2Ki 19:25-34
To this foolish boasting the prophet opposes the divine purpose which had been formed long ago, and according to which the Assyrian, without knowing it or being willing to acknowledge it, had acted simply as the instrument of the Lord, who had given him the power to destroy, but who would soon restrain his ranting against Him, the true God. 2Ki 19:25 “Hast thou not heard? Long ago have I done this, from the days of olden time have I formed it! Now have I brought it to pass, that fortified cities should be to be destroyed into waste heaps.” 2Ki 19:26. “And their inhabitants, short of hand, were dismayed and put to shame; they were herb of the field and green of the turf, grass of the roofs and blighted corn before the stalk.” 2Ki 19:27. “And thy sitting and thy going out and thy coming I know, and thy raging against me.” 2Ki 19:28. “Because of thy raging against me and thy safety, which rise up into my ears, I put my ring into thy nose, and my bridle into thy lips, and bring thee back by the way by which thou hast come.” The words are still addressed to the Assyrian, of whom the Lord inquires whether he does not know that the destructive deeds performed by him had been determined very long before. “Hast thou not heart?” namely, what follows, what the Lord had long ago made known through His prophets in Judah (cf. Isa 7:7-9; Isa 8:1-4 and Isa 8:7, etc.). למרחוק, from distant time have I done it, etc., refers to the divine ordering and governing of the events of the universe, which God has purposed and established from the very beginning of time. The pronoun אתהּ, and the suffixes attached to יצרתּיה and הביאתיה, do not refer with vague generality to the substance of 2Ki 19:23 and 2Ki 19:24, i.e., to the boastings of the Assyrians quoted there (Drechsler), but to להשׁות וּתהי, i.e., to the conquests and devastations which the Assyrian had really effected. The ו before יצרתיה introduces the apodosis, as is frequently the case after a preceding definition of time (cf. Ges. §155, a). להשׁות וּתהי, “that it may be to destroy” (להשׁות, a contraction of להשׁאות, Keri and Isaiah, from שׁאה; see Ewald, §73, c., and 245, b.), i.e., that it shall be destroyed, - according to a turn which is very common in Isaiah, like לבער היה, it is to burn = it shall be burned (cf. Isa 5:5; Isa 6:13; Isa 44:15, and Ewald, §237, c.). The rendering given by Ges., Knob., Then., and others, “that thou mayest be for destruction,” is at variance with this usage.