HarperCollins Study Bible
Page 261
21But they were silent and answered him not a word, for the king’s command was, “Do not answer him.” 22Then Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh.
next chapter
* * *
36.1–39.8 Historical appendix. Apart from 38.9–20, this material seems to have been inserted from 2 Kings 18.13; 18.17–20.19.
36.1–22 Sennacherib’s campaign against Jerusalem.
36.1 Fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. According to his annals, Sennacherib besieged Judah in 701 BCE during the course of his third campaign; hence Hezekiah began his reign in 715; two other passages date the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign to 729 based on a synchronism with the Israelite king Hoshea (2 Kings 18.1, 9), but that synchronism is probably artificial and certainly less reliable than the synchronism with the Assyrian king. All the fortified cities, forty-six according to the Assyrian account.
36.2 Rabshakeh, “chief steward,” Assyrian title for a high official. Lachish, a major Judean fortress city lying southwest of Jerusalem midway between Jerusalem and Gaza; Sennacherib’s siege of Lachish is graphically portrayed on a bas-relief from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh.
36.3 Eliakim, Shebna. See 22.15–25.
36.6 Cf. 31.1–3.
36.7 Sennacherib misconstrues the character of Hezekiah’s religious reform (2 Kings 18.3–6; 2 Chr 29.3–31.21); for a similar Assyrian misunderstanding of the religious situation in Judah, see 10.10–11.
36.9 Cf. 10.8.
36.10 This is typical Assyrian propaganda.
36.11 Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the period; the language of Judah was Hebrew. The average Judean did not understand Aramaic.
36.12 Horrible conditions resulting from a prolonged siege.
36.13–20 A propaganda speech aimed at the rank and file of Jerusalem’s defenders.
36.19 Hamath, Arpad, Samaria. See note on 10.9. Sepharvaim (“Sibraim,” Ezek 47.16), a city located between Damascus and Hamath.
36.1–39.8 Historical appendix. Apart from 38.9–20, this material seems to have been inserted from 2 Kings 18.13; 18.17–20.19.
36.1–22 Sennacherib’s campaign against Jerusalem.
36.1 Fourteenth year of King Hezekiah. According to his annals, Sennacherib besieged Judah in 701 BCE during the course of his third campaign; hence Hezekiah began his reign in 715; two other passages date the beginning of Hezekiah’s reign to 729 based on a synchronism with the Israelite king Hoshea (2 Kings 18.1, 9), but that synchronism is probably artificial and certainly less reliable than the synchronism with the Assyrian king. All the fortified cities, forty-six according to the Assyrian account.
36.2 Rabshakeh, “chief steward,” Assyrian title for a high official. Lachish, a major Judean fortress city lying southwest of Jerusalem midway between Jerusalem and Gaza; Sennacherib’s siege of Lachish is graphically portrayed on a bas-relief from Sennacherib’s palace in Nineveh.
36.3 Eliakim, Shebna. See 22.15–25.
36.6 Cf. 31.1–3.
36.7 Sennacherib misconstrues the character of Hezekiah’s religious reform (2 Kings 18.3–6; 2 Chr 29.3–31.21); for a similar Assyrian misunderstanding of the religious situation in Judah, see 10.10–11.
36.9 Cf. 10.8.
36.10 This is typical Assyrian propaganda.
36.11 Aramaic was the diplomatic language of the period; the language of Judah was Hebrew. The average Judean did not understand Aramaic.
36.12 Horrible conditions resulting from a prolonged siege.
36.13–20 A propaganda speech aimed at the rank and file of Jerusalem’s defenders.
36.19 Hamath, Arpad, Samaria. See note on 10.9. Sepharvaim (“Sibraim,” Ezek 47.16), a city located between Damascus and Hamath.
ISAIAH 37
Hezekiah Consults Isaiah
1When King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sack-cloth, and went into the house of the LORD. 2And he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, and Shebna the secretary, and the senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz. 3They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of distress, of rebuke, and of disgrace; children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring them forth. 4It may be that the LORD your God heard the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to mock the living God, and will rebuke the words that the LORD your God has heard; therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.”
5When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah, 6Isaiah said to them, “Say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: Do not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have reviled me. 7I myself will put a spirit in him, so that he shall hear a rumor, and return to his own land; I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’”
8The Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah; for he had heard that the king had left Lachish. 9Now the kinga heard concerning King Tirhakah of Ethiopia,b “He has set out to fight against you.” When he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10“Thus shall you speak to King Hezekiah of Judah: Do not let your God on whom you rely deceive you by promising that Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. 11See, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered? 12Have the gods of the nations delivered them, the nations that my predecessors destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, the king of Hena, or the king of Ivvah?”
Hezekiah’s Prayer
14Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it; then Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. 15And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying: 16“O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, who are enthroned above the cherubim, you are God, you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; you have made heaven and earth. 17Incline your ear, O LORD, and hear; open your eyes, O LORD, and see; hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to mock the living God. 18Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, 19and have hurled their gods into the fire, though they were no gods, but the work of human hands—wood and stone—and so they were destroyed. 20So now, OLORD our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are the LORD.”
21Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying: “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning King Sennacherib of Assyria, 22this is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him:
She despises you, she scorns you—
virgin daughter Zion;
she tosses her head—behind your back,
daughter Jerusalem.
23“Whom have you mocked and reviled?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and haughtily lifted your eyes?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24By your servants you have mocked the Lord,
and you have said, ‘With my many chariots
I have gone up the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon;
I felled its tallest cedars,
its choicest cypresses;
I came to its remotest height,
its densest forest.
25I dug wells
and drank waters,
I dried up with the sole of my foot
all the streams of Egypt.’
26“Have you not heard
that I determined it long ago?
I planned from days of old
what now I bring to pass,
that you should make fortified cities
rash into heaps of ruins,
27while their inhabitants, shorn of str
ength,
are dismayed and confounded;
they have become like plants of the field
and like tender grass,
like grass on the housetops,
blightedc before it is grown.
28“I know your rising upd and your sitting down,
your going out and coming in,
and your raging against me.
29Because you have raged against me
and your arrogance has come to my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth;
I will turn you back on the way
by which you came.
30“And this shall be the sign for you: This year eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that; then in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 31The surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward; 32for from Jerusalem a remnant shall go out, and from Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this.
33“Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city, shoot an arrow there, come before it with a shield, or cast up a siege ramp against it. 34By the way that he came, by the same he shall return; he shall not come into this city, says the LORD. 35For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.”
Sennacherib’s Defeat and Death
36Then the angel of the LORD set out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians; when morning dawned, they were all dead bodies. 37Then King Sennacherib of Assyria left, went home, and lived at Nineveh. 38As he was worshiping in the house of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. His son Esar-haddon succeeded him.
next chapter
* * *
a Heb he
b Or Nubia; Heb Cush
c With 2 Kings 19.26: Heb field
d Q Ms Gk: MT lacks your rising up
37.1–35 From 2 Kings 19; also cf. 2 Chr 32.16–23.
37.1–7 Hezekiah’s first consultation with Isaiah.
37.1 Tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, signs of mourning.
37.2 Delegations sent from the king to consult a prophet were normal in such circumstances (2 Kings 22.11–14; Jer 37.3).
37.5–7 Isaiah reassures Hezekiah. Rumor, report of problems back in Assyria. Fall by the sword. Sennacherib was murdered by his own sons in Assyria, but he was not killed until 681 BCE, twenty years after his third campaign. This has led some scholars to posit a second campaign against Judah sometime after his conquest of Babylon in 689.
37.8–13 Sennacherib’s second message.
37.8 Libnah. The precise identification and location of this Judean fortress is still debated. Lachish (see note on 36.2) had apparently been captured in the meantime.
37.9 Sennacherib mentions a battle with an Egyptian army, but it is questionable whether Tirhakah was already king in 701 BCE, a fact that has also been cited to support a second campaign of Sennacherib against Jerusalem in 689–88, when Tirhakah was king of Ethiopia.
37.12 Sites in Mesopotamia: Gozan, on the Habor (Khabur) River (2 Kings 17.6); Haran, on the Balikh River (Gen 11.27–32); Rezeph, near the west end of the Jebel Singar; Eden, territory of Bit-adini between the Euphrates and the Balikh (Amos 1.5; Ezek 27.23); Telassar, a city of Bit-adini.
37.13 The locations of Hena and Ivvah are unknown.
37.14–20 Hezekiah shows God the Assyrian’s boastful letter, and, after the Lord has read it, Hezekiah prays to God for deliverance.
37.14 Before the LORD, before the ark within the “most holy place” (holy of holies) in the temple (1 Kings 8.6–7).
37.16 Enthroned above the cherubim. The cherubim that overshadowed the ark in the temple were thought of as God’s throne (see 6.1).
37.17–20 The Assyrian reproach is a threat to God’s own reputation among the nations (see Ex 32.12; Num 14.13–16).
37.21–35 God’s response through Isaiah is to taunt the proud Assyrian king and assure Hezekiah of deliverance.
37.23–25 By mocking God, Sennacherib overreached himself (see 10.7–15; 14.4–15).
37.26–27 God was simply using Sennacherib for God’s own purposes (10.5–6).
37.28–29 Now God will silence Sennacherib’s arrogance by leading him back home (see 30.28).
37.30 The sign confirming this oracle of salvation is the time limit: within three years the siege will be long over and agriculture will be back to normal. For similar signs, cf. 7.14–16; 8.4.
37.33–35 God promises that Sennacherib will not capture Jerusalem.
37.35 For my own sake and…David, God’s action is to preserve his own reputation and to uphold his covenant with David.
37.36–38 God takes vengeance on Sennacherib by first destroying his army and then, after he had returned to Assyria, by having him assassinated.
37.36 Angel of the LORD, a transcendental explanation for plague (2 Sam 24.15–17), which apparently devastated the besieging Assyrian army; the historian Herodotus (in Persian Wars 2.141) speaks of a plague of mice that overran the Assyrian camp.
37.38 Sennacherib died in 681 BCE, apparently murdered in a quarrel among his sons over the right of succession. Nisroch, the name of the god, seems to be garbled; no such divine name is attested in Assyrian. Adrammelech, plausibly identified with Arda-Mulishi, a son of Sennacherib mentioned in Assyrian sources. Sharezer would correspond to Akkadian Shar-usur, “Protect the king,” but no son of Sennacherib with that name is attested in Assyrian sources.
ISAIAH 38
Hezekiah’s Illness
1In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, “Thus says the LORD: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.” 2Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the LORD: 3“Remember now, O LORD, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.
4Then the word of the LORD came to Isaiah: 5“Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the LORD, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. 6I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and defend this city.
7“This is the sign to you from the LORD, that the LORD will do this thing that he has promised: 8See, I will make the shadow cast by the declining sun on the dial of Ahaz turn back ten steps.” So the sun turned back on the dial the ten steps by which it had declined.a
9A writing of King Hezekiah of Judah, after he had been sick and had recovered from his sickness:
10I said: In the noontide of my days
I must depart;
I am consigned to the gates of Sheol
for the rest of my years.
11I said, I shall not see the LORD
in the land of the living;
I shall look upon mortals no more
among the inhabitants of the world.
12My dwelling is plucked up and removed from me
like a shepherd’s tent;
like a weaver I have rolled up my life;
he cuts me off from the loom;
from day to night you bring me to an end;b
13I cry for helpc until morning;
like a lion he breaks all my bones;
from day to night you bring me to an end.d
14Like a swallow or a cranee I clamor,
I moan like a dove.
My eyes are weary with looking upward.
O Lord, I am oppressed; be my security!
15But what can I say? For he has spoken to me,
and he himself has done it.
All my sleep has fledf
because of the bitterness of my soul.
16O Lord, by these things people live,
and in all these is the life of my spirit.g
Oh, restore me to health and make me live!
17Surely it was for my welfare
that I had great bitterness;
but you have held backh my life
from the pit of destruction,
for you have cast all my sins
behind your back.
18For Sheol cannot thank you,
death cannot praise you;
those who go down to the Pit cannot hope
for your faithfulness.
19The living, the living, they thank you,
as I do this day;
fathers make known to children
your faithfulness.
20The LORD will save me,
and we will sing to stringed instrumentsi
all the days of our lives,
at the house of the LORD.
21Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take a lump of figs, and apply it to the boil, so that he may recover.” 22Hezekiah also had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of the LORD?”
next chapter
* * *
a Meaning of Heb uncertain
b Meaning of Heb uncertain
c Cn: Meaning of Heb uncertain
d Meaning of Heb uncertain
e Meaning of Heb uncertain
f Cn Compare Syr: Heb I will walk slowly all my years
g Meaning of Heb uncertain