1358 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Isaiah said unto them, thus shall you say unto your master,.... Or, "your lord" (q); King Hezekiah, whose ministers and messengers they were: thus saith the Lord, be not afraid of the words thou hast heard; be not not terrified by them, they are but words, and no more, and will never become facts: wherewith the servants of the king of Assyria...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Behold, I will send a blast upon him,.... The king of Assyria; a pestilential one, as he afterwards did, which destroyed his army: or, I will put a spirit into him (s); a spirit of fear and dread, which will oblige him to desist from his purposes, and flee; though some interpret it only of an inclination, a will (t) in him, to return: it may be...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
So Rabshakeh returned,.... To the king of Assyria his master, to give him an account how things went at Jerusalem, and that he could get no direct answer from the king of Judah, and to consult with him what was proper to be done in the present situation of things; leaving the army before Jerusalem, under the command of the other two generals. For...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia,.... Not Rabshakeh, but the king of Assyria heard a rumour of this Ethiopian king coming out to war against him: his name, in Josephus (w), is Tharsices; in the Septuagint version it is Tharaca; and by Africanus (x) he is called Taracus; and is the same, who, by Strabo (y), out of Megasthenes,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying,.... This was the direction, and these the instructions he gave to his messengers, in which he gives Hezekiah the title of king, and owns him to be king of Judah; which was more than Rabshakeh his servant would do: let not thy God, in whom thou trustest, deceive thee; than which, nothing could...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly,.... He boasts of the achievements of himself and his ancestors, and of more than was true; and which, if it had been true, was more to their disgrace than honour, namely, utterly to destroy kingdoms, and their inhabitants, to gratify their lusts;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed,.... They have not. But what then? is the God of Israel to be put upon a level with such dunghill gods? so Sennacherib reckoned him, as Rabshakeh before, in his name, Isaiah 36:18: as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden, which were in Telassar. Gozan was...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim,.... The same, as some think, with the gods or idols of those places, [See comments on Isaiah 36:19]; though it may be the princes that ruled over those cities are meant, who were either slain, or become tributary to the king of Assyria. It is added, Henah...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it,.... Or books (k), in which the above things were written; and everyone of these he read, as Kimchi interprets it; though the Targum is, "he took the letters from the hand of the messengers, and read one of them;'' that is, as Kimchi's father explains it, in which was...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And Hezekiah prayed unto the Lord, saying. He did not return railing for railing, but committed himself and his cause to him that judgeth righteously; he did not write an answer to the letter himself, but lays it before the Lord, and prays him to answer it, who was most principally reflected on in it.
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest between the cherubim,.... Or, "the inhabitant of the cherubim" (l); which were over the mercy seat, the residence of the Shechinah, or Majesty of God, the symbol of the divine Presence in the holy of holies; a title which the God of Israel, the Lord of armies in heaven, and earth bears, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Incline thine ear, O Lord, and hear,.... The prayer which Hezekiah was now presenting to him, as also the reproach of the enemy: open thine eyes, O Lord, and see; the letter he spread before him, and take notice of the blasphemies in it; and punish for them. Both these clauses are to be understood after the manner of men, and in a way becoming the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Of a truth Lord,.... This is a truth and will be readily owned what the king of Assyria has said that his ancestors have destroyed all lands, or at least have endeavoured to do it, and have had it in their hearts to do it: the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations, and their countries: or "all the lands and their land" (m); the Targum...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And, have cast their gods into the fire..... And burnt them; and it may well be asked, where are they? Isaiah 36:19: for they were no gods, but the works of men's hands, wood and stone; they were made of wood or of stone, and therefore could not be called gods; nor could they save the nations that worshipped them, nor themselves, from the fire:...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand,.... The hand of the king of Assyria. The Lord had promised that he would and Hezekiah believed he would; but he knew that for this he would be inquired of by him, and he pleads covenant interest, in him, and entreats for salvation upon that account, as well as for the reason following: that all...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent unto Hezekiah, saying,.... Isaiah, by a spirit of prophecy, was made acquainted by the Lord both with the prayer of Hezekiah, and the Lord's answer to it; and therefore immediately sent to the king, who was either at the temple praying, or was returned to the palace, to let him know, the mind of the Lord in this...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning him,.... The sentence he has pronounced upon him, the punishment he has determined to inflict on him, in answer to Hezekiah's prayer against him: the virgin, the daughter of Zion; hath despised thee; and laughed thee to scorn; that, is the inhabitants of Zion, particularly of the fort of Zion,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed?.... A creature like thyself? no, but a God, and not one like the gods of the nations, the idols of wood and stone, but the living God: and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice? alluding to Rabshakeh's crying with a loud voice, Isaiah 36:13: and lifted up thine eyes on high? as proud and haughty persons...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
By thy servants hast thou reproached the Lord,.... Particularly by Rabshakeh, and the other two that were with him, who, no doubt, assented to what he said; not content to reproach him himself, he set his servants to do it likewise; he made use of them as instruments, and even set them, as well as himself, above the Lord: and hast said, by the...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I have digged, and drunk water,.... In places where he came, and found no water for his army, he set his soldiers to work, to dig cisterns, as the Targum, or wells, so that they had water sufficient to drink; in 2 Kings 19:24, it is "strange waters", which were never known before: and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of the...