Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Isaiah predicts to Hezekiah victory over Sennacherib: wherefore an Angel slays 185,000 from his camp.
Vulgate Text: 4 Kings 19:1-37
1. When king Hezekiah heard this, he tore his garments and covered himself with sackcloth, and entered the house of the Lord. 2. And he sent Eliakim who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3. And they said: Thus says Hezekiah: This is a day of tribulation, and rebuke, and blasphemy: the children have come to the birth, and the mother has not strength to bring forth. 4. Perhaps the Lord your God will hear all the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of the Assyrians his lord has sent to reproach the living God, and to rebuke with words which the Lord your God has heard: and offer prayer for the remnant that is found. 5. So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6. And Isaiah said to them: Say to your lord: Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid because of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed Me. 7. Behold, I will send a spirit upon him, and he will hear a report, and will return to his own land, and I will cast him down by the sword in his own land. 8. So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of the Assyrians besieging Libnah: for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9. And when he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia that they said: Behold, he has come out to fight against you; and as he went against him, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying: 10. Say to Hezekiah king of Judah: Let not your God in whom you trust deceive you: nor say: Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hands of the king of the Assyrians. 11. For you yourself have heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all lands, how they have laid them waste: can you then alone be delivered? 12. Have the gods of the nations delivered each one whom my fathers have destroyed, namely Gozan, and Haran, and Reseph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? 13. Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah? 14. And when Hezekiah had received the letters from the hand of the messengers and had read them, he went up into the house of the Lord and spread them before the Lord. 15. And he prayed in His presence, saying: O Lord God of Israel, who sits above the Cherubim, You are God alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, You have made heaven and earth. 16. Incline Your ear and hear: open, O Lord, Your eyes and see: hear all the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to reproach us with the living God. 17. Truly, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have laid waste the nations and the lands of all. 18. And they have cast their gods into fire: for they were not gods, but the works of men's hands, of wood and stone, and they destroyed them. 19. Now therefore, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the Lord God alone. 20. And Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: What you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, I have heard. 21. This is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and mocked you: the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back. 22. Whom have you reproached and whom have you blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. 23. By the hand of your servants you have reproached the Lord, and have said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the heights of the mountains, to the summit of Lebanon, and have cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. And I have entered to the furthest limits, and the forest of its Carmel. 24. I have cut down. And I have drunk foreign waters, and have dried up with the soles of my feet all the enclosed waters. 25. Have you not heard what I did from the beginning? From ancient days I formed it, and now I have brought it about: and fortified cities shall be in the ruin of warring hills. 26. And those who dwell in them, weak in hand, trembled and were confounded, they became like the grass of the field and the green herb of the housetops, which withered before it came to maturity. 27. Your dwelling and your going out and your coming in and your way I have foreknown, and your fury against Me. 28. You have raged against Me, and your pride has come up into My ears: I will therefore put a ring in your nostrils and a bit in your lips, and I will lead you back by the way by which you came. 29. And to you, Hezekiah, this shall be a sign: Eat this year what you find: and in the second year, what grows of itself: but in the third year, sow and reap: plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 30. And whatever remains of the house of Judah shall take root downward and bear fruit upward. 31. For from Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and that which is saved from Mount Zion: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. 32. Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not enter this city, nor shoot an arrow into it, nor shall a shield seize it, nor shall a rampart surround it. 33. By the way that he came, he shall return: and this city he shall not enter, says the Lord. 34. And I will protect this city and save it for My sake, and for the sake of David My servant. 35. It came to pass therefore that night, the Angel of the Lord came and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand. And when they arose at dawn, they saw all the bodies of the dead: and he departed and went away. 36. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians returned and dwelt in Nineveh. 37. And as he was worshipping in the temple of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword, and they fled to the land of the Armenians, and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
This chapter likewise is transcribed from Isaiah chapter 37, where I explained it.
Verse 34: For the Sake of David
34. FOR THE SAKE OF DAVID. You will ask: Why did He not say: "For the sake of Hezekiah and Isaiah," whose prayers were undoubtedly most pleasing to God? The answer is best given by Giveas, Part II of his Annals, cited in the Gloss: "These words," he says, "were divinely uttered so that Hezekiah would not think his prayer was heard on account of his own righteousness with which he was endowed."
Verse 37: Esarhaddon His Son Reigned in His Place
37. AND ESARHADDON HIS SON REIGNED IN HIS PLACE. Genebrardus in his Chronology, Pererius, Arias Montanus, and Serarius on Judith chapter 1, verse 1, think this Esarhaddon was Sardanapalus, first, because just as Sardanapalus is placed by the pagan historians as the last king and monarch of the Assyrians, so also in Scripture Esarhaddon is placed as the last king of the Assyrians: for after him are named Baladan, Merodach, Nebuchadnezzar, Evil-Merodach, and Belshazzar, who were all princes and kings of the Babylonians. Secondly, because the name Sardanapalus seems to be formed from Assar and Don or Haddon with the addition of the name Pul; therefore it is the same as Esarhaddon. Thirdly, because the things which Jonah and Nahum predict about the future destruction of Nineveh through the flooding of the Tigris river, Diodorus attests happened under Sardanapalus.
But Eusebius, Torniellus, Salianus, and the other chronologists place Sardanapalus earlier, namely under Azariah king of Judah: for then Jonah prophesied and predicted to Sardanapalus the destruction of Nineveh, as I said in chapter 15, verse 2, and on Jonah chapter 3, verses 6ff.