The Expositor's Bible: The Second Book of Kings

471

2 Kings xvi. 15. Vulg., paratum erit ad voluntatem meam. The LXX. followed another reading: ἔσται μοὶ εἰς τὸ πρωί. Grätz (ii. 150), for לכקר, "to inquire," reads לקרב "to draw near to."

472

1 Kings vii. 23-39.

473

2 Kings xvi. 18. The allusions are obscure. R.V., "the covered way"; A.V., "the covert for the Sabbath." See 2 Chron. ix. 4. Here the Hebr. Q'ri has Mûsak, and the Vulg. Musach Sabbati. The LXX. evidently did not understand it (καὶ τὸν θεμέλιον τῆς καθέδρας ᾠκοδόμησεν). For "covert for the Sabbath," Geiger suggests "molten images for the Shame" (Bosheth-Baal, by transposition of Shabbath). Comp. 2 Chron. xxviii. 2.

474

2 Chron. xxviii. 20: "Tiglath-Pileser came unto him, and distressed him, but helped him not."

475

2 Kings xviii. 15, 16.

476

In justice to Ahaz, we should observe that (1) in every instance the later account multiplies and magnifies and gives a darker colouring to his offences; (2) that neither Isaiah, Micah, nor any other prophet has a word of reproach for such enormities in Ahaz.

477

It is a Jewish tradition that Hezekiah would not bury his father Ahaz in a sarcophagus, but on a bier (Pesachin, f. 56, 1; Sanhedrin, f. 47, 1; Grätz, Gesch. d. Juden., ii, 224).

478

His name, Chizquîyyah, is shortened from Yechizquîyyahoo (Isa. i. 1; 2 Kings xx. 10; Hos. i. 1). It means "Jehovah's strength" (Gesen.), or "Yah is might" (Fûrst).

479

The first of these dates is highly uncertain, as is the entire chronology of this reign. I follow Kittel.

480

2 Chron. xxxi. 2-21.

481

Josiah did this many years later (2 Kings xxiii. 13).

482

Gen. xxxv. 14. See Spencer, De legg. Hebr., i. 444; Bochart, Canaan, ii. 2.

483

Exod. xxiv. 4. Comp. Deut. vii. 5, xii. 3, xvi. 22; Lev. xxvi. 1; 2 Chron. xiv. 3, xxxi. 1; Jer. xliii. 13; Hos. x. 2; Mic. v. 13 (where the A.V. often has "statue" or "image"). Comp. Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 24; Arnob., c. Gent., i. 39.

484

The rendering "grove" in the A.V. is borrowed from the ἄλσος of the LXX., and the lucus of the Vulgate. On the connection of the Asherah with the sacred tree of the Assyrian, see my article on "Grove" in Smith's Dict. of the Bible; and Fergusson, Nineveh and Persepolis Restored, 299-304. On the worship of Asherah, see 1 Kings xv. 13; 2 Kings xxi. 3-7, xxiii. 4; 2 Chron. xv. 16; Judg. iii. 5-7, vi. 25, xviii. 18. Baudissin in Herzog Realencykl., s. v. We may well be startled by the prevalence of idolatry in Jerusalem revealed in Isa. x. 11, xxvii. 9, xxix. 11, xxx. 9, 22, etc.

485

See Wellhausen, Hist., 235; Stade, Gesch. d. V. I., 460; W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, 171; Cheyne, Isaiah, ii. 303; Renan, Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, i. 230 (Prof. Driver, Bibl. Dict., i. 258, 2nd edition).

486

Hierozoicon, ii. 3, § 13.

487

Jer. xliv. 17. In the collection of antiquities of Baron Ustinoff at Jaffa are five or six dragon-headed serpents, with ears of copper and hollow inside. They are ancient, and were perhaps used as talismanic copies of Nehushtan.

488

If this was a genuine relic, it must have been nearly eight hundred years old. It is never mentioned elsewhere.

489

נְחֻשׁתָּן, "a brazen thing." The king certainly showed a horror of sacerdotal imposture and religious materialism. Yet Renan argues, from Isa. x. 11, xxvii. 9, xxx. 9, 22, that he must have had a certain amount of tolerance. See Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii. 30.

490

2 Kings xviii. 4. Vayyikra is like the English indefinite plural. The impersonal rendering (as in other passages) is adopted in the Targum of Jonathan, the Peshito, etc., and by Luther, Bunsen, Ewald, and most moderns.

491

This relic is still shown in the Church of St. Ambrose at Milan. It used to be the popular notion that it would hiss at the end of the world. The history of the Milan "relic" is that a Milanese envoy to the court of the Emperor John Zimisces at Constantinople chose it from the imperial treasures, being assured that it was made of the same metal that Hezekiah had broken up (Sigonius, Hist. Regn. Ital., vii.). It is probably a symbol used by some ophite sect. See Dean Plumptre, Dict. of Bibl., s. v. "Serpent."

492

2 Kings xvi. 8; Driver, Isaiah, 68.

493

The diverting of the water-courses enabled him to bring the water into the city by a subterranean tunnel. The Saracens took a similar precaution (Gul. Tyr., viii. 7). See Appendix II., where the inscription is given; and compare 2 Chron. xxxii. 30. Apparently it carried the water of Gihon to the south-east gate, where were the king's gardens. Ecclus. xlviii. 17: "Ezekias fortified his city, and brought in water into the midst thereof: he digged the hard rock with iron, and made wells for water." For "water" the MSS. read "Gog," a corruption probably for ἀγωγὸν, "a conduit" (Geiger) or "Gihon" (Fritzsche).

494

Psalm xlvi. 1-11.

495

2 Chron. xxviii. 18.

496

2 Kings xviii. 8: comp. xvii. 9. Josephus says that he failed to take Gath (Antt., IX. xiii. 3).

497

A.V., "treasurer" (soken; lit., "deputy" or "associate": Isa. xxii. 15). He was "over the household." The Egyptian alliance had for Judah, as Renan points out, some of the fascination that a Russian alliance has often had for troubled spirits in France (Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii. 12).

498

Renan says that he may have been a Sebennyite, and his name Sebent.

499

Isa. xxii. 17, 18: "Behold, the Lord shall sling and sling, and pack and pack, and toss and toss thee away like a ball into a distant land; and there thou shalt die" (Stanley). The versions vary considerably.

500

Isa. xxxvii. 2. There can be little doubt that there were not two Shebnas.

501

Mic. i. 10-16. See the writer's Minor Prophets ("Men of the Bible" Series), pp. 130-133, for an explanation of this enigmatic prophecy.

502

Jer. xxvi. 8-24. He tells us that the prophecy was delivered in the reign of Hezekiah. See my Minor Prophets, pp. 123-140.

503

Isa. x. 28-32. It would involve a cross-country route over several deep ravines —e. g., the Wady Suweinit, near Michmash. In 1 Sam. xiv. 2, Thenius, for "Migron," reads "the Precipice." Some take Aiath for Ai, three miles south of Bethel. Renan says (Hist. du Peuple d'Israel, iii.): "Nom d'Anathoth, arrangé symboliquement."

504

Isa. x. 14. The metaphor of a bird's nest occurs more than once in the boastful Assyrian records.

505

Isa. xxx. 1-7. Rahab means "fierceness," "insolence." For the various uses of the word, see Job xxvi. 12; Isa. li. 9, 10, 15; Psalm lxxxix. 9, 10, lxxxvii. 4, 5.

506

See Dr. S. Cox (Expositor, i. 98-104) on Isa. xxviii. 7-13.

507

Acts xvii. 18.

508

Isa. xxviii. 7-22.

509

Professor Smith, Isaiah, i. 12.

510

Bagehot, Physics and Politics, p. 73; Smith, Isaiah, 109.

511

One of the first to point out the necessary rearrangement of the events of Hezekiah's reign was Dr. Hincks, in his paper on "A Rectification of Chronology which the newly discovered Apis-stêlês render necessary" (Journ. of Sacred Lit., October 1858). See my article on Hezekiah, Smith, Dict. of the Bible, 2nd ed., ii. 1251.

512

Heb., sh'chîn; LXX., ἕλκος; Vulg., ulcus.

513

The Rabbis even make his sickness the punishment for his having neglected to secure an heir. He pleads that he foresaw the wickedness of his son. Isaiah tells him not to try to forestall God (Berachoth, f. 10, 1).

514

Isa. xxxviii. 10-20.

515

Comp. 1 Kings xxi. 4 (Ahab).

516

2 Kings xx. 4. The Q'rî or "read" text is, as here rendered, chatsee (comp. 1 Kings vii. 8), and is followed by the LXX. (ἐν τῇ αὐλῇ τῇ μέσῃ), by the Vulgate (mediam partem atrii), and by the A.V. The R.V., which adopts the Kethîb or written text, ha'îr, renders it "the middle part of the city." If this be the true reading, it would mean that Isaiah had gone some distance from the palace, and was now perhaps in the Valley between the Upper and the Lower City. But it seems not improbable that (1) "the steps of Ahaz" would be in the royal court, and (2) the answer of God, like the mercy of Christ to the suffering, may have come promptly as an echo to the appealing cry.

517

The LXX. calls "the stairs" ἀναβαθμοὺς τοῦ οἴκου τοῦ πατρός σου, and so, too, Josephus (Antt., X. ii. 1). The Targum calls them "an hour-stone." Symmachus has, στρέψω τὴν σκίαν τῶν γραμμῶν ἥ κατέβη ἐν ὡρολογίῳ Ἀχάζ.

518

It should, however, be observed that on the question of priority critics are divided. Grotius, Vitringa, Paulus, Drechsler, etc., thought that the account in the Book of Isaiah is the original; De Wette, Maurer, Koster, Winer, Driver, etc., regard that account as a later abbreviation, perhaps from a common source.

519

See Professor Lumby, ad loc.

520

There is an exactly similar sun-dial not far from Delhi.

521

Journ. of Asiatic Soc., xv. 286-293.

522

Figs have a recognised use for imposthumes. See Dioscorides and Pliny quoted in Celsius, Hierobot., ii. 373. In the passage of Berachoth quoted above, Hezekiah in his sickness asks Isaiah to give him his daughter in marriage, that he may have an heir. Isaiah replies that the decree of his death is irrevocable. The king bids Isaiah depart, and says (quoting Job xiii. 15) that a man must not despair, even if a sword is laid on his neck.

523

Comp. Psalm xlii. 4.

524

Isa. xxxviii. 10-20.

525

The Babylonian form of his name is Marduk-habal-iddi-na —i. e., "Merodach gave a son." He is the Mardokempados of the Ptolemaic Canon, and the second fragment of his reign (six months) is mentioned by Polyhistor (ap. Euseb.). Josephus calls him Baladan (Antt., X. ii. 2). He was originally the prince of the Chaldæan Bit Yakîm. Sargon calls him "Merodach-Baladan, the foe, the perverse, who, contrary to the will of the great gods, ruled as king at Babylon." He displaced him for a time by "Belibus, the son of a wise man, whom one had reared like a little dog" (as we might say "like a tame cat") "in my palace" (Schrader, ii. 32). In the Assyrian records he is often called (by mistake?) "the son of Yakim." For the adventures of the Babylonian hero, see Schrader, K. A. T., 213 ff., 224 ff., 227, and in Riehm, Handwörterbuch, ii. 982.

526

Isa. xiv. 4, xiii. 19.

527

Gen. x. 10, 11, xi. 1-9.

528

Jos., Antt., X. ii. 2: Σύμμαχόν τε αὐτὸν εἶναι παρεκάλει καὶ φίλον.

529

2 Kings xx. 13. LXX., ἐχάρη.

530

See Dan. i. 6.

531

2 Chron. xxxiii. 11.

532

Job i. 21.

533

Manasseh seems to mean "one who forgets." See Gen. xli. 51. It was the name of the husband of Judith (Judith viii. 2), and is found in Ezra x. 30, 33.

534

One legend of his birth resembles the finding of Moses in the bulrushes.

535

Schrader, K. A. T., pp. 272-274; Records of the Past, vii. 28.

536

Smith, Eponym Canon, p. 130.

537

See Prof. Smith, Isaiah, p. 198.

538

Records of the Past, vii. 40. Sargon's words are, "The people of Philistia, Judah, Edom, and Moab were speaking treason. The people and their evil chiefs, to fight against me, unto Pharaoh, the King of Egypt, a monarch who could not save them, their presents carried, and besought his alliance" (G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries, 290).

539

On the monuments called Turtanu, "Holder of power." See Schrader in Riehm, s. v.

540

Raphia, or Ropeh, is on the borders of the desert. Asia beat Africa in every encounter – at Raphia, at Altaqu, at Carchemish. The impression of the seal of Shabak, attached to his capitulations with Sargon, was found at Nineveh by Sir A. H. Layard, and is now in the British Museum. Shabak died in 712. His son Shabatoh succeeded him in Egypt, and his nephew(?) Tirhakah in Ethiopia. Sabaco's name assumes many forms (LXX., Σηγώρ; Herod., ii. 137; Σαβακώς; Vulg., Sua). The Egyptians called him Shaba(ka).

541

Isa. xx. 1-6.

542

Lenormant, Les Premières Civilisations, ii. 203; Records of the Past, vii. 41-46.

543

Isa. xxi. 6, A.V., "Watch in the watch-tower." Hitzig, Cheyne, "They spread the carpets." Much in this short oracle (xxi. 1-10) is obscure. Isaiah seems, in denouncing the fate of Babylon, to mourn for the ruin of the smaller states of which it was the prelude (G. Smith, Soc. of Bibl. Arch., ii. 320 Kleinert, Stud. u. Krit., 1877 W. R. Smith in Enc. Brit., s. v. "Isaiah").

544

Isa. xxi. 10 —i. e., "My people threshed and trodden"; LXX., ὁ καταλελειμμένος καὶ οἱ ὀδυνώμενοι Records of the Past, vii. 47.

545

Herod., Σαναχάριβος; Jos., Σεναχήριβος. See Appendix I. Sin was the moon-god; Merodach, the planet Jupiter; Adar, Saturn; Ishtai, Venus; Nebo, Mercury; Nergal, Mars (Schrader, ii. 117).

546

Sargon seems to have been murdered in the palace of unparalleled splendour which he built at Dur-Sharrukin ("The City of Sargon"). It took him five years to build it with armies of workmen. Its halls, opened by Botta, were the first Assyrian halls ever entered by a modern's foot. It is strange that this greatest of Assyrian kings is only mentioned once in the Bible (Isa. xx. 1). We owe to Assyriology his restoration to his proper place in the annals of mankind. See Ragozin, Assyria, 247-254.

547

Rawlinson, Ancient Monarchies, ii. 178.

548

Canon Rawlinson, Kings of Israel and Judah, 187.

549

On his own monuments this campaign, except its final catastrophe, is narrated in four sections: (1) The subjugation of Phœnicia, and of Philistine towns; (2) the conquest of King Zidka of Askelon; (3) the defeat of Ekron, the restoration of their vassal king Padî to his throne, and the defeat of Egypt at Altaqu; (4) the expedition against Jerusalem (Schrader, E. Tr., i. 298). See Appendix I.

550

This allusion is said to be the only instance of humour – "grim humour, or it would not be Assyrian" – which occurs in the Assyrian annals.

551

Schrader, pp. 234-279. The account of the memorable campaign is narrated in duplicate on the Taylor Cylinder in the British Museum, and on the Bull Inscription at Kouyunjik.

552

Sennacherib calls Tirhakah's army "a host that no man could number"; but it was defeated by the better discipline, the heavier armour, and the superior physical strength of the Assyrians.

553

See Josh. xix. 43.

554

This very phrase "I imposed on them" is found on Sennacherib's monument (Schrader, ii. 1). The references, when not otherwise specified, are to Whitehouse's English translation.

555

In 2 Kings xviii. 16 the word "pillars" or "doorposts" is uncertain. LXX., ἐστηριγμένα; Vulg., laminas auri.

556

2 Chron. xxxii. 9. He had to besiege it "with all his power." He seems to have thought it even more important than Jerusalem, for he superintended the siege in person (Layard, Nineveh and Babylon, 150; Monuments of Nineveh, 2nd series, pl. 21). The ruined Tel of Umm-el-Lakîs lies between the Wady Simsim and the Wady-el-Ahsy (Riehm).

557

See 2 Chron. xi. 9, xxv. 27; Jer. xxxiv. 7. The allusion to this city in Micah (i. 13) is obscure: "O thou inhabitant of Lachish [swift steed], bind the chariot to the swift steed: she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee." This seems to imply that some form of idolatry had come from Israel to Lachish, and from Lachish to Jerusalem. In Sennacherib's picture of the city, foreign worship is represented as going on in it (Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, Pls. 21 and 24; Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 477).

558

Isa. xxix., xxx., xxxi.

559

Isa. xxxiii. 8.

560

Isa. xx. 1.

561

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.

562

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.).

563

From an Apis-stêlê he seems to have reigned twenty-six years (b. c. 694-668?).

564

Isa. xxii. 1-13.

565

Eliakim. See Isa. xxii. 21, 22.

566

"Vain words"; lit., "a word of the lips." LXX., λόγοι χειλέων.

567

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.

568

2 Kings xviii. 23, A.V.: "Let Hezekiah give pledges."

569

Heb., Arâmîth.

570

2 Kings xviii. 28, where stood should be rendered came forward.

571

The coarse expression is softened down by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxxii. 18).

572

The kings of Assyria usually called themselves "great king, mighty king, king of the multitude, king of the land Assur."

573

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.

574

Isa. xxxiii. 8: "He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man."

575

1 Kings xx. 32; 2 Kings vi. 30.

576

Sennacherib had already carried off vast numbers. See Isa. xxiv. 1-12; Demetrius ap. Clem. Alex., Strom., i. 403.

577

Isaiah's phrase, na'arî melek, "lads of the king," is contemptuous. LXX., παιδάρια.

578

Heb., ruach; LXX., δίδωμι ἐν αὐτῷ πνεῦμα. Theodoret calls this "spirit" cowardice (τὴν δειλίαν οἶμαι δηλοῦν).

579

Libnah means "whiteness." Dean Stanley (S. and P., 207, 258) identifies it with a white-faced hill, the Blanchegarde of the Crusaders.

580

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.).

581

Heb., Sepharîm; Vulg., litteræ; 2 Chron. xxxii. 17. The more ordinary term for a letter is iggereth.

582

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).

583

"It is a prayer without words, a prayer in action, which then passes into a spoken prayer" (Delitzsch).

584

The Assyrians are sometimes represented in their monuments as hewing idols to pieces in honour of their god Assur (Botta, Monum., pl. 140).

585

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 omnisObsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostrisSub pedibus montes, arescere vidimus amnes …Fregi Alpes, galeis Padum victricibus hausi."Keil, ad loc.

586

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.

587

2 Kings xix. 33. "The river of Egypt" (Nachal-ha-Mizraim) is the Wady-el-Arish.

588

Isa. x. 33, 34, xi. 1, xiv. 8; Stanley, Lectures, ii. 410.

589

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).

590

The first year they should eat saphîach (LXX., αὐτόματα; Vulg., quæ repereris); the second year, sachîsh (LXX., τὰ ἀνατέλλοντα; Vulg., quæ sponte nascuntur).

591

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.

592

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.

593