Commentaria in Isaiam
Chapter Thirty-seven
Ezechias announces to Isaias the threats and blasphemies of Rabsaces. Isaias, verse 6, bids him be of good cheer, and not fear the Assyrian whom God will cause to fall. Secondly, verse 8, Sennacherib, about to march against the Ethiopians, again sends threatening letters to Ezechias, that he surrender, and not hope to escape his hand by God’s help. Hence thirdly, Ezechias, verse 14, offers these letters to God in the temple, and prays that he come to the aid of his own cause and his people’s. Whence fourthly, verse 21, in the name of God Isaias again frees him from fear, rebukes the blasphemy of Sennacherib, foretells all adversities to him, and, verse 30, gives a sign, namely provision of food for three years. Then, verse 36, the Angel smites the camp of Sennacherib, who, fleeing, is slain by his sons.
1. And it came to pass, when king Ezechias heard it, that he rent his garments, and was covered 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 son of Amos the prophet, 4. It may be the Lord thy God will hear the words of Rabsaces, whom the king of the Assyrians his master hath sent to blaspheme the living God, and to reproach with words which the Lord thy God hath heard: lift up therefore thy prayer for the remnant that is found. 5. And 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 that 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. And Rabsaces returned, and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Lobna. For he had heard that he was departed from Lachis. 9. And he heard of Tharaca king of Ethiopia, saying: He is come forth to fight against thee. And when he had heard it, 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, saying: Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of the Assyrians. 11. Behold, thou hast heard all that the kings of the Assyrians have done to all lands which they have laid waste: and canst thou be delivered? 12. Have the gods of the nations delivered them whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden, that were in Thalassar? 13. Where is the king of Emath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Ana, and Ava? 14. And Ezechias took the letters from the hand of the messengers, and read them, and went up to the house of the Lord, and Ezechias spread them before the Lord. 15. And Ezechias prayed to the Lord, saying: 16. O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who sittest upon the Cherubims, thou alone art the God of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth. 17. Incline, O Lord, thy ear, and hear: open, O Lord, thy eyes, and see: and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he hath sent to blaspheme the living God. 18. For of a truth, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste the lands, and their countries. 19. And they have given their gods to the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, of wood and stone: and they have broken them in pieces. 20. And now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand: and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that thou art the Lord alone. 21. And Isaias the son of Amos sent to Ezechias, saying: Thus saith the Lord the God of Israel: Whereas thou hast prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, 22. 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. 23. 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. 24. 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 sides of Libanus: and I will cut down the tall cedars thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the height of the top thereof, the forest of its Carmel. 25. I have digged and have drunk water, and have dried up with the sole of my foot all the rivers of banks. 26. Hast thou not heard what I have done of old? From the days of old I have formed it; and now I have brought it to pass: and it is made to the destruction of fenced hills, and fenced cities. 27. The inhabitants of them were weak of hand, they trembled and were confounded; they became as the grass of the field, and the green herb of the pasture, and as the grass of the housetops which withered before it came to maturity. 28. Thy habitation, and thy going out, and thy coming in I have known, and thy fury against me. 29. When thou ragedst against me, thy pride came up to my ears: therefore I will put a ring in thy nose, and a bridle between thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest. 30. And to thee this shall be a sign: Eat this year what springs of itself, and in the second year fruits; and in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them. 31. And that which is saved of the house of Juda, and that which is left, shall take root downward, and bear fruit upward: 32. for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and out of mount Sion that which shall be saved: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. 33. Therefore 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 bank about it. 34. By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and into this city he shall not come, saith the Lord: 35. And I will protect this city, to save it for my own sake, and for David my servant’s sake. 36. And the angel of the Lord went out, and slew in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand. And they arose early in the morning, and behold, all were dead bodies. 37. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians departed, and went away, and returned, and dwelt in Ninive. 38. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the temple of Nesroch his god, that Adramelech and Sarasar his sons slew him with the sword: and they fled into the land of Ararat, and Asarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
1. HE WAS COVERED WITH SACKCLOTH, hair-cloth. For this was the garb of penance and the garment of mourners. See what was said on Genesis 37:34. Moreover this sackcloth was either on the bare flesh or over other garments, as at Rome in Lent many put sackcloths on over their clothes.
3. A DAY OF TRIBULATION, AND OF REBUKE, AND OF BLASPHEMY. First, St. Jerome and Sanchez refer the tribulation to the people, the rebuke to God, the blasphemy to Rabsaces; as if to say: This day warns that tribulation hangs over the people, and rebuke from God, who wills to punish our sins, and who has also heard the pride of the impious king and the blasphemy of the shameless envoy Rabsaces, who said that God could not deliver the Jews from the hand of Sennacherib, as the gods of other nations could not.
Secondly, Vatablus: He says, a day of rebuke, or reproof, or accusation: because the Jews were charged by Sennacherib with breaking the treaty, as covenant-breakers.
Thirdly, and more plainly, he calls it a day of rebuke: because Rabsaces had rebuked Ezechias for hoping in God, whose high places he had taken away, and because he did not have two thousand horsemen and was unable to resist, and had rebuked the people, saying that unless they surrendered they would be reduced to such straits that they would be forced to eat their own dung and drink urine: these, therefore, were the rebukes or reproaches of Rabsaces.
THE CHILDREN ARE COME TO THE BIRTH, AND THERE IS NOT STRENGTH TO BRING FORTH. It is a proverb, as if to say: We have come to the last extremity of peril, pain and anguish, so that, like women in travail, laboring to bring forth a pious and necessary war in defense of the holy city against the blasphemous Sennacherib, we cannot, through weakness and failure of strength, bear it out and bring it into the light, but are about to be crushed by him, unless God miraculously come to the aid of his glory and of us. So Theodoret, Procopius, Eucherius, Abulensis, Cajetan and Vatablus, either here or in 4 Kings, chapter 19.