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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 King 19:14 - 19:14
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Hezekiah's prayer. - 2Ki 19:14. Hezekiah took the letter, read it, went into the temple and spread it out before Jehovah, to lay open its contents before God. The contents of the letter are given in 2Ki 19:10-13 in the form of the message which the ambassadors delivered to Hezekiah from their king, because the ambassadors communicated to Hezekiah by word of mouth the essential contents of the writing which they conveyed, and simply handed him the letter as a confirmation of their words. סְפָרִים, like litterae, means a letter; hence the singular suffix attached to וַיִּפְרְשֵׂהוּ, whereas in the case of וַיִּקְרָאֵם, which stands nearer, the suffix follows the number of the noun to which it refers. The spreading out of the letter before God was an embodiment of the wish, which sprang from a child-like and believing trust, that the Lord would notice and punish that defiance of the living God which it contained. What Hezekiah meant by this action he expressed in the following prayer.
2Ki 19:15
In opposition to the delusion of the Assyrians, he describes Jehovah, the God of Israel, as the only God of all the kingdoms of the earth, since He was the Creator of heaven and earth. הַכְּרֻבִים יֹשֵׁב (see at 1Sa 4:4 and Exo 25:22) indicates the covenant-relation into which Jehovah, the almighty Creator and Ruler of the whole world, had entered towards Israel. As the covenant God who was enthroned above the cherubim the Lord was bound to help His people, if they turned to Him with faith in the time of their distress and entreated His assistance; and as the only God of all the world He had the power to help. In Isaiah, צְבָאֹות, which is very rare in historical prose, but very common in prophetical addresses, is added to the name יְהֹוָה, and thus Jehovah at the very outset is addressed as the God of the universe. On the meaning of צְבָאֹות, see at 1Sa 1:3. On הָאֱלֹהִים הוּא אַתָּה, see 2Sa 7:28 and 1Ki 18:39.
2Ki 19:16
The accumulation of the words, “bow down Thine ear, Jehovah, and hear; open, Jehovah, Thine eyes and see, and hear the words,” etc., indicates the earnestness and importunity of the prayer. The plural עֵינֵיךָ by the side of the singular אָזְנְךָ is the correct reading, since the expression “to incline the ear” is constantly met with (Psa 17:6; Psa 31:3; Psa 45:11, etc.); and even in the plural, “incline ye your ear” (Psa 78:1; Isa 55:3), and on the other hand “to open the eyes” (Job 27:19; Pro 20:13; Zec 12:4; Dan 9:18), because a man always opens both eyes to see anything, whereas he turns one ear to a person speaking. The עֵינֶךָ of Isaiah is also plural, though written defectively, as the Masora has already observed. The suffix in שְׁלָחֹו, which is wanting in Isaiah, belongs to אֲשֶׁר, and refers with this to דִּבְרֵי in the sense of speech: the speech which Sennacherib had made in his letter.
2Ki 19:17-19
After the challenge, to observe the blasphemies of Sennacherib, Hezekiah mentions the fact that the Assyrians have really devastated all lands, and therefore that it is not without ground that they boast of their mighty power; but he finds the explanation of this in the impotence and nothingness of the gods of the heathen. אָמְנָם, truly, indeed - the kings of Asshur have devastated the nations and their land. Instead of this we find in Isaiah: “they have devastated all lands and their (own) land” - which is evidently the more difficult and also the more original reading, and has been altered in our account, because the thought that the Assyrians had devastated their own land by making war upon other lands, that is to say, had depopulated it and thereby laid it waste, was not easy to understand. “And have cast their gods into the fire, for they are not gods, but works of human hands, wood and stone, and have thus destroyed them.” Hezekiah does not mention this as a sign of the recklessness of the Assyrians (Knobel), but, because Sennacherib had boasted that the gods of no nation had been able to resist him (vv. 12, 13), to put this fact in the right light, and attach thereto the prayer that Jehovah, by granting deliverance, would make known to all the kingdoms of the earth that He alone was God. Instead of וְנָתְנוּ we have in Isaiah וְנָתֹון, the inf. absol.; in this connection the more difficult and more genuine reading. This also applies to the omission of אֱלֹהִים (2Ki 19:19) in Isa 37:20, since the use of Jehovah as a predicate, “that Thou alone art Jehovah,” is very rare, and has therefore been misunderstood even by Gesenius. By the introduction of Elohim, the thought “that Thou Jehovah art God alone” is simplified.