rd

Isaiah 37

2 Hezekiáh asketh counsel of Isaiáh, who promiseth him the Victorie 10 The blasphemie of Saneherib 16 Hezekiáh’s prayer. 36 The armie of Saneherib is slayne of the Angel, 38 And he him self of his own sonnes.
1.And *when the King Hezekiáh heard it, he arent his clothes, and put on sackcloth and came into the House of the Lord.
2.And he sent Eliakím the steward of the house, and Shebná the chanceller, with the Elders of the Priests, clothed in sackcloth unto bIsaiáh the Prophet, the son of Amóz.
3.And they said unto him, Thus saith Hezekiáh, This day is a day of tribulacion and of rebuke and blasphemie: for the children are come to the cbirth, and there is no strength to bring forth.
4.If so be the Lord thy God hath dheard the words of Rabshakéh, whom the King of Asshúr his master hath sent to rail on the living God, & to reproach him with words which the Lord thy God hath heard, then elift thou up thy praier for the remnant that are left.
5.So the servants of the King Hezekiáh came to Isaiah.
6.And Isaiah said unto them, Thus say unto your master, Thus saith the Lord, Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith these servants of the King of Asshúr have blasphemed me.
7.Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a fnoise, and return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.
8.¶ So Rabshakéh returned, and found the King of Asshúr fighting against gLibnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachísh.
9.He heard also men say to Tarhakáh, King of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against thee: and when he heard it, he sent other messengers to Hezekiáh, saying,
10.Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiáh King of Judáh, saying, Let not thy God hdecieve thee, in whom thou trustest, saying, Jerusalém shall not be given into the hand of the King of Asshúr.
11.Behold, thou hast heard what the Kings of Asshúr have done to all lands in destroying them, and shalt thou be delivered?
12.Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed? as iGozán, and kHarán, and Rézeph, and the children of Eden, which were at Telassár?
13.Where is the King of Hamáth, and the King of Arpád, and the King of the city of Sepharváim, Hena, and Juáh?
14.¶ So Hezekiáh received the letter of the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up into the House of the Lord, and Hezekiáh spread it before the Lord.
15.And Hezekiáh prayed unto the Lord, saying,
16.O Lord of hostes, God of Israél, which idwellest between the Cherubims, thou art very God alone over all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made the heaven and the earth.
17.Encline thine ear, ô Lord, and hear: open thine eyes, ô Lord, and see, and hear all the words of Saneherib, who hath sent to blaspheme the living God.
18.Truth it is, ô Lord, that the Kings of Asshúr have destroyed all lands, and mtheir country,
19.And have cast their gods in the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of man’s hands, even wood or stone: therefore they destroyed them.
20.Now therefore, ô Lord our God, save thou us out of his hand, that nall the kingdoms of the earth may know, that thou only art the Lord.
21.¶ Then Isaiáh the son of Amóz sent unto Hezekiáh, saying, Thus saith the Lord God of Israél, Because thou hast prayed unto me, concerning Saneherib King of Asshúr,
22.This is the word that the Lord hath spoken against him, O ovirgin, daughter of Zión, he hath despised thee, & laughed thee to scorn: ô daughter of Jerusalém, he hath shaken his head at thee.
23.Whom hast thou railed on and blasphemed? and against whom hast thou exalted thy voice, and lifted up thine eyes on high? even against the pholy one of Israél.
24.By thy servants hast thou railed on the Lord, and said, By the multitude of my charets I am come up to the top of the mountains to the sides of Lebanón, and will cut down the high cedres thereof, and the fair fir trees thereof, and I will go up to the heights of his top and to the forest of his fruitful places.
25.I have digged qand dronke the waters, and with the plant of my feet have I dryed all the rivers closed in.
26.Hast thou not heard how I have of old time made it, rand have formed it long ago? and should I now bring it, that it should be destroyed, and layed on ruinous heaps, as cities defensed?
27.Whose inhabitants ^have small power, and are afraid and confounded: they are like the grass of the field and green herb, or grass on the house tops, or corn blasted safore it be grown.
28.But I know thy dwelling, and thy tgoing out, and thy coming in, and thy fury against me.
29.Because thou ragest against me, and thy tumult is come up unto mine ears, therefore will I put mine uhook in thy nostrils, and my bridle in thy lips, and will bring thee back again the same way thou xcamest.
30.And this shalbe a ysign unto thee, o Hezekiáh, Thou shalt eat this year such as groweth of it self, and the zsecond year, such things as grow without sowing: and in the third year, sow ye and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruit thereof.
31.And athe remnant that is escaped of the house of Judáh, shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.
32.For out of Jerusalém shall go a remnant, & they that escape out of mount Zión: the zeal of the Lord of hostes shall do this.
33.Therefore thus saith the Lord, concerning the King of Asshúr, He shall not enter into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a mount against it.
34.By the same way that he came, he shall return, and not come into this city, saith the Lord.
35.For I will defend this city to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant bDavid’s sake.
36.*Then the Angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of Asshúr an hundreth, four score, and five thousand: so when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.
37.So Saneheríb King of Asshúr departed, and went away and returned and dwelt at cNinevéh.
38.And as he was in the temple worshipping of Nisróch his god, Adramélech and Sharézer his sons slew him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of ^Ararát: and dEsarháddon his son reigned in his stead.

Notes

1-*.
2 Kings 19.1.
1-a.
In sign of grief and repentance.
2-M.
ac. 8.19.
2-b.
To have comfort of him by the word of God, that his faith might be confirmed and so his prayer be more earnest teaching hereby that in all dangers these two are the only remedies, to seek unto God & his ministers.
3-c.
We are in as great sorrow as a woman that travails of child, and can not be deliver.
4-d.
That is, will declare by effect that he has heard it for when God differs to punish, it seems to the flesh, that he knows not the sin, or hears not the cause.
4-e.
Declaring, that the minister’s office does not only stand in comforting by the word, but also in praying for the people.
7-f.
Of the Egyptians and Ethiopians, that shall come & fight against him.
8-g.
Which was a city toward Egypt, thinking thereby to have stayed the force of his enemies.
10-h.
Thus God would have him to utter a most horrible blaspheme before his destruction as to call the author of all truth, a deceiver, some gather hereby, that Shebnah had disclosed unto Saneherib the answer that Isaiah sent to the King.
12-i.
Which was a city of the Medes.
12-k.
Called also Charre a city in Mesopotamia, whence Abraham came after his father’s death.
16-l.
He grounded his prayer on God’s promise, who promised to hear them from between the Cherubims.
18-m.
Meaning, of the ten tribes.
20-n.
He declared for what cause he prayed, that they might be destroyed, to wit, that God might be glorified thereby through all the world.
22-o.
Whom God had chosen to himself, as a chaste virgin, and one whom he had care to preserve her from the lusts of tyrants, as a father would have over his daughter.
23-p.
Declaring hereby that they that are enemies to God’s Church, fight against him, whose quarrel his Church only maintains.
25-q.
He boasted of his policy, in that that he can find means to nourish his army and of his power, in that that his army is so great, that it is able to dry up whole rivers, and to destroy the waters, which the Jews had closed in.
26-r.
Signifying that God made not his Church to destroy it, but to preserve it, and therefore he says that he formed it of old, even in his eternal counsel, which can not be changed.
27-^.
Ebr., are short in hand.
27-s.
He shows that the state and power of most flourishing cities endures but a moment in respect of the Church, which shall remain for ever, because God is the maintainer thereof.
28-t.
Meaning, his counsels and enterprises.
29-u.
Because Saneherib showed himself, as a devouring fish and furious beast, he uses these similitudes, to teach how he will take him and guide him.
29-x.
You shall loose your labour.
30-y.
God gives signs after two sorts: some go before the thing, as the signs that Moses wrought in Egypt, which were for the confirmation of their faith: and some go after the thing, as the sacrifice, which they were commanded to make three days after their departure and these later are to keep the benefits of God in our remembrance, of the which sort this here is.
30-z.
He promises that for two years the ground of itself should feed them.
31-a.
They whom God had delivered out of the hands of the Assyrians, shall prosper, and this properly belongs to the Church.
35-b.
For my promise sake made to David.
36-*.
2 Kings 19.35, 2 Chron. 32.21, Tob. 1.21, Eccles. 48.22, 1 Mac. 7.41,
37-c.
Which was the chiefest city of the Assyrians.
38-^.
Or, Armenia.
38-d.
Who was also called Sardanapalus in whose days ten years after Saneherib’s death, the Chaldeans overcame the Assyrians by Merodath their King.