Ver. 1. And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it.] And a great deal more, against the Lord and himself, than is recorded in the former chapter. See 2 Chronicles 32:16. It is easy to wag a wicked tongue; these dead dogs will be barking and blaspheming without measure, till God please to gag them. Hezekiah hasteth hereupon to God’s house, there to say, as Abisha once did to David, Why should these dead dogs curse my Lord the King of glory? As for Rabshakeh, he seems to say unto him, Sirrah, we will complain of you to one that shall shortly take you to task.
Ver. 2. And he sent Eliakim.] This good Josiah did not, when Pharaohnechoh came up against him—though he had at hand the famous prophets Jeremiah and Zephaniah, besides a whole college of seers—and hence he fell, and with him the whole state of Israel.
Ver. 3. For the children are come to the birth.] We are greatly pained and perplexed, our hearts do even ache and quake within us, at the hearing of these horrid blasphemies; but we want strength to punish them: we humbly put them into God’s holy hands, and beseech him to take an order with them, for which end thy prayers are requested. Or, We are now in extreme danger, and do therefore earnestly implore Heaven’s help at a dead lift.
Ver. 4. It may be.] We nothing doubt of it, but are well assured he will, for he is a jealous God, and thou canst do much with him. Be pleased to improve thine interest for us in this exigence. Wherefore lift up thy prayer.] Pray to thine utmost; strive and strain, tug hard, and bestir thee all that may be. Prayer is a laborious exercise: and as a man that would be good at lifting must set his sides and shoulders to work, he must also often use himself to lifting; so here. This gets a dexterity, a handiness to the work.
Ver. 5. So the servants of Hezekiah came.] They came, and did their master’s message. Acta legatorum laconice uno verbo (venerunt) proponuntur.
Ver. 6. With which the servants.] Heb., The lads, younkers, or striplings: so they are called by way of contempt. Have blasphemed me.] By railing upon thee, which is blasphemy in the second table; besides the deep dishonour they have done me, by matching me with their base born idols. (2 Kings 18:35)
Ver. 7. Behold, I will send a blast upon him.] A spirit, some render it. God “maketh his angels spirits.” An evil messenger was sent against him, a spirit of trouble, a panic terror; a dreadful sound was in his ears, when his army was slaughtered by an angel. He shall hear a rumour.] Rumours are not always to be credited, nor always to be condemned. What this rumour was, see 2 Kings 19:9.
Ver. 8. So Rabshakeh returned.] But left his army, likely, still before Jerusalem. That he was departed from Lachish.] Which he had taken; or, as some think, out of hope of taking it.
Ver. 9. Of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia.] A potent prince. See 2 Chronicles 14:9. Strabo called him Tearkon the Ethiopian; and further relateth out of Megasthenes, an old historian, that he passed into Europe, and advanced as far as to Hercules’s pillars. King of Ethiopia.] Not of that Ethiopia, saith Drusius, which is above Egypt, and now the kingdom of the Abyssines, but of that which is part of Arabia, and is called Chusaea. The word here rendered Ethiopia is Cush. Behold, he is come out to fight against thee.] Regnum Assyriorum invadit, saith Sulpitius, he invaded Assyria. Not so, saith Drusius, but he went to fight against Sennacherib, in favour of the Jews, while he lay before Libnah; or at least against Rabshakeh, who besieged Jerusalem. He sent messengers.] And withal he gave them letters (2 Kings 19:14) to the same effect with his message; so eager was he upon Jerusalem, which yet he should never lick his lips with. Lib. i. cap. 15.
Ver. 10. Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee.] Sennacherib and Rabshakeh are both in a song. Reckon these two, saith an author, among the first and chiefest kill-Christs, because ever an honest mind is more afflicted with words than blows. (Psalms 12:3)
Ver. 11. Behold, thau hast heard.] See 2 Kings 18:33-35. To all lands, by destroying them utterly.] Not all, nor utterly neither; but the tongue, that little member, boasteth great things. (James 3:5) He talketh here like some Pyrgopolynices or Therapontigonoplatagidorias in Plautus. In Curcul.
Ver. 12. Have the gods of the nations, &c.] See on 2 Kings 19:10. Which my fathers have destroyed.] God was not in all this man’s thoughts. Hic Deus nihil fecit; but he should have known that he and his fathers or predecessors, those scourges of mankind, were but as rods in God’s hand, which, when worn to the stump, he cast into the fire.
Ver. 13. Where is the king of Hamath, &c.?] See 2 Kings 18:33. Only there it is gods of those places, and here kings. The heathens commonly called their gods kings—as Φοιβε αναξ, βασιλευς ανδρων τε θεων τε, &c.—and they reckoned, that whatsoever their gods could do, their kings should be sure of. We have not so served the gods, said that Roman emperor, that they should serve us no better than to give the enemy the better of us. Non sic deos coluimus, &c. -Antonin. Phil.