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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 32:9 - 32:9
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
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 2Ch 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. עֲבָדָיו, his servants, Sennacherib's generals. עַל־לִך, while he himself lay near (or against) Lachish, and all the army of his kingdom with him. מֶמְשַׁלְתֹּו, his dominion, i.e., army of his kingdom; cf. Jer 34:1.
2Ch 32:10-12
Only the main ideas contained in the speech of these generals are reported; in 2Ch 32:10-12 we have the attempt to shake the trust of the people in Hezekiah and in God (2Ki 18:19-22). וְיֹשְׁבִים is a continuation of the question, In what do ye trust, and why sit ye in the distress, in Jerusalem? מַסִּית as in 2Ki 18:32 : Hezekiah seduces you, to give you over to death by hunger and thirst. This thought is much more coarsely expressed in 2Ki 18:27. - On 2Ch 32:12, cf. 2Ki 18:22 : אֶחָד מִזְבֵּחַ is the one altar of burnt-offering in the temple.
2Ch 32:13-19
The description of Sennacherib's all-conquering power: cf. 2Ki 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 2Ch 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 (כִּי אַף) 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 2Ch 32:16, “And yet more spake his (Sennacherib's) servants against God Jahve, and against His servant Hezekiah;” and then, in 2Ch 32:17, that Sennacherib also wrote a letter of similar purport, and (2Ch 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. וּלְבַהֲלָם לְיָֽרְאָם it is hinted, and thence we may gather that it was to the same effect as the blasphemous speeches above quoted (יָֽרְאָם, 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, 2Ch 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. 2Ki 19:18.