Hezekiah: This day is a day of distress, and of chastisement, and of reproach. For the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth. It may be that Jehovah, thy God, will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God; and will reprove the words which Jehovah, thy God, has heard. Wherefore lift up thy prayer for the 5 remnant that are left. And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said to them: Thus shall ye say to your master; thus says Jehovah Be not afraid because of the words which thou hast heard, with which the servants of the king of As7 syria have reproached me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he shall hear tidings, and shall return to his own. land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword, in his own land. 8 So Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; for he heard that he had removed 9 from Lachish. And he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia: Behold, he has come out to fight against thee. And 10 he sent messengers again to Hezekiah, saying, thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying: Jerusalem shall 11 not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria. Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, destroying them utterly; and shalt thou be delivered? 13 Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed,-Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the 13 children of Eden which are in Thelasar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city Sepharvaim, of Hena, and of Ivah? 14 And Hezekiah took the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it. And Hezekiah went up to the house 15 of Jehovah, and spread it before Jehovah. And Hezekiah prayed before Jehovah, and said: Jehovah, God of Israel, V. 7. I will put a spirit in him; a spirit of alarm and fear.- Tidings; of the destruction of his army, vs. 35, 36.—To fall by the sword; v. 37. who sittest above the cherubim. Thou art the God, thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; thou hast made the 16 heavens and the earth. Bow down thine ear, Jehovah, and hear; open thine eyes, Jehovah, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the 17 living God. Of a truth, Jehovah, the kings of Assyria have 18 destroyed the nations and their lands; and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men's hands, wood and stone; and they have destroyed them. 19 And now, Jehovah our God, I beseech thee, save us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know, that thou Jehovah art God, thou only. 20 And Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah saying, thus says Jehovah God of Israel: That which thou hast prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have 21 heard. This is the word that Jehovah has spoken concerning him : 22 233 24 She despises thee, she scorns thee, the virgin, daughter of Zion. She shakes her head after thee, the daughter of Jerusalem. Whom hast thou reproached and reviled? Against whom hast thou lifted up the voice? Thou hast raised thine eyes on high, Against the Holy one of Israel. By thy messengers thou hast reproached the Lord, and said: I come up, with my chariots upon chariots, To the height of the mountains, To the sides of Lebanon. And I cut down its loftiest cedars, And its choicest cypresses; I come to its utmost height, to its garden forest. I dig, and I drink the waters of strange nations, And dry up with the sole of my feet all the streams of Egypt. V. 21. Virgin, daughter of Zion. Daughter of a city or country is put poetically for the people of the place; and thus the whole body of inhabitants is personified as a female, also called a virgin,—as in the text. It is the opinion of some critics, that by virgin daughter is meant a people that remain inviolate, having never been subjected to a foreign power, and that this may properly be said of Zion, the city of David, in distinction from Jerusalem. But this opinion needs corroboration.-Some translate, "the virgin daughter, Zion;" but the rendering in the text is more probably the correct one.-Shakes her head; a gesture of mockery, Ps. 22: 7; 109: 25.-After thee; as already put to flight. VV. 23, 21. To him there are no obstacles; neither inaccessible mountains, nor lands without water, nor impassable rivers. 32 Hast thou not heard? From far off time have I done it, From days of old, and formed it. Now have I brought it to pass; That thou shouldst be to lay waste Fenced cities, in heaps of ruins. And their inhabitants were weak-handed, They were dismayed, and they were confounded; They were as grass of the field, and as the green herb; As grass on the house-tops, as blighted corn before the stalk. And thy sitting down, and thy going out, and thy coming in, I know, Because thy raging against me, and thine arrogance, Have come up into mine ears; I will put my hook in thy nose, and my bit in thy lips, And will turn thee back, by the way in which thou camest. And this shall be the sign to thee. Eat, this year, that which grows of itself; And in the second year, that which springs up from the same; And in the third year, sow and reap, And plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof. And the escaped of the house of Judah that are left, Shall again take root downward, And bear fruit upward. For from Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, And escaped ones from mount Zion. The zeal of Jehovah will do this. Therefore, thus says Jehovah concerning the king of As syria: 33 34 : He shall not come into this city. He shall not shoot an arrow there, Nor bring a shield before it, Nor cast up a mound against it. By the way by which he came shall he return, For my sake, and for my servant David's sake. V. 25. Have I done it; enacted it, in the divine purpose.—And formed it; shaped and directed it, in the divine mind and purpose. V. 28. Hook. Or, as the word may be translated, ring; such as was put into the nostrils of refractory animals, to lead them. It is shown by sculptures on the Assyrian monuments, that prisoners of rank were thus led like beasts, by rings inserted in the lip or the nostrils. V. 29. Sign. Much has been written on what is here given as a sign, to show what is meant by the sign itself, and how such a sign could be a pledge of the promised deliverance. (See the discussions in Dr. Schaff's edition of Lange's Commentary). It seems clear, however, that it must be of the same nature as that given to Moses in Ex. 3: 12. See Is. 7 : 14, and the writer's notes on his revised version, and on the Hebrew text.-Grows of ilself; without planting, from seed dropped in harvests of the previous year.-Springs up from the same; an after-growth from the roots. 35 And it came to pass that night, that the angel of Jehovah went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred fourscore and five thousand; and when men rose early 36 in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses. And Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, 37 and dwelt at Nineveh. And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead. 5 1 IN those days was Hezekiah sick unto death. And the prophet Isaiah the son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, thus says Jehovah: Set thy house in order; for thou 2 shalt die, and shalt not live. Then he turned his face to the 3 wall, and prayed to Jehovah, saying: I beseech thee, Jehovah, remember now, how I have walked before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and have done that which is good 4 in thy sight. And Hezekiah wept bitterly. And it came to pass, that Isaiah had not yet gone out into the midst of the city, when the word of Jehovah came to him, saying: Turn again, and say to Hezekiah the prince of my people, thus says Jehovah, the God of David thy father: I have heard thy prayer, I have seen thy tears. Behold, I will heal thee; on the third day thou shalt go up to the house of Jehovah. 6 And I will add to thy days fifteen years; and I will deliver thee, and this city, out of the hand of the king of Assyria; and I will protect this city, for my sake and for my servant 7 David's sake. And Isaiah said: Bring a cake of figs. And they brought and laid it on the boil, and he recovered. 8 And Hezekiah said to Isaiah: What is the sign that Jehovah will heal me, and that I shall go up to the house of 9 Jehovah the third day? And Isaiah said: This sign shalt thou have from Jehovah, that Jehovah will do the thing that he has spoken. Shall the shadow go forward ten de10 grees, or go back ten degrees? And Hezekiah answered: It is a light thing for the shadow to go down ten degrees. 11 Nay, but let the shadow return backward ten degrees. And Isaiah the prophet cried to Jehovah; and he caused the shadow to return, on the dial where it had gone down, on the dial of Ahaz, ten degrees backward. 12 At that time Berodach-baladan, the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he 13 heard that Hezekiah was sick. And Hezekiah hearkened to them; and he showed them all his treasure-house, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious ointment, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures. There was nothing in his house, nor in all his realm, that Hezekiah showed them not. 14 Then came Isaiah the prophet to king Hezekiah, and said to him: What said these men? And from whence came they to thee? And Hezekiah said: They came from a far 15 country, from Babylon. And he said: What have they seen in thy house? And Hezekiah answered: All that is in my house have they seen; there is nothing among my treasures, 16 that I have not showed them. And Isaiah said to Hezekiah: 17 Hear the word of Jehovah. Behold, the days come, that all that is in thy house, and that which thy fathers have laid up in store unto this day, shall be carried to Babylon; noth18 ing shall be left, says Jehovah. And of thy sons that shall issue from thee, which thou shalt beget, shall they take away; and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Baby19 lon. And Hezekiah said to Isaiah: Good is the word of Jehovah, which thou hast spoken. And he said: Is it not, if peace and security be in my days! 20 And the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and all his might, and how he made the pool, and the conduit, and brought water into the city, are they not written in the book of the 21 Chronicles of the kings of Judah? And Hezekiah lay down. with his fathers; and Manasseh his son reigned in his stead. 1 MANASSEH was twelve years old when he began to reign; and he reigned fifty and five years in Jerusalem. And his 2 mother's name was Hephzi-bah. And he did that which was |