Commentaria in IV Regum
Chapter 19. Synopsis of the Chapter
Isaias foretells to Ezechias the victory over Sennacherib: wherefore an Angel slays 185 thousand from his camp.
1. And when king Ezechias heard it, he rent his garments, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the Lord. 2. And he sent Eliacim, who was over the house, and Sobna the scribe, and the ancients of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaias the prophet the son of Amos. 3. And they said to him: Thus saith Ezechias: This day is a day of tribulation, and of rebuke, and of blasphemy: the children are come to the birth, and the woman in labour hath not strength. 4. It may be the Lord thy God will hear all the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians his master hath sent to reproach the living God, and to reprove with words which the Lord thy God hath heard: and do thou offer prayer for the remnants that are found. 5. So the servants of king Ezechias came to Isaias. 6. And Isaias said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus saith the Lord: Be not afraid for the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me.
7. Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a message, and shall return to his own country, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own country. 8. So Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachis. 9. And when he heard of Tharaca king of Ethiopia: Behold he is come out to fight against thee: and he was going to meet him, he sent messengers to Ezechias, saying: 10. Thus shall you say to Ezechias king of Juda: Let not thy God deceive thee in whom thou trustest: and do not say: Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. 11. For thou hast heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all lands, how they have laid them waste: and shalt thou alone be able to be delivered? 12. Have the gods of the nations delivered any of them whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thelassar? 13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Ana, and of Ava?
14. And when Ezechias had received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and had read it, he went up to the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. 15. And he prayed in his sight, saying: O Lord God of Israel, who sittest upon the cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kings of the earth: thou madest heaven and earth. 16. Incline thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, who hath sent to reproach us before the living God. 17. Of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have destroyed nations, and the lands of them all. 18. And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, of wood and stone, and they destroyed them. 19. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord God alone. 20. And Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord God of Israel: I have heard the prayer thou hast made to me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians.
21. This is the word that the Lord hath spoken of him: The virgin daughter of Sion hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn: the daughter of Jerusalem hath wagged her head behind thy back. 22. Whom hast thou reproached, and whom hast thou blasphemed? against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thy eyes on high? against the holy one of Israel. 23. By the hand of thy servants thou hast reproached the Lord, and hast said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, to the top of Libanus, and have cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof. And I have entered into the furthest parts thereof, and the forest of its Carmel. 24. I have cut down… And I have drunk strange waters, and have dried up with the soles of my feet all the shut up waters. 25. Hast thou not heard what I have done from the beginning? from the days of old I have formed it, and now I have brought it to effect: and it is come to pass that fenced cities of fighting men should be turned into heaps of ruins.
26. And they that sat in them, weak of hand, trembled and were confounded: they became like the grass of the field, and the green herb on the tops of houses, which withered before it came to maturity. 27. Thy dwelling, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy way I knew before, and thy rage against me. 28. Thou hast been mad against me, and thy pride hath come up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bit between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest. 29. And to thee, O Ezechias, this shall be a sign: Eat this year what thou shalt find: and in the second year such things as spring of themselves: but in the third year sow and reap: plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 30. And whatsoever shall be left of the house of Juda shall take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31. For out of Jerusalem shall come a remnant, and that which shall be saved out of mount Sion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. 32. Wherefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a trench about it.
33. By the way that he came he shall return, and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord. 34. And I will protect this city, and will save it for my own sake, and for David my servant’s sake. 35. And it came to pass that night, that an angel of the Lord came, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred eighty-five thousand. And when he arose early in the morning, he saw all the bodies of the dead: and departing he went away. 36. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians returned, and abode in Ninive. 37. And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword, and they fled into the land of the Armenians, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
This chapter likewise is transcribed from Isaias chapter 36, where I explained it. 34. FOR DAVID’S SAKE.—You will ask: Why did he not say: “For the sake of Ezechias and Isaias,” whose prayers were without doubt most acceptable to God? Glycas answers excellently, in part 2 of the Annals, cited in the Gloss: “These words,” he says, “were so divinely uttered, lest Ezechias should think that his prayer had been heard on account of the justice with which he was endowed.” 37. AND ASARHADDON HIS SON REIGNED IN HIS STEAD,—Genebrard in his Chronology, Pererius, Arias Montanus, and Serarius on Judith ch. 1, v. 1, think that Asarhaddon is Sardanapalus, first, because as Sardanapalus is placed by the Gentile historians as the last king and monarch of the Assyrians, so also by Scripture Asarhaddon is placed as the last king of the Assyrians: for after him are named Baladan Merodach, Nabuchodonosor, Evilmerodach and Baltasar, who were all princes and kings of the Babylonians. Second, because the name of Sardanapalus seems to be formed from Asar and Don or Haddon with the name Phul added; therefore he is the same as Asarhaddon. Third, because what Jonas and Nahum foretell of the future overthrow of Ninive by the flooding of the river Tigris, Diodorus testifies to have happened under Sardanapalus. But Eusebius, Tornielli, Salianus and the other chronologers place Sardanapalus earlier, namely under Azarias king of Juda: for then Jonas prophesied, and foretold to Sardanapalus the destruction of Ninive, as I said in chapter 15, v. 9, and on Jonas chapter 3, v. 6 ff.