Ver. 1. After these things.] See 2 Kings 18:13, &c. When Hezekiah had set all things in good order, up came Sennacherib with his army. So after sweet communion with God, at the sacrament or otherwise, look for “leviathan, that crooked serpent,” to disturb all. And the establishment thereof.] Or, And the truth or faithfulness thereof, i.e., of the author in relating them, or rather of Hezekiah in transacting them. Postquam haec fideliter sunt gesta: so Munster rendereth it. And thought to win them for himself.] Heb., To break them up, or to divide them, sow dissension among them, which is the mother of dissolution. Divide et impera. Divide and conquer. His father had carried away, captive the ten tribes: he doubted not, therefore but he should conquer the other two; but his hopes ran aground, as the proverb hath it.
Ver. 2. That Sennacherib was come.] See on 2 Kings 18:13.
Ver. 3. To stop the waters of the fountains.] He trusted in God: but yet used the best means. God is to be trusted, but not tempted. See Isaiah 22:9,11.
Ver. 4. And the brook.] Called Gihon. (2 Chronicles 32:30) This was one of those rivers the waters whereof made glad the city of God. See 1 Kings 1:33. Come and find much water.] Take we like care that Satan, when he cometh to assault us, find not much matter. “Mortify therefore your earthly members, fornication, … and covetousness.” (Colossians 3:5)
Ver. 5. And raised it up to the towers.] Or, Mounted the warlike engines upon the towers, for his better defence.
Ver. 6. He set captains of war.] He did all that could be done: for he knew that the Assyrian came with a mighty force, as a river that “cometh up over all his channels, and goeth over all his banks.” (Isaiah 8:7)
Ver. 7. Be strong and courageous.] His speech is short but pithy: very cordial and comfortable. Now for all the multitude that is with him.] Only go to Christ and say, as Isaiah 8:8, “The stretching out of his wings hath filled the breadth of thy land, O Immanuel.”
Ver. 8. With him is an arm of flesh.] Flesh is frail: and God can make the strongest sinew in his arm to crack quickly. But with us is the Lord our God.] The import of “Immanuel”; by which name Christ now began to be known amongst them.
Ver. 9. Sent his servants to Jerusalem.] See 2 Kings 18:9. Antichrist, in like sort, sendeth his legates and nuncios to solicit people to a defection from Christ; as he did Vergerius to Saxony, Campeius to the princes of Germany, Sadoletus to Geneva, Pool hither, &c.
Ver. 10. Whereon do ye trust.] Like rhetoric hereunto useth Antichrist, where he would seduce. See Sadolet’s sugared Epistle to the Citizens of Geneva, written in Calvin’s absence, who fully and elegantly answered it from Strasburg, where for a while he lived an exile.
Ver. 11. Doth not Hezekiah persuade (or deceive) you?] See on 2 Kings 18:29,30.
Ver. 12. Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places?] So saith Antichrist, Have not your reformers taken away the abbeys, monasteries, altars, crosses, &c.? And as there wanted not some in Jerusalem who were of the same mind with Sennacherib’s messengers, so neither wanteth there among us a malignant party, that grumble and grind their teeth at our happy Reformation.
Ver. 13. Know you not.] See 2 Kings 19:11,12.
Ver. 14. That my fathers utterly destroyed.] See 2 Kings 18:34 19:12,13.
Ver. 15. Now therefore let not Hezekiah.] See 2 Kings 18:29. How much less shall your God.] Prodigious blasphemy! And was not that of John Hunt, a a Popish pamphleteer, every whit as bad, when he said, The God of the Protestants is the most uncivil and evil mannered God of all those who have borne the names of gods upon the earth; yea, worse than Pan, god of the clowns, which can endure no ceremonies nor good manners at all! Humble Appeal to King James, chap. 6.
Ver. 16. And his servants spake yet more.] Adding of their own to their master’s mandates which yet needed not.
Ver. 17. He wrote also letters.] See 2 Kings 19:9,14.
Ver. 18. Then they cried…in the Jews’ speech] See 2 Kings 18:28. To affright them, and to trouble them.] To sow the seeds of sedition amongst them, to make division, and thereby get dominion.
Ver. 19. As against the gods of the people of the earth.] This was high blasphemy. See on 2 Chronicles 32:15 2Ki 17:30,33-41.
Ver. 20. For this cause.] See 2 Kings 19:2,3, &c. And the prophet Isaiah…prayed.] And at the same time prophesied comfortably. (2 Kings 19:14-19)
Ver. 21. And the Lord sent an angel.] See 2 Kings 19:35. So he returned with shame of face.] He was not so much preserved, as reserved to a greater mischief And when he was come.] See 2 Kings 19:36,37.
Ver. 22. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem.] Who were not only preserved, but much enriched by the spoil of their enemies. And guided them on every side.] As a careful shepherd doth his flock.
Ver. 23. And many brought gifts unto the Lord.] Many strangers were hereupon proselyted, like as Jethro also had been by God’s great works for his people against the Egyptians.
Ver. 24. In those days Hezekiah was sick to the death.] See 2 Kings 20:1-3, &c.
Ver. 25. But Hezekiah rendered not again.] His returns were not answerable to his receipts. Plerique omnes sumus ingrati. The rain comes down from heaven in showers; it goes up but in mists: so do our praises return slowly and slenderly. We serve God, for most part as little children serve us, who, when they be come in to us from their play, and have got something of us they want, away they go, without reverence or respect of us; but if they know we will have duty, then they do it, but in such a fashion that we may see their hearts are on their game abroad more than on their duty. For his heart was lifted up.] Not as good Jehoshaphat’s was, (2 Chronicles 17:6) but worse, with pride and self-conceit, whilst he considered not his distance from God and dependence upon God, but acted as if he had been some petty god within himself. Such a blab Satan will easily blow up in the best hearts, if they watch not.
Ver. 26. Notwithstanding Hezekiah humbled himself.] He afflicted himself with voluntary sorrows, when once, by the preaching of the prophet, he came to a sight of his sin. Submissior factus est superbia cordis sui -so Vatablus rendereth it—he was made more humble by the pride of his heart: as God’s people are gainers by their sins also; whence that paradox of Augustine, My sins, in some sense, do me more good than my graces; for they make me afterwards more humble, more careful, more thankful for a Saviour, more merciful to others, more desirous of the state of perfection, &c. See 2 Kings 20:17-19.
Ver. 27. And Hezekiah had exceeding much riches and honour.] And these puffed him up; his heart was lifted up with his wealth, as a boat riseth with the rising of the water that carrieth it. And for all manner of pleasant jewels.] Heb., Instruments of desire. All these were lawful enough, and useful, had he not shot his affections too far into them. “ Difficile est amimos opibus non tradere. ”
Ver. 28. For the increase of corn, wine, and oil.] These are commodities less precious, but more necessary than the former, as the great Caliph of Babylon found when famished to death in the midst of his great treasure, whereof he was willed to eat and make no spare. Turk. Hist., fol. 113.
Ver. 29. For God had given him substance very much.] That is, The wealth of this world; though to speak properly, true grace only is “substance, durable substance”: riches are nec vera, nec vestra (Luke 16:11,12)
Ver. 30. Stopped the upper watercourse of Gihon.] See 2 Chronicles 32:4. And Hezekiah prospered.] See 2 Kings 18:7.
Ver. 31. Howbeit in the business of the ambassadors.] See 2 Kings 20:12-14. God left him, to try him.] As he oft doth his best children, (Genesis 22:1 Job 1:12 2:3,6) but forsaketh them not utterly. (Psalms 119:8) The humility that Hezekiah showed when the prophet admonished him, and his perseverance in piety, do show that God never quite deprived him of his grace: only sivit eum agere ex affectu suo, he let him, for this once, do as he would, not strengthening him by his Spirit in this temptation of worldly ambition, that he might discover him to himself and to others; for that a man is, that he is in a temptation. Satan can work but according to the matter he findeth in us. The wind addeth no water to the sea, only can make the waves to rise and surge. The fire addeth nothing to the water when it is set upon it, but attenuateth it only, and causeth it to boil, &c.
Ver. 32. And his goodness.] Heb., His kindnesses; viz., to God’s people in supplying themwith sacrifices, and setting up the sincere service of God. In the book of the kings.] Either those now extant, or those larger, long since lost, and out of which these chronicles seem to have been compiled.
Ver. 33. See 2 Kings 20:21.