let me put to you the question in a different tone with all affection and anxiety for your spiritual welfare. It is good to have our position assailed that we may see its strength (H. E. I. 1138–1139). Is yours a confidence that can resist the thrusts and subtle reasonings and plausible solicitations of the world? The best answer you can give to the insolence of unbelief is to hold your peace, and go quietly forward in resolute faith and persistent well-doing, giving not the answer of the lip, but of the life—a life nourished, strengthened, and beautified by faith in Christ.—William Guthrie, M.A.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. These inquiries may, by a slight accommodation, be…
Isa 36:19
I. These inquiries may, by a slight accommodation, be used as showing some characteristics of false gods, and showing by implication the glory and worship which are due to the one living Lord. Men have a distinct right to inquire for their gods. Almighty God Himself does not shrink from this test of personality and nearness. He will be inquired of. He has proclaimed Himself accessible.
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II. Many a man has felt the most intense pain on observing what he supposed was God’s absence from the scene of human affairs. God has been looked for, and looked for apparently in vain. When His voice might have hushed the storm, not a sound was heard. In reply to this difficulty, I suggest three things: (1) As a mere matter of fact, attested by a thousand histories known in our own experience, God has appeared in vindication of His name and honour; (2) God Himself is the only Judge as to the best manner and time of interposition; (3) The very absence of God, being dictated by wisdom, and controlled by love, must be intended to have a happy effect upon human faith. When God is absent, what if His absence be intended to excite inquiry in our hearts? When God is absent, what if His absence be intended to develop the trust of our nature? It is in having to grope for God we learn lessons of our own blindness and weakness and spiritual incapacity. We know not what God may be working out for us in the very act of withdrawing Himself for a small moment, and for a space immeasurably minute.
Parker, City Temple, 1871, p. 193.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Invasion of Sennacherib
The Invasion of Sennacherib
An account of Sennacherib's invasion of Judah (701 b.c.) and its sudden termination. The narrative is closely parallel to that of 2Ki_18:13; 2Ki_19:37 (where see notes), from which it was probably taken, and added to this book by a compiler because of its bearing on the prophetic activity of Isaiah.
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Isaiah 36. i-3. The mission of the Rabshakeh from Sennacherib to Jerusalem.
4-10. The Rabshakeh's first speech—the folly of resistance, relying either upon Egypt, or upon Jehovah.
11-20. The Rabshakeh's second speech—the fall of Jerusalem certain, favourable terms offered in case of surrender.
21, 22. The Rabshakeh's words are reported to Hezekiah.
Isa_37:1-7. Hezekiah sends a deputation to Isaiah, who in reply foretells the retreat of the enemy.
8-13. Sennacherib's second embassy to Jerusalem—trust in Jehovah will not avail to save the city.
14-20. Hezekiah's prayer to Jehovah to vindicate Himself.
21-35. The answer through Isaiah—the Assyrian is Jehovah's instrument, under His control, and shall be turned back from Jerusalem.
36-38. The fulfilment of Isaiah's words.
1. In the fourteenth year] The chronology is difficult. From Isa_38:1; Isa_39:1 we might conclude that Hezekiah's sickness and the Babylonian embassy followed Sennacherib's invasion, whereas Isaiah 38, 39 chronologically must precede Isaiah 36, 37. Samaria fell in 722, Hezekiah's 6th year (2Ki_18:10); Sennacherib's invasion of Judah was in 701, which would therefore be Hezekiah's 27th year. The date 14th year here given must then be an error. Hezekiah reigned in all 29 years; 15 additional years were promised in his sickness (Isa_38:5), which accordingly must have befallen him in his 14th year. It looks as though the note of time in this v. originally applied to Isaiah 38, where it would be accurate, but has by the compiler been transposed to the commencement of this historical appendix to Isaiah's prophecies.
2. Rabshakeh] is a title, 'the Rabshakeh,' i.e. chief officer, or cupbearer.
6. Broken] RV 'bruised.' Pharaoh] This was Tirhakah, of the Ethiopian dynasty (Isa_37:9).
7. The allusion is to Hezekiah's reformation; the reduction of the number of shrines would seem to a heathen to dishonour the national god.
19. Cp. Isa_10:9-11.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On v5 (See Scofield "Psa 2:12")
trust
(See Scofield "Psa 2:12")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 The center of the book of Isaiah is a…
THE HISTORICAL PARENTHESIS (36-39)
The center of the book of Isaiah is a brief but deeply interesting historical account of events during the reign of King Hezekiah. His name is mentioned not less than thirty-one times in these chapters. His great works in reformation and otherwise are recorded in 2Ki 18:4-7, 2Ch 29:1-36; 2Ch 30:5-22, 2Ki 20:20. From Pro 25:1 we learn that he was a great lover of the Word of God, for he had it copied, perhaps by many scribes. He was 25 years old when he ascended the throne and reigned 29 years, 727-699 B.C. No doubt he was one of the greatest kings of Judah.
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The events recorded in these chapters are not put together chronologically. The king’s sickness, prayer and recovery occurred before the attempts of Sennacherib to take Jerusalem and the subsequent complete overthrow of the Assyrian hosts. This arrangement has its meaning. These historical chapters are designed for an appendix to the earlier prophecies (1-35) and for an introduction to the later prophecies (40-66). The Assyrian enemy is repeatedly predicted in the earlier prophecies. Indeed he is seen as the enemy of God’s people, the rod of God’s anger to punish His disobedient people. How the Assyrian came and the angel of the Lord smote the camp is therefore put first, because it is related to the first prophecies of Isaiah. In connection with Hezekiah’s pride in chapter 39 the future Babylonian captivity is announced. The later prophecies look upon the people as in Babylon, assuring the remnant of restoration, not alone from the dispersion in Babylon but the future great restoration, the regathering from all countries.
We give a brief analysis of these four chapters and leave it to the reader to gather up the blessed lessons of confidence in God, dependence upon Him, of prayer, as well as others, in which these chapters abound.
CHAPTER 36
The Threatening Enemy
1. The Assyrian invasion (Isa 36:1-3) 2. Rabshakeh’s mockery (Isa 36:4-10) 3. Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah’s Request (Isa 36:11) 4. Rabshakeh’s address in Hebrew defying God (Isa 36:12-20) 5. The silence of the people (Isa 36:21) 6. The terror of Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah (Isa 36:22)
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 11, 21 The Assyrians Threaten Jerusalem.
The Assyrians Threaten Jerusalem.
The three chapters now following form the historical appendix to the first part of the book of the prophet Isaiah, serving chiefly to make the prophecies concerning Assyria more intelligible. The events here told are narrated in practically the same form as in 2Ki 18:13 to 2Ki 20:11, but stress certain features of the story for the purposes which the inspired author had in mind.
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Rabshakeh’s Mockery
v. 1. Now, it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah that Sennacherib, king of Assyria, came up against all the defensed cities of Judah, all those which were fortified with walls and towers, and took them, their number, according to an Assyrian account of the expedition, being forty-six. The Assyrian attack was directed primarily against Phoenicia, Philistia, Edom, and Moab, but the enemies also overran the country of Judah.
v. 2. And the king of Assyria sent Rabshakeh, the commander-in-chief of his army, from Lachish, a fortress in the southwestern part of Canaan, which the Assyrians wished to take preliminary to their descent upon Egypt, to Jerusalem unto King Hezekiah with a great army, a large detachment of his troops. And he, the general of the Assyrian king, stood by the conduit of the upper pool in the highway of the fuller’s field, on an eminence overlooking the city from the west, 7:3. Hezekiah, in anticipation of Sennacherib’s invasion, had stopped up the fountains outside of the city and conducted the water of the fountain of Gihon and that of the upper pool in a new conduit between the two walls.
v. 3. Then came forth unto him, as emissaries of the king of Judah, Eliakim, Hilkiah’s son, which was over the house, the royal chamberlain, and Shebna, the scribe, the king’s secretary, and therefore an important state officer, and Joah, Asaph’s son, the recorder, he who kept the royal archives.
v. 4. And Rabshakeh said unto them, Say ye now to Hezekiah, Thus saith the great king, the king of Assyria, What confidence is this wherein thou trustest? Just on whom and on what did Hezekiah depend to deliver him and his city at this time?
v. 5. I say, sayest thou, (but they are but vain words, upon which it is not safe to rely), I have counsel and strength for war, that is, empty bragging is his talk concerning preparation for war; now, on whom dost thou trust that thou rebellest against me? namely, by refusing to surrender Jerusalem in addition to the ransom paid.
v. 6. Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt, as Rabshakeh contemptuously calls the ally of Judah, whereon if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it. So is Pharaoh, king of Egypt, to all that trust in him, the Assyrian general naturally deriding and mocking the strength of Assyria’s rival for world supremacy.
v. 7. But if thou say to me, We trust in the Lord, our God, in Jehovah, the God of Israel, is it not He whose high places and whose altars Hezekiah hath taken away and said to Judah and to Jerusalem, Ye shall worship before this altar? Hezekiah had indeed done away with all the high places in Judah, even with those erected in honor of Jehovah, but that had been done only in the interest of the one central Sanctuary in Jerusalem and was therefore no interference with the authority of Jehovah.
v. 8. Now, therefore, give pledges, I pray thee, giving sufficient security, and thus entering upon a wager, to my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give thee two thousand horses, if thou be able on thy part to set riders upon them. In other words, Rabshakeh wanted to bet the king of Judah that he could not produce two thousand men trained to serve in the cavalry of an army.
v. 9. How, then, wilt thou turn away, resist and cause to retire, the face of one captain of the least of my master’s servants and put thy trust on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen? The course which Hezekiah was following, so his argument ran, was ridiculous, suicidal; for Judah, even with the help of Egypt, had no chance of winning.
v. 10. And am I now come up without the Lord against this land to destroy it? This argument was intended to be particularly effective in breaking down the morale of the Jews. The Lord said unto me, Go up against this land and destroy it. This was a bold shot, without foundation, but apt to terrify all those within hearing, so that they would refuse to follow Hezekiah any longer. A similar trick is used by the enemies of the Church in our day, when they insist that they are acting only in its interest as their evil plans are put into execution.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, 18, 21 the fourteenth year
the fourteenth year
"year 14" (See: Ordinal Numbers)
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King Hezekiah
See how you translated the name of this king in Isaiah 1:1.
Sennacherib
This is the name of the king of Assyria. (See: How to Translate Names)
Sennacherib ... attacked all the fortified cities
Here Sennacherib represents himself and his army. AT: "Sennacherib and his army ... attacked all the fortified cities" (See: Synecdoche)
the chief commander
Some versions of the Bible translate this as "the Rabshakeh." This is the Assyrian word for one of the highest ranking military leaders in Assyria.
Lachish
This is a city southwest of Jerusalem. (See: How to Translate Names)
conduit
man-made ditch or tunnel through which water flows. See how you translated this in Isaiah 7:3.
the launderers' field
Possible meanings are 1) this is the proper name by which the people called the field or 2) this is the common noun that the people used to talk about the field, "the launderers' field" or "the field where men wash wool" or "the field where women wash clothes." See how you translated this in Isaiah 7:3. (See: How to Translate Names)
the launderers' field
Launderer are either 1) men who wash wool that someone has cut from the sheep, "wool washers field," or 2) women who wash dirty clothes, "clothes washers field." See how you translated this in Isaiah 7:3. (See: How to Translate Names)
Hilkiah ... Eliakim
See how you translated these men's names in Isaiah 22:20. (See: How to Translate Names)
Shebna
See how you translated this man's name in Isaiah 22:15. (See: How to Translate Names)
Asaph ... Joah
These are names of men. (See: How to Translate Names)
translationWords
king
Hezekiah
Assyria
Judah
Jerusalem
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 19 36:1–39:8 Jerusalem’s rescue from King Sennacherib of Assyria is…
36:1–39:8 Jerusalem’s rescue from King Sennacherib of Assyria is a focal point of chs 1–39. The Lord promised to rescue his people by remaining present with Jerusalem (see 7:14) and by maintaining a remnant (see study note on 10:20). Even though much of the country was desolate and the population decimated because of their foolish alliance with Assyria (chs 7–8), the Lord preserved his people from total conquest through Hezekiah, a godly king. Hezekiah faced the same test that Ahaz did, a test of trust (note the recurrence of words for trust in the Assyrian officer’s challenge in ch 36). But Hezekiah has learned the lessons taught in chs 13–35 and, at least initially, he passed the test. This narrative is duplicated in 2 Kgs 18:13–20:19.
36:1 King Sennacherib of Assyria ruled from 705–681 BC. Hezekiah, like many other kings under Assyrian vassalage, had reasserted his independence when Sennacherib came to the throne in troubled circumstances. By 701 BC, the Assyrian king was ready to punish Hezekiah. Sennacherib recorded having conquered forty-six fortified cities and many villages, and having taken 200,146 captives. Hezekiah responded by attempting to appease Sennacherib (see 2 Kgs 18:14-16), but it was too late.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.