6 And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing.
I, even I, am your comforter: are you so poor in heart as to be in fear of man who will come to an end, and of the son of man who will be like grass? And you have given no thought to the Lord your Maker, by whom the heavens were stretched out, and the earth placed on its base; and you went all day in fear of the wrath of the cruel one, when he was making ready for your destruction. And where is the wrath of the cruel one?
Have no fear, for I am with you; do not be looking about in trouble, for I am your God; I will give you strength, yes, I will be your helper; yes, my true right hand will be your support. Truly, all those who are angry with you will be made low and put to shame: those desiring to do you wrong will come to nothing and never again be seen. You will make search for your haters but they will not be there; those who make war against you will be as nothing and will come to destruction. For I, the Lord your God, have taken your right hand in mine, saying to you, Have no fear; I will be your helper. Have no fear, you worm Jacob, and you men of Israel; I will be your helper, says the Lord, even he who takes up your cause, the Holy One of Israel.
And Isaiah said to them, This is what you are to say to your master: The Lord says, Be not troubled by the words which the servants of the king of Assyria have said against me in your hearing. See, I will put a spirit into him, and bad news will come to his ears, and he will go back to his land; and there I will have him put to death. So the Rab-shakeh went back, and when he got there the king of Assyria was making war against Libnah: for it had come to his ears that the king of Assyria had gone away from Lachish. And when news came to him that Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, had made an attack on him, ... And he sent representatives to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying, This is what you are to say to Hezekiah, king of Judah: Let not your God, in whom is your faith, give you a false hope, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hands of the king of Assyria. No doubt the story has come to your ears of what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, putting them to the curse: and will you be kept safe from their fate? Did the gods of the nations keep safe those on whom my fathers sent destruction, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the town of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivva? And Hezekiah took the letter from the hands of those who had come with it; and after reading it, Hezekiah went up to the house of the Lord, opening the letter there before the Lord, And he made prayer to the Lord, saying, O Lord of armies, the God of Israel, seated between the winged ones, you only are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. Let your ear be turned to us, O Lord; let your eyes be open, O Lord, and see: take note of all the words of Sennacherib who has sent men to say evil against the living God. Truly, O Lord, the kings of Assyria have made waste all the nations and their lands, And have given their gods to the fire: for they were no gods, but wood and stone, the work of men's hands; so they have given them to destruction. But now, O Lord our God, give us salvation from his hand, so that it may be clear to all the kingdoms of the earth that you, and you only, are the Lord. Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The prayer you have made to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come to my ears. This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you. Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? and against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel. You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; and its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods: I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods. I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry. Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls. This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field, or a green plant; like the grass on the house-tops, which a cold wind makes waste. But I have knowledge of your getting up and your resting, of your going out and your coming in. Because your wrath against me and your pride have come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my cord in your lips, and I will make you go back by the way you came. And this will be the sign to you: you will get your food this year from what comes up of itself, and in the second year from the produce of the same; and in the third year you will put in your seed, and get in the grain, and make vine-gardens, and take of their fruit. And those of Judah who are still living will again take root in the earth, and give fruit. For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done. For this cause the Lord says about the king of Assyria, He will not come into this town, or send an arrow against it; he will not come before it with arms, or put up an earthwork against it. By the way he came he will go back, and he will not get into this town. For I will keep this town safe, for my honour, and for the honour of my servant David. And the angel of the Lord went out and put to death in the army of the Assyrians a hundred and eighty-five thousand men: and when the people got up early in the morning, there was nothing to be seen but dead bodies. Sennacherib, king of Assyria, went back to his place at Nineveh. And it came about, when he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to death with the sword, and they went in flight into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon, his son, became king in his place.
And if you say to me, Our hope is in the Lord our God: is it not he, whose high places and altars Hezekiah has taken away, saying to Judah and Jerusalem that worship may only be given before this altar in Jerusalem? And now, take a chance with my master, the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able to put horsemen on them. How then may you put to shame the least of my master's servants? and you have put your hope in Egypt for war-carriages and horsemen: And have I now come up to send destruction on this place without the Lord's authority? It was the Lord himself who said to me, Go up against this land and make it waste.
Give ear, O Israel: today you are going forward to the fight; let your heart be strong; do not let uncontrolled fear overcome you because of those who are against you; For the Lord your God goes with you, fighting for you to give you salvation from those who are against you.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » John Gill's Exposition of the Bible » Commentary on 2 Kings 19
Commentary on 2 Kings 19 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 19
This chapter relates that King Hezekiah, on a report made to him of Rabshakeh's speech, sent a message to the prophet Isaiah to pray for him, who returned him a comfortable and encouraging answer, 2 Kings 19:1 and that upon Rabshakeh's return to the king of Assyria, he sent to Hezekiah a terrifying letter, 2 Kings 19:8, which Hezekiah spread before the Lord, and prayed unto him to save him and his people out of the hands of the king of Assyria, 2 Kings 19:14, to which he had a gracious answer sent him by the prophet Isaiah, promising him deliverance from the Assyrian army, 2 Kings 19:20, which accordingly was destroyed by an angel in one night, and Sennacherib fleeing to Nineveh, was slain by his two sons, 2 Kings 19:35.
And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it,.... The report of Rabshakeh's speech, recorded in the preceding chapter:
that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth; rent his clothes because of the blasphemy in the speech; and he put on sackcloth, in token of mourning, for the calamities he feared were coming on him and his people: and he went into the house of the Lord; the temple, to pray unto him. The message he sent to Isaiah, with his answer, and the threatening letter of the king of Assyria, Hezekiah's prayer upon it, and the encouraging answer he had from the Lord, with the account of the destruction of the Assyrian army, and the death of Sennacherib, are the same "verbatim" as in Isaiah 37:1 throughout; and therefore the reader is referred thither for the exposition of them; only would add what RauwolffF20Travels, par. 3. ch. 22. p. 317. observes, that still to this day (1575) there are two great holes to be seen, wherein they flung the dead bodies (of the Assyrian army), one whereof is close by the road towards Bethlehem, the other towards the right hand against old Bethel.