Isaiah 36:1

CHAPTER XXXVI

Sennacherib, king of Assyria, comes against Judah, and takes

all the fenced cities, 1.

He afterwards sends a great host against Jerusalem; and his

general Rabshakeh delivers an insulting and blasphemous message

to Hezekiah, 2-20.

Hezekiah and his people are greatly afflicted at the words of

Rabshakeh, 21, 22.

The history of the invasion of Sennacherib, and of the miraculous destruction of his army, which makes the subject of so many of Isaiah's prophecies, is very properly inserted here as affording the best light to many parts of those prophecies, and as almost necessary to introduce the prophecy in the thirty-seventh chapter, being the answer of God to Hezekiah's prayer, which could not be properly understood without it. We find the same narrative in the Second Book of Kings, 2 Kings 18, 2 Kings 19, 2 Kings 20; and these chapters of Isaiah, Isaiah 36, Isaiah 37, Isaiah 38, Isaiah 39, for much the greater part, (the account of the sickness of Hezekiah only excepted,) are but a different copy of that narration. The difference of the two copies is little more than what has manifestly arisen from the mistakes of transcribers; they mutually correct each other, and most of the mistakes may be perfectly rectified by a collation of the two copies with the assistance of the ancient versions. Some few sentences, or members of sentences, are omitted in this copy of Isaiah, which are found in the other copy in the Book of Kings. Whether these omissions were made by design or mistake may be doubted. - L.

NOTES ON CHAP. XXXVI