2Ki 19:17-19
After the challenge, to observe the blasphemies of Sennacherib, Hezekiah mentions the fact that the Assyrians have really devastated all lands, and therefore that it is not without ground that they boast of their mighty power; but he finds the explanation of this in the impotence and nothingness of the gods of the heathen. אמנם, truly, indeed - the kings of Asshur have devastated the nations and their land. Instead of this we find in Isaiah: “they have devastated all lands and their (own) land” - which is evidently the more difficult and also the more original reading, and has been altered in our account, because the thought that the Assyrians had devastated their own land by making war upon other lands, that is to say, had depopulated it and thereby laid it waste, was not easy to understand. “And have cast their gods into the fire, for they are not gods, but works of human hands, wood and stone, and have thus destroyed them.” Hezekiah does not mention this as a sign of the recklessness of the Assyrians (Knobel), but, because Sennacherib had boasted that the gods of no nation had been able to resist him (vv. 12, 13), to put this fact in the right light, and attach thereto the prayer that Jehovah, by granting deliverance, would make known to all the kingdoms of the earth that He alone was God. Instead of ונתנוּ we have in Isaiah ונתון, the inf. absol.; in this connection the more difficult and more genuine reading. This also applies to the omission of אלהים (2Ki 19:19) in Isa 37:20, since the use of Jehovah as a predicate, “that Thou alone art Jehovah,” is very rare, and has therefore been misunderstood even by Gesenius. By the introduction of Elohim, the thought “that Thou Jehovah art God alone” is simplified.The divine promise. - 2Ki 19:20, 2Ki 19:21. When Hezekiah had prayed, the prophet Isaiah received a divine revelation with regard to the hearing of this prayer, which he sent, i.e., caused to be handed over, to the king. שׁמעתּי (2Ki 19:21) is omitted in Isaiah, so that וגו התפּלּלתּ אשׁר is to be taken in the sense of “with regard to that which thou hast prayed to me,” whilst שׁמעתּי (I have heard) elucidates the thought and simplifies the construction. The word of the Lord announced to the king, (1) the shameful retreat of Sennacherib as a just retribution for his mockery of the living God (2Ki 19:21-28; Isa 37:22-29); (2) the confirmation of this assurance through the indication of a sign by which Hezekiah was to recognise the deliverance of Jerusalem (2Ki 19:29-31; Isa 37:30-32), and through the distinct promise, that the Assyrian would neither come into the city nor besiege it, because the Lord was sheltering it (2Ki 19:32-34; Isa 37:33-35). In the first part the words are addressed with poetic vivacity directly to Sennacherib, and scourge his haughty boastings by pointing to the ridicule and scorn which would follow him on his departure from the land.