2 Chronicles 32:9 Kommentar

This chapter continues and concludes the history of the reign of Hezekiah. I. The descent which Sennacherib made upon him, and the care he took to fortify himself, his city, and the minds of his people, against that enemy (Ch2 32:1-8). II. The insolent blasphemous letters and messages which Sennacherib sent him (Ch2 32:9-19). III. The real answer God gave to Sennacherib's blasphemies, and to Hezekiah's prayers, in the total rout of the Assyrian army, to the shame of Sennacherib and the honour of Hezekiah (Ch2 32:20-23). IV. Hezekiah's sickness and his recovery from that, his sin and his recovery from that, with the honours that attended him living and dead (Ch2 32:24-33).

This story of the rage and blasphemy of Sennacherib, Hezekiah's prayer, and the deliverance of Jerusalem by the destruction of the Assyrian army, we had more at large in the book of Kings, 2 Kings 18 and 19. It is contracted here, yet large enough to show these three things: - I. The impiety and malice of the church's enemies. Sennacherib has his hands full in besieging Lachish (Ch2 32:9), but hears that Hezekiah is fortifying Jerusalem and encouraging his people to stand it out; and therefore, before he come in person to besiege it, he sends messengers to make speeches, and he himself writes letters to frighten Hezekiah and his people into a surrender of the city. See, 1. His great malice against the king of Judah, in endeavouring to withdraw his subjects from their allegiance to him. He did not treat with Hezekiah as a man of honour would have done, nor propose fair terms to him, but used mean and base artifices, unbecoming a crowned head, to terrify the common people and persuade them to desert him. he represented Hezekiah as one who designed to deceive his subjects into their ruin and betray them to famine and thirst (Ch2 32:11), as one who had done them great wrong and exposed them already to the divine displeasure by taking away the high places and altars (Ch2 32:12), and who, against the common interest of his people, held out against a force that would certainly be their ruin, Ch2 32:15. 2. His great impiety against the God of Israel, the God of Jerusalem he is called (Ch2 32:19), because that was the place he had chosen to put his name there, and because that was the place which was now threatened by the enemy and which the divine Providence had under its special protection. This proud blasphemer compared the great Jehovah, the Maker of heaven and earth, with the dunghill gods of the nations, the work of men's hands, and thought him no more able to deliver his worshippers than they were to deliver theirs (Ch2 32:19), as if an infinite and eternal Spirit had no more wisdom and power than a stone or the stock of a tree. He boasted of his triumphs over the gods of the nations, that they could none of them protect their people (Ch2 32:13-15), and thence inferred not only, How shall your God deliver you? (Ch2 32:14), but, as if he were inferior to them all, How much less shall your God deliver you? as if he were less able to help than any of them. Thus did they rail, rail in writing (which, being more deliberate, is so much the worse), on the Lord God of Israel, as if he were a cipher and an empty name, like all the rest, Ch2 32:17. Sennacherib, in the instructions he gave, said more than enough; but, as if his blasphemies had been too little, his servants, who learned insolence from their master, spoke yet more than he bade them against the Lord God and his servant Hezekiah, Ch2 32:16. And God resents what is said against his servants, and will reckon for it, as well as what is said against himself. All this was intended to frighten the people from their hope in God, which David's enemies sought to take him off from (Psa 11:1; Psa 42:10), saying, There is no help for him in God, Psa 3:2; Psa 71:11. Thus they hoped to take the city by weakening the hands of those that should defend it. Satan, in his temptations, aims to destroy our faith in God's all-sufficiency, knowing that he shall gain his point if he can do that; as we keep our ground if our faith fail not, Luk 22:32. II. The duty as well as the interest of the church's friends, and that is in the day of distress to pray and cry to Heaven. So Hezekiah did, and the prophet Isaiah, Ch2 32:20. It was a happy time when the king and the prophet joined thus in prayer. Is any troubled? Is any terrified? Let him pray. So we engage God for us; so we encourage ourselves in him. Praying to God is here called crying to Heaven, because we are, in prayer, to eye him as our Father in heaven, whence he beholds the children of men, and where he has prepared his throne. III. The power and goodness of the church's God. He is able both to control his enemies, be they ever so high, and to relieve his friends, be they ever so low. 1. As the blasphemies of his enemies engage him against them (Deu 32:27), so the prayers of his people engage him for them. They did so here. (1.) The army of the Assyrians was cut off by the sword of an angel, which triumphed particularly in the slaughter of the mighty men of valour, and the leaders and captains, who defied the sword of any man. God delights to abase the proud and secure. The Targum says, The Word of the Lord (the eternal Word) sent Gabriel to do this execution, and that it was done with lightning, and in the passover night: that was the night in which the angel destroyed the first-born of Egypt. But that was not all. (2.) The king of the Assyrians, having received this disgrace, was cut off by the sword of his own sons. Those that came forth of his own bowels slew him, Ch2 32:21. Thus was he mortified first, and then murdered - shamed first, and then slain. Evil pursues sinners; and, when they escape one mischief, they run upon another unseen. 2. By this work of wonder, (1.) God was glorified, as the protector of his people. Thus he saved Jerusalem, not only from the hand of Sennacherib, but from the hand of all others, Ch2 32:22; for such a deliverance as this was an earnest of much mercy in store; and he guided them, that is, he guarded them, on every side. God defends his people by directing them, shows them what they should do, and so saves them from what is designed or done against them. For this many brought gifts unto the Lord, when they saw the great power of God in the defence of his people. Strangers were thereby induced to supplicate his favour and enemies to deprecate his wrath, and both brought gifts to his temple, in token of their care and desire. (2.) Hezekiah was magnified as the favourite and particular care of Heaven. Many brought presents to him (Ch2 32:22, Ch2 32:23), in token of the honour they had for him, and to make an interest in him. By the favour of God enemies are lost and friends gained.

INTRODUCTION TO 2 CHRONICLES 32 This chapter relates Sennacherib's invasion of the land of Judah, the preparations Hezekiah made to resist him, and the encouragement he gave his people to trust in the Lord, Ch2 32:1 the messages and letters Sennacherib sent to Hezekiah and his subjects, full of arrogance and blasphemy, to solicit them to deliver up Jerusalem to him, Ch2 32:9 the destruction of his army by an angel, and the deliverance of the Jews at the prayers of Hezekiah and Isaiah, Ch2 32:20 the sin Hezekiah fell into after this, and his recovery from a fit of illness; but, upon his humiliation for it, wrath was averted, Ch2 32:24 and the chapter is concluded with an account of his honours, riches, and exploits, and of his death and burial, Ch2 32:27.

Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, whereon do ye trust,.... On what power in heaven or on earth? that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem? hold out against the siege of it, and do not deliver it up.

Sennacherib invades Judea, Ch2 32:1. Hezekiah takes proper measures for the defense of his kingdom, Ch2 32:2-6. His exhortation, Ch2 32:7, Ch2 32:8. Sennacherib sends a blasphemous message to Hezekiah, and to the people, Ch2 32:9-15. His servants rail against God; and he and they blaspheme most grievously, Ch2 32:16-19. Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah cry to God; he answers, and the Assyrians are destroyed, and Sennacherib is slain by his own sons, Ch2 32:20, Ch2 32:21. The Lord is magnified, Ch2 32:22, Ch2 32:23. Hezekiah's sickness and recovery, Ch2 32:24. His ingratitude, Ch2 32:25. His humiliation, Ch2 32:26. His riches, Ch2 32:27-30. His error relative to the Babylonish ambassadors, Ch2 32:31. His acts and death, Ch2 32:32, Ch2 32:33.

After this did Sennacherib - Having received the silver and gold mentioned above, he withdrew his army, but shortly after he sent Rab-shakeh with a blasphemous message. This is the fact mentioned here.

SENNACHERIB INVADES JUDAH. (2Ch. 32:1-20) After these things, and the establishment thereof--that is, the restoration of the temple-worship. The precise date is given, Kg2 18:13. Determined to recover the independence of his country, Hezekiah had decided to refuse to pay the tribute which his father had bound himself to pay to Assyria. Sennacherib . . . entered into Judah, and encamped against the fenced cities--The whole land was ravaged; the strong fortresses of Ashdod (Isa 20:1) and Lachish had fallen; the siege of Libnah had commenced, when the king of Judah, doubting his ability to resist, sent to acknowledge his fault, and offer terms of submission by paying the tribute. The commencement of this Assyrian war was disastrous to Hezekiah (Kg2 18:13). But the misfortunes of the early period of the war are here passed over, as the historian hastens to relate the remarkable deliverance which God wrought for His kingdom of Judah.

(See on 2Ki. 18:17-35; also 2Ki. 19:8-34).

The reign of Manasseh; cf. 2 Kings 21:1-18. - The characteristics of this king's reign, and of the idolatry which he again introduced, and increased in a measure surpassing all his predecessors (Ch2 33:1-9), agrees almost verbally with Kg2 21:1-9. Here and there an expression is rhetorically generalized and intensified, e.g., by the plurals לבּעלים and אשׁרות (Ch2 33:3) instead of the sing. לבּעל and אשׁרה (Kings), and בּנין (Ch2 33:6) instead of בּנו (see on Ch2 28:3); by the addition of וכשּׁף to ונחשׁ עונן, and of the name the Vale of Hinnom, Ch2 33:6 (see on Jos 15:18, גּי for גּיא); by heaping up words for the law and its commandments (Ch2 33:8); and other small deviations, of which הסּמל פּסל (Ch2 33:7) instead of האשׁרה פּסל (Kings) is the most important. The word סמל, sculpture or statue, is derived from Deu 4:16, but has perhaps been taken by the author of the Chronicle from Eze 8:3, where סמל probably denotes the statue of Asherah. The form עילום for עולם (Ch2 33:7) is not elsewhere met with.

The advance of an Assyrian army against Jerusalem, and the attempts of Sennacherib's generals to induce the population of the capital to submit by persuasive and threatening speeches, are very breifly narrated, in comparison with 2 Kings 18:17-36. In Ch2 32:9, neither the names of the Assyrian generals, nor the names of Hezekiah's ambassadors with whom they treated, are given; nor is the place where the negotiation was carried on mentioned. עבדיו, his servants, Sennacherib's generals. על־לך, while he himself lay near (or against) Lachish, and all the army of his kingdom with him. ממשׁלתּו, his dominion, i.e., army of his kingdom; cf. Jer 34:1. Ch2 32:10-12 Only the main ideas contained in the speech of these generals are reported; in Ch2 32:10-12 we have the attempt to shake the trust of the people in Hezekiah and in God (Kg2 18:19-22). וישׁבים is a continuation of the question, In what do ye trust, and why sit ye in the distress, in Jerusalem? מסּית as in Kg2 18:32 : Hezekiah seduces you, to give you over to death by hunger and thirst. This thought is much more coarsely expressed in Kg2 18:27. - On Ch2 32:12, cf. Kg2 18:22 : אחד מזבּח is the one altar of burnt-offering in the temple. Ch2 32:13-19 The description of Sennacherib's all-conquering power: cf. Kg2 18:35; Isa 36:20, and Isa 37:11-13. "Who is there among all the gods of these peoples, whom my fathers utterly destroyed, who could have delivered his people out of my hand, that your God should save you?" The idea is, that since the gods of the other peoples, which were mightier than your God, have not been able to save their peoples, how should your God be in a position to rescue you from my power? This idea is again repeated in Ch2 32:15, as a foundation for the exhortation not to let themselves be deceived and misled by Hezekiah, and not to believe his words, and that in an assertative form: "for not one god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people, ... much less then (כּי אף) your gods: they will not save you;" and this is done in order to emphasize strongly the blasphemy of the Assyrian generals against the Almighty God of Israel. To communicate more of these blasphemous speeches would in the chronicler's view be useless, and he therefore only remarks, in Ch2 32:16, "And yet more spake his (Sennacherib's) servants against God Jahve, and against His servant Hezekiah;" and then, in Ch2 32:17, that Sennacherib also wrote a letter of similar purport, and (Ch2 32:18) that his servants called with a loud voice in the Jews' speech to the people of Jerusalem upon the wall, to throw them into fear and terrify them, that they might take the city. What they called to the people is not stated, but by the infinit. וּלבהלם ליראם it is hinted, and thence we may gather that it was to the same effect as the blasphemous speeches above quoted (יראם, inf. Pi., as in Neh 6:19). - On comparing 2 Kings 18 and 19, it is clear that Sennacherib only sent the letter to Hezekiah after his general Rabshakeh had informed him of the fruitlessness of his efforts to induce the people of Jerusalem to submit by speeches, and the news of the advance of the Cushite king Tirhakah had arrived; while the calling aloud in the Jews' language to the people standing on the wall, on the part of his generals, took place in the first negotiation with the ambassadors of Hezekiah. The author of the Chronicle has arranged his narrative rhetorically, so as to make the various events form a climax: first, the speeches of the servants of Sennacherib; then the king's letter to Hezekiah to induce him and his counsellors to submit; and finally, the attempt to terrify the people in language intelligible to them. The conclusion is the statement, Ch2 32:19 : "They spake of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of the hands of man;" cf. Kg2 19:18.