Commentaria in Isaiam
28. THY HABITATION, AND THY GOING OUT, AND THY COMING IN I HAVE KNOWN. These three signify all the movements, positions and actions of a man, which elsewhere are called going in and going out: here a third is added, namely sitting or dwelling, as if he said: I foreknew, foresaw and predisposed, O Sennacherib (for to him he turns), all thy acts which thou hast designed, whether when thou wast dwelling in Assyria, or when thou wast going back thence, and coming as a conqueror into Assyria. The same phrase is in Psalm 138: “Thou hast known my sitting down (in Hebrew the same word shebeth, which here is rendered habitation) and my rising up,” in Hebrew qumi, that is, my rising to go out or to come in.
29. I WILL PUT A RING. Like a buffalo, with a ring or bridle put on, I will lead thee round and bring thee back to Assyria, whence I brought thee out. Sanchez notes a just and fitting punishment of the king, who had mocked the Jews by insolently putting out his tongue against God: for God puts a ring in his nose, and casts a bridle upon his mouth and tongue.
Tropologically, St. Gregory, in book 21 of the Morals, chapter 10, explaining that text of Job 41:2 about Leviathan: “Canst thou put a ring in his nose?” teaches that this ring is the omnipotence of God, by which he restrains and holds in check the shrewdness or strength of the devil, lest he tempt us as much as he wills and can: “I will put,” he says, “a ring in thy nose,” as if he said plainly: By thinking thou sighest after snares; but being unable to fulfil what thou desirest, thou bearest in thy nostrils the ring of my omnipotence, that, while thou pantest more ardently for the death of the good, thou mayest return empty of their life.
30. AND TO THEE THIS SHALL BE A SIGN. He turns to Ezechias besieged by Sennacherib, and assigns him food in the peril of famine, and gives it as a sign of the future full freedom of the Jews and the slaughter of the Assyrians.
EAT THIS YEAR WHAT SPRINGS OF ITSELF. Hence it appears that Sennacherib, on the arrival of the king of the Ethiopians against him, deferred the siege of Jerusalem in order to meet the king; meanwhile, however, he laid waste the growing grain round about, either by trampling it or by reaping it, in order to press the city by famine; moreover he left a garrison of soldiers in the cities of Juda taken by him, to harass the territory of Jerusalem, so that they were unable to sow; but God in his providence met this, and promises the Jews that in the first year he will feed them with grain springing of itself, that is, bursting out of the roots of the trampled or cut-down crop soon sprouting again; but in the second year from the fruits of the trees. So it came to pass. Finally in the third year, the Ethiopian being conquered, Sennacherib returned to the siege of Jerusalem, and then his army being slain by the Angel, the Jews were given means to sow and reap. So Abulensis, Cajetan, Tornielli and others on 4 Kings 19. Sennacherib was therefore absent from Jerusalem a full two years, detained by the Ethiopian war, as I said in chapter 20.
IN THE SECOND YEAR EAT FRUITS, and the grain that shall have grown from the fallen seeds of the preceding year. Whence our version, 4 Kings 19, translates: “In the second year eat what springs of itself,” namely either from the tree or from fallen grain, not from seed sown and the cut shoot sprouting again, as was said of the first year. Joseph Scaliger, book 5 On the Emendation of Times, in the chapter titled On the Beginning of Ezechias, thinks this second year was a sabbatical year, in which the land, according to the law, Leviticus 25:4, was to rest, so that it could neither be sown nor reaped. For in the very words which Scripture uses here, namely that they should not sow nor reap but eat what springs of itself, and so on, the sabbatical year is described, Leviticus 25:4. But what, then, would this have been as a sign of the future liberation of the Jews and the overthrow of the Assyrians? For apart from the prophecy of Isaias Ezechias knew which year would be sabbatical, says Tornielli, who affirms that not the 14th but the 13th and 17th years of Ezechias were sabbatical. But it might be answered that what is given here as a sign is not a sabbatical year but what was said a little before, namely, first, that God in that sabbatical year, in so great an incursion of enemies, would feed the Jews liberally; secondly, that in the third year they would be satisfied and would reap, of which there was then no hope, since all feared devastation and ruin from the Assyrians. But other exact chronologers deny that the 14th year of Ezechias was sabbatical.
Rabbi Solomon fables that the Assyrians cut down the trees and crops, so that no fruit could be hoped for from them; but that God made fruit grow from the cut-down trees and grain from the cut-down crops: and this, as he interprets, was the sign or miracle given to Ezechias.
31. AND THAT WHICH IS SAVED SHALL TAKE ROOT. Note that he calls by this name the remnants of the Jews which were preserved from the inroad of Sennacherib: of them he foretells that God will make them marvelously flourish again, grow and be propagated, like trees that put forth roots wide and deep, and therefore lift up and spread their branches and foliage on high, so that they can neither wither nor be torn up by the wind, as on the contrary easily happens to those that have small and narrow roots, as Pliny testifies, book 16, chapter 31. So St. Jerome, Cyril, Theodoret.
Allegorically, Eusebius, book 2 of the Demonstration, chapter 47, and Leo Castrius refer this to the Apostles and the other remnants who were saved out of Israel in the time of Christ.
Morally, St. Gregory, book 12 of the Morals, chapter 22: “When,” he says, “we direct our thought to having compassion on a needy neighbor, we send down as it were a root, that we may bear above the fruit of recompense.” The same, book 8 of the Morals, chapter 29: “To send the root downward,” he says, “is to multiply good thought in hidden places. But to bear fruit upward is by the efficacy of the work to show the right things which he thought.”
33. HE SHALL NOT COME INTO THIS CITY, NOR SHOOT AN ARROW INTO IT. Hence it is gathered that the camp of Sennacherib, as soon as he returned to the siege of Jerusalem, before he had raised banks and prepared the other things necessary for an assault, was cut down by the Angel. Whence 4 Kings 19:35 they are said to have been slain “that night,” namely when Sennacherib returned to besiege Jerusalem. So Cajetan there.
36. THE ANGEL OF THE LORD. Hence it seems that this slayer of the Assyrians was a good Angel, for example Gabriel or Michael, the protector of the Synagogue. So Abulensis, though others think both this one and the one who smote the firstborn of the Egyptians (as is hinted in Psalm 77, verse 49) was a demon.
HE SMOTE. The Hebrews relate, and from them Cajetan and Abulensis, that the Assyrians were smitten by the Angel with fire, that is, with pestilence, as Josephus says. Whence Isaias 10:16 says: “And under his glory shall be kindled a burning like the burning of a fire”; and elsewhere he announces fire to them: whence also they relate that in Topheth, and in the valley of Josaphat (where the general judgment will be held, and all the reprobate, of whom the Assyrians here were a type, will be punished with death and everlasting fire) the same were slain, as I said in chapter 30.
In this slaughter Sennacherib was preserved, that the proud king might see the hand and vengeance of God upon his own, and that, fleeing shamefully, he might be slain more ignominiously by his own sons: as Pharao perished last in the Red Sea, not by one death but by many, namely his own and that of all his people whom he saw drowned before him. So St. Jerome.
Of this slaughter of the Assyrians the Gentiles made mention, as Herodotus and Berosus, but they mix in fables, as I said in chapter 20.
38. HIS SONS SLEW HIM. Why? It is uncertain. Lyranus relates from Rabbi Solomon that Sennacherib, after receiving so great a slaughter, to soothe the minds of his men who had lost sons, brothers or kinsmen in it, vowed to his god Nesroch the sacrifice of his sons: the sons, scenting this, forestalled their parent, and themselves sacrificed him in the temple of Nesroch.
Note: Sennacherib was not slain immediately after his flight into Assyria; for returning in indignation he pursued and slew Jews; whence Tobias fled his wrath and escaped it. For so we read in Tobias 1:24: “And when king Sennacherib was returned, fleeing from Judea the slaughter which God had brought upon him for his blasphemy, and being angry he slew many of the children of Israel, Tobias buried their bodies. But when it was told to the king, he commanded him to be slain, and took away all his substance. But Tobias, fleeing naked with his son and his wife, lay hid, for many loved him. And after forty-five days the king was slain by his sons, and Tobias returned to his house, and all his substance was restored to him.”
INTO THE LAND OF ARARAT. The Chaldee and the Septuagint have Armenia, through which the river Araxes flows, says St. Jerome, at the roots of Mount Taurus.