the king of Assyria the city of Jerusalem, when he
had said he would. The word {r}for servants signifies
boys, lads, young men; so R. abshakeh and his two
companions, Rabsaris and Tartan, are called, by way
Of contempt, they acting a weak and childish part as
well as a wicked one.
Ver. 7. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, &c.]
The king of Assyria; a pestilential one, as he after-
wards 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, aud flee;
.though some interpret it only of an inclination, a will t
m him, to return: it may be understood of an angel, a
ministerlug spirit, and be rendered I will send a .spirit
against him; an angelic spirit, as he did, which cut
off his army in one night: and he sfiall hear a rumour ;
of the sudden and total destruction of hiS army; though
some refer this to the rumour of the king of Ethiopia
.coming out to make war against him, vet. 9. but upon
this he did not return to his own land, nor was he
slain with the sword, as follows: and return to his own
land; as he did, immediately upon the slaughter of his
army b_y the angel: and I will cause him to fall by the
sword in his own land: as he did, being slain by his own
sons, ver. 37,
Vet. 8. So Rabshakeh returned, &c.] 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 front the king of Judah, and to consult with
him what was proper to be done in the present situa-
tion of things; leaving the army before Jerusalem,
under the command of the other two generals. For
that he should take the army with him does not seem
reasonable, when Hezekiah and his people were in
such apa. nic on account of it; besides, the king of
Assyria's letters to Hezekiah clearly suppose the army
to be still at Jerusalem, or Iris menacing. letters would
have signified nothing; and after this. the destruction
of the Assyrian army before Jerusalem is related: and'
found the, king of Assyria warring against Libnah ; a
city in the tribe of Jpdah, Josh. x. 9.,9. and xv. 42. and
lay nearer to Jerusalem than Lachish, where Rabshakeh
'left him; so that he seemed to be drawing his army
towards that city, on: which his heart was set. Jose-
phus {n}makes him. to, be at this time besieging Pelu-
sium, a city in Egypt,. but wrongly; whi.ch has led
sortie into a mistake that Libnah and Pelusium are the
same: .[;or he had heard that he was departed .from La-
chish; where he was, when he sent him to Jerusalem,
cli. xxxvi. 2. having very probably taken it..
Ver. 9. And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king
of Ethiopia, &c.] 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, is named
Tearcon the Ethiopian: the Ethiopia of which he was
king was either the upper Ethiopia or that beyond
Egypt; to which agrees the Arabic version, which
Galls hint Thar,atha king of the Abyssines; but" others
take it tbr Gush, or rather Ethiopia in the land of
Midian, or Arabia, as Bochart; which lay' nearer to
Judea than the other Ethiopia. Now the report that
was brought to the king of Assyria of him was, he is
come .forth to make war with thee; not by assisting
the EgrVptians, as Josephus, but rather the Jews; or
by making an irruption into the king of Assyria's
country in his absence: this some think to be the
rumour predicted, ver. 7: and when he heard it, he
sent mesengers to Hezekiah ; with terrifying letters, to
frighten him into .an immediate surrender of the ci. ty,
that he might withdraw his army, and meet the kin
of Ethiopia with the greater force; and the rather he
dispatched these messengers in all haste to Hczekiah,
that his letters might reach him before he had know-
ledge of the king of Ethiopia ,asking a diversion in his
fayour, which would encourage him to hold out the
siege the longer: saying; as follows:
Vcr. 10. Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah Icing of
Judah, .saying, &c.] 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 be more de-
vilish and satanical, to represent the God of truth, that
cannot lie, as a liar and deceiver: in this the king of
Assyria outdid Rabshakeh himself; he had represented
Hezekiah as an impostor and a deceiver of the people,
and Warns them against him as such; and here Senna-
cherib represents God himself as a deceiver, and cau-
tions Hezekiah against trusting in him: nothing is
more opposite to Satan and his instruments, than
faith in God, and therefore they labour with all their
might and main to weaken it; however, this testi-
mony Hezekiah had from his enemy, that he was
one that trusted in the Lord; and a greater character
a man cannot well have: saying, Jerusalem s/tall not
be gh, en into the hand of the king of Assyria; and so
the Lord had said it; see ch. xxxviii. 6. and by some
means or anotlter Sennacherib had heard of it; and
there was nothing he dreaded more than that Heze-
kiah should believe it. which would encourage him, he
feared, tohold out the siege.
Vet, 11. Behold, thou. hast heard what the kings of
Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them ut-
terly, &c.] He boasts of the achievements of him-
self and his ancestors, anti of more than was true;
and.which, if it had been true, was more to their dis-
grace than h.onour, namely, utterly to destroy king-
doms, and their inhabitants, to gratify their lusts;
but though. many had been destroyed by them, yet not
all; not EthiOpia, whose king was come out. to make
war with him, and of whom he seems to be hfi-aid; nor
Egypt, .which was in confederacy with Ethiopia; nor
Judea, he was now invading; but this he said in a
yaunting .way, t0 terrify Ilezekiah: and sha!t .'taou be
delivered ? canst. thou expect it ? surely thou Canst not.
IS' it probable ? yea, is it possible thou sh0Utdest be


{r} \^yren\^ pueri recens nati, infantes, pueri judicio, Gusset.
{s} \^xwr wb Ntwn\^ indam ei Spiritum, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.
{t} So Ben Melech explains it by \^Nwur\^, will, desire, purpose.
{u} Autiqu. 1. 10. c, 1. sect. 4.
{w} AntiqU. 1. 10. c. 1, sect. 4.
{x} Apud Euseb. Chron.
{Y} Geograph. 1.15. p. 472.