The Holy One of Israel.—A favourite expression of Isaiah’s, in whose book it occurs twenty-seven times, and only five times elsewhere in the Old Testameut (Psalm 71:22; Psalm 78:41; Psalm 89:19; Jeremiah 50:29; Jeremiah 51:5).

I am come up . . . mountains.—I (emphatic) have ascended lofty mountains. Such boasts are common in the Assyrian inscriptions.

To the sides of Lebanon.—Thenius explains: “the spurs of the Lebanon—i.e., the strongholds of Judæa, which Sennacherib had already captured.” “Lebanon, as the northern bulwark of the land of Israel, is used as a representative or symbol for the whole country (Zechariah 11:1)” (Cheyne). The language is similar in Isaiah 14:13.

And will cut down . . .—Or, and I will fell the tallest cedars thereof, the choicest firs thereof. Cedars and firs in Isaiah’s language symbolise “kings, princes, and nobles, all that is highest and most stately” (Birks), or “the most puissant defenders” (Thenius). (See Isaiah 2:13; Isaiah 10:33-34.)

The lodgings of his borders.—Or, the furthest lodging thereof—i.e., Mount Zion or Jerusalem. Isaiah has height for lodging, either a scribe’s error or an editor’s correction.

Carmel—i.e., pleasure-garden or park (Isaiah 10:18). The royal palace and grounds appear to be meant. Thenius compares “the house of the forest of Lebanon” (1Kings 7:2).

And with the sole . . . places.—Rather, and I will dry up with the sole of my feet all the Nile arms of Māçôr—i.e., Lower Egypt. (Comp. Isaiah 19:5 seq.) Neither mountains nor rivers avail to stop my progress. As the style is poetical, perhaps it would be correct to take the perfects, which in 2Kings 19:23-24 alternate with imperfects, in a future sense: “I—I will ascend lofty mountains . . . I will dig and drink strange waters” the latter in the arid desert that lies between Egypt and Palestine (the Et-Tîh). Otherwise, both perfects and imperfects may mark what is habitual: “I ascend . . . I dig.”

As the grass . . .—The as may better be omitted. They were field growth and green herbage; grass of the roofs and blasting before stalk. The sense seems imperfect, unless we supply the idea of withering away, as in Psalm 37:2; Psalm 90:5-6; Psalm 129:6; Isaiah 40 (5, 7. Instead of the word blasting the parallel text (Isaiah 37:27) has field—a difference of one letter. Thenius adopts this, and corrects stalk into east wind, no great change in the Hebrew. We thus get the appropriate expression: and a field before the east wind.

I will put my hook . . . lips.—Comp. the Note on 2Chronicles 33:11, where this threat is shown to be no mere figure of speech. Keil’s remark, however, is also to the purpose: “The metaphor is taken from wild animals, which are thus held in check—the ring in the nose of lions (Ezekiel 19:4), and other wild beasts (Ezekiel 29:4; Isaiah 30:28), the bridle in the mouth of intractable horses” (Psalm 32:9). This agrees with “I will turn thee back,” &c. (With this last comp. 2Kings 18:24).

A sign.—Rather, the sign; namely, of the truth of this prophetic word. “The sign consists in the foretelling of natural and nearer events, which serve to accredit the proper prediction. The purport of it is that this and the next year the country will be still occupied by the enemy, so that men cannot sow and reap as usual, but must live on that which grows without sowing. In the third year, they will again be able to cultivate their fields and vineyards, and reap the fruits of them” (Keil). The prophecy was probably uttered in the autumn, so that only one full year from that time would be lost to husbandry.

Ye shall eat.—Or, eat ye.

Such things as grow of themselves.—The Hebrew is a single word, sāphîah, “the after-growth” (Cheyne; see Leviticus 25:5; Leviticus 25:11).

That which springeth of the same.—Again one word in the Hebrew, sāhîsh, or as in Isaiah, shāhîs probably synonymous with the preceding term, “after-shoot,” i.e., the growth from old roots left in the ground.

Shall yet again take root.—Literally, shall add root, i.e., shall take firmer root, like a tree after a storm. The figure naturally follows on the language of 2Kings 19:29. It is thoroughly in the style of Isaiah. (Comp. Isaiah 6:13; Isaiah 27:6.)

They that escape.—A survival.

Out of Jerusalem.—The ravaged land was to be newly stocked from thence.

The zeal (jealousy) of the Lord of hosts shall do this.—Another of the phrases of Isaiah. (See Isaiah 10:7.) (The word hosts, wanting in the common Hebrew text, is found in many MSS., and all the versions).

(32) Into this city.—Or, unto this city. Sennacherib shall not come hither to make his intended attack.

Nor shoot an arrow there (at it).—In open assault.

Nor come before it with shield.—As a storming party advances to the walls under cover of their shields.

Nor cast a bank against it.—In regular siege. Comp. 2Samuel 20:15; Habakkuk 1:10). The incidents of warfare here specified may be seen represented on the Assyrian sculptures from Khorsâbad and elsewhere.

And shall not come into this city.—And unto this city he shall not come (2Kings 19:32).

For my servant David’s sake.—See 1Kings 11:12-13, and the promise in 2 Samuel 7.

(35) And it came to pass (in) that night.—This definition of time is wanting in the parallel text; but it is implied by the phrase in the morning (Isaiah 37:36; 2Kings 19:35). The night intended can hardly be the one which followed the day when the prophecy was spoken (see 2Kings 19:29). The expression “in that night,” may perhaps be compared with the prophetic “in that day,” and understood to. mean simply “in that memorable night which was the occasion of this catastrophe.” (Theuius sees in this clause an indication that the present section was derived from another source, probably from the one used by the chronicler in 2Chronicles 32:20-23. Reuss thinks this confirmed by the fact that neither the prediction in 2Kings 19:7, nor that of 2Kings 19:21-34, speaks of so great and so immediate an overthrow.)

The angel of the Lord went out.—The destroying angel, who smote the firstborn of the Egyptians (Exodus 12:12-13; Exodus 12:23), and smote Israel after David’s census (2Samuel 24:15-17). These passages undoubtedly favour the view that the Assyrian army was devastated by pestilence, as Josephus asserts. Others have suggested the agency of a simoom, a storm with lightning, an earthquake, &c. In any case a supernatural causation is involved not only in the immense number slain, and that in one night (Psalm 91:6), but in the coincidence of the event with the predictions of Isaiah, and with the crisis in the history of the true religion:

“Vuolsi così colà dove si puote

Ciò che si vuole; e più non dimandare.”

In the camp of the Assyrians.—Where this was is not said. That it was not before Jerusalem appears from 2Kings 19:32-33; and the well-known narrative of Herodotus (ii. 141) fixes Egypt, the land of plagues, as the scene of the catastrophe. “Of the details of the catastrophe, which the Bible narrative is content to characterise as the act of God, the Assyrian monuments contain no record, because the issue of the campaign gave them nothing to boast of; but an Egyptian account, preserved by Herodotus, though full of fabulous circumstances, shows that in Egypt, as well as in Judæa, it was recognised as a direct intervention of Divine power. The disaster did not break the power of the great king, who continued to reign for twenty years, and waged many other victorious wars. But none the less it must have been a very grave blow, the effects of which were felt throughout the empire, and permanently modified the imperial policy; for in the following year Chaldæa was again in revolt, and to the end of his reign Sennacherib never renewed his attack upon Judah” (Robertson Smith).

And when they arose early.—The few who were spared found, not sick and dying, but corpses, all around them. (Comp. Exodus 12:33 : “They said, we be all dead men.”)

And dwelt at Nineveh.—Or, and he abode in Nineveh, implying that he did not again invade the west. Sennacherib records five subsequent expeditions to the east, north, and south of his dominions, but these obviously were nothing to the peoples of Palestine. (See Notes on 2Kings 20:12.)

Nineveh.—The capital of Assyria, now marked by large mounds on the east bank of the Tigris, opposite Mosul. (The Arabic version has “the king of Mosul,” instead of “the king of Assyria.”) It is usually called Ninua in the inscriptions; sometimes Ninâ, seldom Ninû (Greek, Nîvos.)

Nisroch.—This name appears to be corrupt. The LXX. gives Νεσεραχ and Μεσορὰχ; Josephus, ἐν Αράσαη, “in Araskè,” as if the name were that of the temple rather than the god. The Hebrew version of Tobit (1:21) gives Dagon as the god. Dagon (Da-kan, Da-gan-nu) was worshipped at an early date in Babylonia, and later in Assyria; but no stress can be laid on the evidence of a late version of an Apochryphon. Wellhausen thinks the original reading of the LXX. must have been Άσσαρὰχ, which seems to involve the name of Asshur, the supreme god of the Assyrians.

Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him.—The Assyrian monuments are silent on the subject of the death of Sennacherib. For Adrammelech, see the Note on 2Kings 17:31. Sharezer, in Assyrian, Sar-uçur, “protect the king,” is only part of a name. The other half is found in Abydenus (apud Eusebius), who records that Sennacherib was slain by his son Adramelos, and succeeded by Nergilos (i.e., Nergal), who was slain by Axerdis (Esarhaddon). From this it appears that the full name was Nergal-sar-uçur, “Nergal protect the king!” (the Greek Neriglissar.) (See Jeremiah 39:3; Jeremiah 39:13.)

And they escaped into the land of Armenia.—Ararat, the Assyrian Urartu, was the name of the great plain through which the Araxes flowed. The battle in which Esarhaddon defeated his brothers was fought somewhere in Little Armenia, near the Euphrates, according to Schrader, who gives a fragment of an inscription apparently relating thereto.

Esarhaddon.—The Assyrian Assur-aha-iddina, “Asshur gave a brother,” who reigned 681-668 B.C.