_THE GREAT DELIVERANCE_
B.C. 701
2 _Kings_ xix. 1-37
"There brake He the lightnings of the bow, the shield, the sword,
and the battle."--PSALM lxxvi. 3.
"ᾠδὴ πρὸς τὸν Ασσύριον."--LXX.
"And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow at the glance of the Lord."
BYRON.
"Vuolsi cosi colà dove si puote
Cio che si vuole: e più non dimandare."
DANTE.
"Through love, through hope, through faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know."
WORDSWORTH.
"God shall help her, and that when the morning dawns."--PSALM
xlvi. 5.
In spite of the humble submission of Hezekiah, it is a surprise to learn
from Isaiah that Sennacherib--after he had accepted the huge fine and
fixed the tribute, and departed to subdue Lachish--broke his
covenant.[560] He sent his three chief officers--the Turtan, or
commander-in-chief, whose name seems to have been Belemurani;[561] the
Rabsaris, or chief eunuch;[562] and the Rabshakeh, or chief
captain[563]--from Lachish to Hezekiah, with a command of absolute,
unconditional surrender, to be followed by deportation. By this conduct
Sennacherib violated his own boast that he was "a keeper of treaties."
Yet it is not difficult to conjecture the reason for his change of plan.
He had found it no easy matter to subdue even the very minor fortress of
Lachish; how unwise, then, would it be for him to leave in his rear an
uncaptured city so well fortified as Jerusalem! He was advancing towards
Egypt. It was obviously a strategic error to spare on his route a
hostile and almost impregnable stronghold as a nucleus for the plans of
his enemies. Moreover, he had heard rumours that Tirhakah, the third and
last Ethiopian king of Egypt, was advancing against him, and it was most
important to prevent any junction between his forces and those of
Hezekiah.[564] He could not come in person to Jerusalem, for the siege
of Lachish was on his hands; but he detached from his army a large
contingent under his Turtan, to win the Jews by seductive promises, or
to subdue Jerusalem by force. Once more, therefore, the Holy City saw
beneath her often-captured walls the vast beleaguering host, and
"governors and rulers clothed most gorgeously, horsemen riding upon
horses, all of them desirable young men." Isaiah describes to us how the
people crowded to the house-tops, half dead with fear, weeping and
despairing, and crying to the hills to cover them, and bereft of their
rulers, who had been bound by the archers of the enemy in their attempt
to escape. They gazed on the quiver-bearing warriors of Elam in their
chariots, and the serried ranks of the shields of Kir, and the cavalry
round the gates. And he tells us how, as so often occurs at moments of
mad hopelessness, many who ought to have been crying to God in sackcloth
and ashes, gave themselves up, on the contrary, to riot and revelry,
eating flesh, and drinking wine, and saying: "Let us eat and drink; for
to-morrow we die."[565] The king alone had shown patience, calmness, and
active foresight; and he alone, by his energy and faith, had restored
some confidence to the spirits of his fainting people.
Although the city had been refortified by the king, and supplied with
water, the hearts of the inhabitants must have sunk within them when
they saw the Assyrian army investing the walls, and when the three
commissioners--taking their station "by the conduit of the upper pool
which is in the highway of the fuller's field"--summoned the king to
hear the ultimatum of Sennacherib.
The king did not in person obey the summons; but he, too, sent out his
three chief officers. They were Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, who, as
the chamberlain (_al-hab-baîth_), was a great prince (_nagîd_);
Shebna, who had been degraded, perhaps at the instance of Isaiah, from
the higher post, and was now secretary (_sopher_); and Joah, son of
Asaph, the chronicler (_mazkîr_), to whom we probably owe the minute
report of the memorable scene. No doubt they went forth in the pomp of
office--Eliakim with his robe, and girdle, and key.[566] The
Rabshakeh proved himself, indeed, "an affluent orator," and evinced
such familiarity with the religious politics of Judah and Jerusalem,
that this, in conjunction with his perfect mastery of Hebrew, gives
colour to the belief that he was an apostate Jew. He began by
challenging the idle confidence of Hezekiah, and his vain words[567]
that he had counsel and strength for the war. Upon what did he rely?
On the broken and dangerous bulrush of Egypt?[568] It would but pierce
his hand! On Jehovah? But Hezekiah had forfeited his protection by
sweeping away His _bamoth_ and His altars! Why, let Hezekiah make a
wager;[569] and if Sennacherib furnished him with two thousand horses,
he would be unable to find riders for them! How, then, could he drive
back even the lowest of the Assyrian captains? And was not Jehovah on
their side? It was He who had bidden them destroy Jerusalem!
That last bold assertion, appealing as it did to all that was
erroneous and abject in the minds of the superstitious, and backed, as
it was, by the undeniable force of the envoy's argument, smote so
bitterly on the ear of Hezekiah's courtiers, that they feared it would
render negotiation impossible. They humbly entreated the orator to
speak to "his servants" in the Aramaic language of Assyria, which they
understood,[570] and not in Hebrew, which was the language of all the
Jews who stood in crowds on the walls. Surely this was a diplomatic
embassy to their king, not an incitement to popular sedition?
The answer of the Rabshakeh was truly Assyrian in its utterly brutal
and ruthless coarseness. Taking up his position directly in front of
the wall,[571] and ostentatiously addressing the multitude, he ignored
the representatives of Hezekiah. Who were they? asked he. His master
had not sent him to speak to them, or to their poor little puppet of a
king, but to the people on the wall, the foul garbage of whose
sufferings of thirst and famine they should share.[572] And to all the
multitude the great king's[573] message was:--Do not be deceived.
Hezekiah cannot save you. Jehovah will not save you. Come to terms
with me, and give me hostages and pledges and a present, and then live
in happy peace and plenty until I come and deport you to a land as
fair and fruitful as this. How should Jehovah deliver them? Had any of
the gods of the nations delivered them out of the hands of the King of
Assyria? "Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? Where are the
gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? Have the gods of Samaria
delivered Samaria out of my hand, that Jehovah should deliver
Jerusalem out of my hand?"[574]
It was a very powerful oration, but the orator must have been a little
disconcerted to find that it was listened to in absolute silence. He
had disgracefully violated the comity of international intercourse by
appealing to subjects against their lawful king; yet from the starving
people there came not a murmur of reply. Faithful to the behest of
their king in the midst of their misery and terror, they answered not
a word. Agamemnon is silent before the coarse jeers of Thersites. "The
sulphurous flash dies in its own smoke, only leaving a hateful stench
behind it!" And in this attitude of the people there was something
very sublime and very instructive. Dumb, stricken, starving, the
wretched Jews did not answer the envoy's taunts or menaces, because
they would not. They were not even in those extremities to be seduced
from their allegiance to the king whom they honoured, though the
speaker had contemptuously ignored his existence. And though the
Rabshakeh had cut them to the heart with his specious appeals and
braggart vaunts, yet "this clever, self-confident, persuasive
personage, with two languages on his tongue, and an army at his back,"
could not shake the confidence in God, which, however unreasonable it
might seem, had been elevated into a conviction by their king and
their prophet. The Rabsak had tried to seduce the people into
rebellion, but he had failed.[575] They were ready to die for Hezekiah
with the fidelity of despair. The mirage of sensual comfort in exiled
servitude should not tempt them from the scorched wilderness from
which they could still cry out for the living God.
Yet the Assyrian's words had struck home into the hearts of his
greatest hearers, and therefore how much more into those of the
ignorant multitudes! Eliakim and Shebna and Joah came to Hezekiah
with their clothes rent, and told him the words of the Rabshakeh. And
when the king heard it, when he found that even his submission had
been utterly in vain, he too rent his clothes, and put on
sackcloth,[576] and went into the only place where he could hope to
find comfort, even into the house of the Lord, which he had cleansed
and restored to beauty, although afterwards he had been driven to
despoil it. Needing an earthly counsellor, he sent Eliakim and Shebna
and the elders of the priests to Isaiah. They were to tell him the
outcome of this day of trouble, rebuke, and contumely; and since the
Rabshakeh had insulted and despised Jehovah, they were to urge the
prophet to make his appeal to Him, and to pray for the remnant which
the Assyrians had left.[577]
The answer of Isaiah was a dauntless defiance. If others were in
despair, he was not in the least dismayed. "Be not afraid"--such was
his message--"of the mere words with which the boastful boys of the
King of Assyria have blasphemed Me.[578] Behold, I will put a spirit
in him, and he shall hear a rumour,[579] and shall return to his own
land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land."
Much crestfallen at the total and unexpected failure of the embassy, and
of his own heart-shaking appeals, the Rabshakeh returned. But meanwhile
Sennacherib had taken Lachish, and marched to Libnah (Tel-es-Safîa),
which he was now besieging.[580] There it was that he heard the "rumour"
of which Isaiah had spoken--the report, namely, that Tirhakah, the third
king of the Ethiopian dynasty of Pharaohs,[581] was advancing in person
to meet him. This was B.C. 701, and it is perhaps only by anticipation
that Tirhakah is called "King" of Ethiopia. He was only the general and
representative of his father Shabatok, if (as some think) he did not
succeed to the throne till 698.
It was impossible for Sennacherib under these circumstances to return
northwards to Jerusalem, of which the siege would inevitably occupy
some time. But he sent a menacing letter,[582] reminding Hezekiah that
neither king nor god had ever yet saved any city from the hands of the
Assyrian destroyers. Where were the kings, he asked again, of Hamath,
Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, Ivvah? What had the gods of Gozan, Haran,
Rezeph, and the children of Eden in Telassar done to save their
countries from Sennacherib's ancestors, when they had laid them under
the ban?[583]
Again the pious king found comfort in God's Temple. Taking with him the
scornful and blasphemous letter, he spread it out before Jehovah in the
Temple with childlike simplicity, that Jehovah might read its insults
and be moved by this dumb appeal.[584] Then both he and Isaiah cried
mightily to God, "who sitteth above the cherubim," admitting the truth
of what Sennacherib had said, and that the kings of Assyria had
destroyed the nations, and burnt their vain gods in the fire. But of
what significance was that? Those were but gods of wood and stone, the
works of men's hands.[585] But Jehovah was the One, the True, the Living
God. Would He not manifest among the nations His eternal supremacy?
And as the king prayed the word of Jehovah came to Isaiah, and he sent
to Hezekiah this glorious message about Sennacherib:--
"The virgin, the daughter of Zion, hath despised thee, and laughed thee
to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee."[586]
The blasphemies, the vaunts, the menacing self-confidence of
Sennacherib, were his surest condemnation. Did he count God a cypher?
It was to God alone that he owed the fearful power which had made the
nations like grass upon the housetops, like blasted corn, before him.
And because God knew his rage and tumult, God would treat him as
Sargon his father had treated conquered kings:--
"I will put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips.[587] And I
will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest." He had thought
to conquer Egypt:[588] instead of that he should be driven back in
confusion to Assyria.
It was but a plainer enunciation of the truths which Isaiah had again
and again intimated in enigma and parable. It was the fearless
security of Judah's lion; the safety of the rock amid the deluge; the
safety of the poor brood under the wings of the Divine protection from
"the great Birds'-nester of the world"; the crashing downfall of the
lopped Lebanonian cedar, while the green shoot and tender branch out
of the withered stump of Jesse should take root downward and bear
fruit upward.[589]
And the sign was given to Hezekiah that this should be so.[590] This
year there should be no harvest, except such as was spontaneous; for
in the stress of Assyrian invasion sowing and reaping had been
impossible. The next year the harvest should only be from this
accidental produce. But in the third year, secure at last, they should
sow and reap, and plant vineyards and eat the fruit thereof.[591] And
though but a remnant of the people was left out of the recent
captivity, they should grow and flourish, and Jerusalem should see the
besieging host of Assyria no more for ever; for Jehovah would defend
the city for His own sake, and for His servant David's sake.
Thereafter occurred the great deliverance.[592] In some way--we know
not and never shall know how--by a blast of the simoom, or sudden
outburst of plague, or furious panic, or sudden assault, or by some
other calamity,[593] the host of Assyria was smitten in the camp, and
one hundred and eighty-five thousand, including their chief leaders,
perished. The historian, in a manner habitual to pious Semitic
writers, attributes the devastation to the direct action of the "angel
of the Lord";[594] but as Dr. Johnson said long ago, "We are certainly
not to suppose that the angel went about with a sword in his hand,
striking them one by one, but that some powerful natural agent was
employed."[595]
The Forty-Sixth Psalm is generally regarded as the _Te Deum_ sung in
the Temple over this deliverance, and its opening words, "God is our
refuge and strength," are inscribed over the cathedral of St. Sophia
at Constantinople.
It is usually supposed that this overwhelming disaster happened to the
host of Assyria _before Jerusalem_. This, however, is not stated; and
as the capture of Lachish was an urgent necessity, it is probable that
the Turtan led back the forces which had accompanied him, and took
them afterwards to Libnah.[596] Yet, since Libnah was but ten miles
from Jerusalem, the Jews could not feel safe for a day until the
mighty news came that the
"Angel of God spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed,
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed heavy and chill,
And their breasts but once heaved, and for ever grew still."
When the catastrophe which had happened to the main army and the flight
of Sennacherib became known, the scattered forces would melt away.
All the Assyrians who escaped were now hurrying back[597] to Nineveh
with their foiled king. Sennacherib seems to have occupied himself in
the north, except so far as he was forced to fight fiercely against
his own rebel subjects. He never recovered this complete humiliation.
He never again came southwards. He survived the catastrophe for
seventeen or twenty years,[598] and fought five or six campaigns; but
at the end of that period, while he was worshipping in the house of
Nisroch or Assarac (Assur), his god,[599] he was murdered by his two
sons Adrammelech (Adar-malik--"Adar is king") and Sharezer
(Nergal-sarussar--"Nergal protect the king"),[600] who envied him his
throne. They escaped into the land of Ararat, but were defeated and
killed by their younger brother Esarhaddon (Assur-âkh-iddin--"Assur
bestowed a 'brother'") at the battle of Hani-Rabbat, on the Upper
Euphrates. He succeeded Sennacherib, and ultimately avenged on Egypt
his father's overwhelming disaster. He is perhaps the "cruel lord" of
Isa. xix. 4, and it is not unnatural that he should have prevailed
against his parricidal brothers, for we are told that in a previous
battle at Melitene he had shown such prowess that the troops then and
there proclaimed him King of Assyria with shouts of "This is our
king."[601] He reigned from B.C. 681-668, and in his reign Assyria
culminated before her last decline.[602] He was the builder of the
temple at Nimrûd, and erected thirty other temples. Babylon and
Nineveh were both his capitals,[603] and he had previously been
viceroy of the former.
The glorious deliverance in which the faith and courage of the King of
Judah had had their share naturally increased the prosperity and
prestige of Hezekiah, and lifted the authority of Isaiah to an
unprecedented height. Hezekiah probably did not long survive the
uplifting of this dark cloud, but during the remainder of his life "he
was magnified in the sight of all nations."[604] When he died, all
Judah and Jerusalem did him honour, and gave him a splendid burial.
Apparently the old tombs of the kings--the catacomb constructed by
David and Solomon--had in the course of two and a half centuries
become full, so that he had to be buried "in the ascent of the
sepulchres," perhaps some niche higher than the other graves of the
catacomb, which was henceforth disused for the burial of the kings of
Judah. We have had occasion to observe the many particulars in which
his reign was memorable, and to his other services must be added the
literary activity to which we owe the collection and editing, by his
scribes, of the Proverbs of Solomon. His reign had practically
witnessed the institution of the faithful Jewish Church under the
influence of his great prophetic guide.[605]
The question whether the portent of the destruction of the Assyrian
was identical with that related by Herodotus has never been finally
answered. Herodotus places the scene of the disaster at Pelusium,[606]
and tells this story:--Sennacherib, King of the Arabs and Assyrians,
invaded Egypt. Its king, Sethos, of the Tanite dynasty, in despair
entered the temple of his god Pthah (or Vulcan), and wept.[607] The
god appeared to him with promises of deliverance, and Sethos marched
to meet Sennacherib with an army of poor artisans, since he was a
priest, and the caste of warriors was ill-affected to him. In the
night the god Pthah sent hosts of field-mice, which gnawed the
quivers, bow-strings, and shield-straps of the Assyrians, who
consequently fled, and were massacred. An image of the priest-king
with a mouse in his hand stood in the temple of Pthah, and on its
pedestal the inscription, which might also point the moral of the
Biblical narrative, Ἐς ἐμέ τις ὁρεῶν εὐσεβὴς ἔστω ("Let him who looks
on me be pious"). Josephus seems so far to accept this version that he
refers to Herodotus, and says that Sennacherib's failure was the
result of a frustration in Egypt.[608] The _mouse_ in the hand of the
statue probably originated the details of the legend; but according to
Horapollion it was the hieroglyphic sign of destruction by
plague.[609] Bähr says that it was also the symbol of Mars. Readers of
Homer will remember the title Apollo _Smintheus_ ("the destroyer of
mice"), and the story that mice were worshipped in the Troas because
they gnawed the bow-strings of the enemy.
But whatever may have been the mode of the retribution, or the scene in
which it took place, it is certainly historical. The outlines of the
narrative in the sacred historian are identical with those in the
Assyrian records. The annals of Sennacherib tell us the four initial
stages of the great campaign in the conquest of Phœnicia, of Askelon,
and of Ekron, the defeat of the Egyptians at Altaqu, and the earlier
hostilities against Hezekiah. The Book of Kings concentrates our
attention on the details of the close of the invasion. On this point,
whether from accident, or because Sennacherib did not choose to register
his own calamity, and the frustration of the gods of whose protection he
boasted, the Assyrian records are silent. Baffled conquerors rarely
dwell on their own disasters. It is not in the despatches of Napoleon
that we shall find the true story of his abandonment of Syria, of the
defeats of his forces in Spain, or of his retreat from Moscow.[610]
The great lesson of the whole story is the reward and the triumph of
indomitable faith. Faith may still burn with a steady flame when the
difficulties around it seem insuperable, when all refutation of the
attacks of its enemies seems to be impossible, when Hope itself has
sunk into white ashes in which scarcely a gleam of heat remains.
Isaiah had nothing to rely upon; he had no argument wherewith to
furnish Hezekiah beyond the bare and apparently unmeaning promise,
"Jehovah is our Judge; Jehovah is our Lawgiver; Jehovah is our King.
He will save us." It was a magnificent vindication of his inspired
conviction, when all turned out--not indeed in minute details, but in
every essential fact--exactly as he had prophesied from the first.
Even in B.C. 740 he had declared that the sins of Judah deserved and
would receive condign punishment, though a remnant should be
saved.[611] That the retribution would come from some foreign
enemy--Assyria or Egypt, or both--he felt sure. Jehovah would hiss for
the fly in the uttermost canals of Egypt, and for the bee that is in
the land of Assyria, and both should swarm in the crevices of the
rocks, and over the pastures.[612] Later on in 732, in the reign of
Ahaz, he pointed to Assyria,[613] as the destined scourge, and he
realised this still more clearly in 725 and 721, when Shalmaneser and
Sargon were tearing Samaria to pieces.[614] Contrary, indeed, to his
expectation, the Assyrians did not then destroy Jerusalem, or even
formally besiege it. The revolt from Assyria, the reliance on Egypt,
did not for a moment blind his judgment or alter his conviction; and
in 701 it came true when Sennacherib was on the march for
Palestine.[615] Yet he never wavered in the apparently impossible
conclusion, that, in spite of all, in spite even of his own darker
prophecies (xxxii. 14), Jerusalem shall in some Divine manner be
saved.[616] The deliverance would be, as he declared from first to
last, the work of Jehovah, not the work of man,[617] and because of it
Sennacherib would return to his own land and perish there.[618] The
details might be dim and wavering; the result was certain. Isaiah was
no thaumaturge, no peeping wizard, no muttering necromancer, no
monthly prognosticator.[619] He was a prophet--that is, an inspired
moral and spiritual teacher who was able to foresee and to foretell,
not in their details, but in their broad outlines, the events yet
future, because he was enabled to read them by the eye of faith ere
they had yet occurred. His faith convinced him that predictions
founded on eternal principles have all the certainty of a law, and
that God's dealings with men and nations in the future can be seen in
the light of experience derived from the history of the past. Courage,
zeal, unquenchable hope, indomitable resolution, spring from that
perfect confidence in God which is the natural reward of innocence and
faithfulness. Isaiah trusted in God, and he knew that they who put
their trust in Him can never be confounded.
No event produced a deeper impression on the minds of the Jews, though
that impression was soon afterwards, for a time, obliterated.
Naturally, it elevated the authority of Isaiah into unquestioned
pre-eminence during the reign of Hezekiah. It has left its echo, not
only in his own triumphant pæans, but also in the Forty-Sixth Psalm,
which the Septuagint calls "An ode to the Assyrian," and perhaps also
in the Seventy-Fifth and Seventy-Sixth Psalms. In the minds of all
faithful Israelites it established for ever the conviction that God
had chosen Judah for Himself, and Israel for His own possession; that
God was in the midst of Zion, and she should not be confounded: "God
shall help her, and that right early." And it contains a noble and
inspiring lesson for all time. "It is not without reason," says Dean
Stanley, "that in the Churches of Moscow the exultation over the fall
of Sennacherib is still read on the anniversary of the retreat of the
French from Russia, or that Arnold, in his lectures on Modern History,
in the impressive passage in which he dwells on that great
catastrophe, declared that for the memorable night of the frost in
which twenty thousand horses perished, and the strength of the French
army was utterly broken, he knew of no language so well fitted to
describe it as the words in which Isaiah described the advance and
destruction of the hosts of Sennacherib."[620]
They had been brought face to face, the two kings--Sennacherib and
Hezekiah. One was the impious boaster who relied on his own strength,
and on the mighty host which dried up rivers with their trampling
march--the worldling who thought to lord it over the affrighted globe;
the other was the poor kinglet of the Chosen People, with his one city
and his enfeebled people, and his dominion not so large as one of the
smallest English counties. But "one with God is irresistible," "one
with God is always in a majority." The poor, weak prince triumphs over
the terrific conqueror, because he trusts in Him to whom
world-desolating tyrants are but as the small dust of the balance,
and who "taketh up the isles as a very little thing."[621]
As Assyria now vanishes almost entirely from the history of the Chosen
People, we may here recall with delight one large and loving prophecy,
to show that the Hebrews were sometimes uplifted by the power of
inspiration above the narrowness of a bigoted and exclusive spirit.
Desperately as Israel had suffered, both from Egypt and Assyria, Isaiah
could still utter the glowing Messianic Prophecy which included the
Gentiles in the privileges of the Golden Age to come. He foretold that--
"In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and Assyria, as a
blessing in the midst of the land: whom the Lord of hosts shall bless,
saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands,
and Israel Mine inheritance."[622]
"That strain I heard was of a higher mood!"
* * * * *
King Hezekiah can have no finer panegyric than that of the son of
Sirach: "Even the kings of Judah failed, for they forsook the law of
the Most High: all except David, and Ezekias, and Josias failed."[623]
FOOTNOTES:
[560] Isa. xxxiii. 8.
[561] Isa. xx. 1.
[562] Jer. xxxix. 3. The meaning of the name is not certain. _Sarîs_,
in Hebrew, is "eunuch"; but the word is not known in Assyrian records,
and we should expect _Rabsarîsîm_, as in Dan. i. 3.
[563] Rabsak perhaps means _chief officer_ or vizier, and is Hebraised
into Rabshakeh. Prof. G. A. Smith (_Isaiah_, p. 345) calls him
"Sennacherib's Bismarck." Rabshakeh, usually rendered "chief cupbearer,"
is an Aramaised form of Rabsak (great chief); but we know of no chief
cupbearer at the Assyrian court (Schrader, _K. A. T._, 199 f.).
[564] From an Apis-stêlê he seems to have reigned twenty-six years
(B.C. 694-668?).
[565] Isa. xxii. 1-13.
[566] Eliakim. See Isa. xxii. 21, 22.
[567] "Vain words"; lit., "a word of the lips." LXX., λόγοι χειλέων.
[568] Comp. Isa. xxx. 1-7; Ezek. xxix. 6. It seems to be an
over-refinement to suppose that Sennacherib refers to the divisions
between Egypt and Ethiopia.
[569] 2 Kings xviii. 23, A.V.: "Let Hezekiah give pledges."
[570] Heb., _Arâmîth_.
[571] 2 Kings xviii. 28, where _stood_ should be rendered _came
forward_.
[572] The coarse expression is softened down by the Chronicler (2
Chron. xxxii. 18).
[573] The kings of Assyria usually called themselves "great king,
mighty king, king of the multitude, king of the land Assur."
[574] Every one must notice the glaring inconsistency between this
_defiance_ of Jehovah and the previous claim to the possession of His
sanction. On Hamath, Arpad, etc., see Schrader, ii. 7-10.
[575] Isa. xxxiii. 8: "He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised
the cities, he regardeth no man."
[576] 1 Kings xx. 32; 2 Kings vi. 30.
[577] Sennacherib had already carried off vast numbers. See Isa. xxiv.
1-12; Demetrius _ap._ Clem. Alex., _Strom._, i. 403.
[578] Isaiah's phrase, _na'arî melek_, "lads of the king," is
contemptuous. LXX., παιδάρια.
[579] Heb., _ruach_; LXX., δίδωμι ἐν αὐτῷ πνεῦμα. Theodoret calls this
"spirit" _cowardice_ (τὴν δειλίαν οἶμαι δηλοῦν).
[580] Libnah means "whiteness." Dean Stanley (_S. and P._, 207, 258)
identifies it with a white-faced hill, the Blanchegarde of the
Crusaders.
[581] The dates usually given are Sabaco, B.C. 725-712; Shabatok,
712-698; Tirhakah, 698-672. Manetho, Τάραχος; Strabo, Τεράκων, ὁ
Αἰθιώψ. He was third king of the twenty-fifth dynasty, and the
greatest of the Egyptian sovereigns who came from Ethiopia. He reigned
gloriously for many years. We see his figure at Medinet Abou, smiting
ten captive princes with an iron mace; but he was finally defeated by
Esarhaddon, and in 668 by Assurbanipal at Karbanit (Canopus). He is
called by his conqueror "Tar-ku-u, King of Egypt and Cush" (Schrader,
_K. A. T._, 336 ff.).
[582] Heb., _Sepharîm_; Vulg., _litteræ_; 2 Chron. xxxii. 17. The more
ordinary term for a letter is _iggereth_.
[583] 2 Kings xix. 12 (Heb.); Ezek. xxvii. 23. On these places see
Schrader, ii. 11, 12. It had been indeed Sennacherib's work "to reduce
fenced cities to ruinous heaps." He boasts on the Bellino Cylinder,
"Their smaller towns without number I overthrew, and reduced them to
heaps of rubbish" (_Records of the Past_, i. 27).
[584] "It is a prayer without words, a prayer in action, which then
passes into a spoken prayer" (Delitzsch).
[585] The Assyrians are sometimes represented in their monuments as
hewing idols to pieces in honour of their god Assur (Botta, _Monum._,
pl. 140).
[586] LXX., κινεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν, "a gesture of scorn" (Psalm xxii. 7,
cix. 25; Lam. ii. 15). With the vaunts of Sennacherib compare
Claudian, _De bell. Geth._, 526-532.
"Cum cesserit omnis
Obsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostris
Sub pedibus montes, _arescere vidimus amnes_ ...
Fregi Alpes, _galeis Padum victricibus hausi_."
KEIL, _ad loc._
[587] Comp. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 (Heb.); Psalm xxxix. 1; Isa. xxx. 28;
Ezek. xxxviii. 4, xxix. 4. The Assyrians drove a ring through the
lower lip, the Babylonians through the nose. See Rawlinson, _Ancient
Monarchies_, ii. 314, iii. 436.
[588] 2 Kings xix. 33. "The river of Egypt" (_Nachal-ha-Mizraim_) is
the Wady-el-Arish.
[589] Isa. x. 33, 34, xi. 1, xiv. 8; Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 410.
[590] אוֹת. A sign "is a thing, an event, or an action intended as a
pledge of the Divine certainty of another. Sometimes it is a miracle
(Gen. iv. 15, Heb.), or a permanent symbol (Isa. viii. 18, xx. 3,
xxxvii. 30; Jer. xliv. 29)" (Delitzsch).
[591] The first year they should eat _saphîach_ (LXX., αὐτόματα;
Vulg., _quæ repereris_); the second year, _sachîsh_ (LXX., τὰ
ἀνατέλλοντα; Vulg., _quæ sponte nascuntur_).
[592] 2 Kings xix. 35: "It came to pass that night." Isaiah only has
"then"; Josephus, κατὰ τὴν πρώτην τῆς πολιορκίας νύκτα. Menochius
understands it "_in celebri illa nocte_." The LXX. omits "that," and
simply says "in the night" (νυκτός). Comp. Psalm xlvi. 5 (Heb.); Isa.
xvii. 14.
[593] Josephus, followed by many moderns, and even by Keil, suggests a
plague. The malaria of the Pelusiotic marshes easily breeds pestilence.
The "_maleak Jehovah_" is "the destroyer" (_mashchith_) (Exod. xii. 23;
2 Sam. xxiv. 16.) Comp. Justin., xix. 11; Diod. Sic., xix. 434.
[594] Comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16.
[595] The Babyl. Talmud and some Targums, followed by Vitringa, etc.,
attribute to it storms of lightning; Prideaux, Heine, and Faber, to
the simoom; R. José, Ussher, etc., to a nocturnal attack of Tirhakah.
[596] It is, however, perfectly possible that a contingent was left on
guard. "Where is the [past] terror? Where is he that rated the
tribute? Where is he that received it?" (Isa. xxxiii. 18). "At the
noise of the tumult the people flee" (Isa. xxxiii. 3); "At Thy rebuke,
O God of Jacob, both chariot and horse are cast into a dead sleep"
(Psalm lxxvi. 6). Comp. Psalm xlviii. 4-6.
[597] This is the meaning of "he departed, and went, and returned."
[598] Not, only fifty-five days, as we read in Tobit i. 21.
[599] Jos., _Antt._, X. i. 5: "In his own temple to Araskê"; LXX.,
Ἀσαράχ; Isa. xxxvii. 38. One guess connects the word with Nesher, "the
eagle-god," often seen on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. Lenormant calls
him "the god of human destiny."
[600] Alex. Polyhistor _ap._ Euseb., i. 27; Kimchi _ad_ 2 Kings xix.
37. Buxtorf (_Bibl. Rabbinic._) says that Sennacherib entered the
temple to ask his counsellors why Jehovah favoured Israel. Being told
that it was because of Abraham's willingness to offer Isaac, he said,
"Then I will offer my two sons." Rashi adds that they slew him to save
their own lives. (See Schenkel and Riehm, _s.v._ "Sanherib"--both
articles by Schrader).
[601] See Schrader in Riehm's _Handwörterbuch_, _s.vv._ "Sanherib,"
"Asarhaddon." Esarhaddon, judging from what is called "Sennacherib's
will," in which the king leaves him splendid presents, seems to have
been a favourite of his father (_Records of the Past_, i. 136). He
says that on hearing of his father's murder, "I was wrathful as a
lion, and my soul raged within me, and I lifted my hands to the great
gods to assume the sovereignty of my father's house." See Appendix I.
[602] The Book of Tobit (i. 21) calls him Sarchedonas.
[603] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.
[604] 2 Chron. xxxii. 23.
[605] Wellhausen, p. 116.
[606] Herod., ii. 14. "Sin" (Tanis?), Ezek. xxx. 15. It lay in the
midst of morasses, and some attribute the catastrophe to the malaria.
[607] The deliverance is really connected with Tirhakah, whose deeds
are recorded in a temple at Medinet Habou, but the jealousy of the
Memphites attributed it to the piety of Sethos. See G. W. Wilkinson,
_Ancient Egyptians_, i. 141; Rawlinson, _Herodotus_, i. 394.
[608] _Antt._, X. i. 1-5.
[609] Comp. 1 Sam. v., vi., where, after a plague, the Philistines
sent an expiation of five golden mice.
[610] We may add that even the Chronicler drops a veil over
Sennacherib's actual capture of fortresses in Judah ("he _thought_ to
win them for himself," 2 Chron. xxxii. 1: comp. 2 Kings xviii. 13;
Isa. xxxvi. 1).
[611] Isa. vi. 11-13.
[612] Isa. v. 26-30.
[613] Isa. vii. 18.
[614] Isa. viii., xxviii. 1-15, x. 28-34.
[615] Isa. xiv. 29-32, xxix., xxx.
[616] Isa. i. 19, 20.
[617] Isa. x. 33, xxix. 5-8, xxx. 20-26, 30-33.
[618] Isa. xxxviii. 6. See for this paragraph an admirable chapter in
Prof. Smith's _Isaiah_, pp. 368-374.
[619] Isa. xlvii. 13.
[620] Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 531.
[621] Isa. xl. 15.
[622] Isa. xix. 24, 25.
[623] Ecclus. xlix. 4.