Isaiah 37:26

26 Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have I brought it to pass, that it should be your to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

Isaiah 37:26 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 37:26

Hast thou not heard long ago?
&c.] By report, by reading the history of ancient times, or by means of the prophets; these are the words of the Lord to Sennacherib. The Targum adds,

``what I did to Pharaoh king of Egypt;''

it follows: how I have done it; and of ancient times that I have formed it?
meaning either the decree in his own breast from all eternity, and which he had published by his prophets, of raising up him, this wicked prince, to be the scourge of nations; or by the "it" are meant the people of the Jews, God's Israel, whom he had made, formed into a body politic, and into a church state, and had done great things for, in bringing them out of Egypt, leading them through the Red sea, providing for them, and protecting them in the wilderness, subduing nations under them, and settling them in the land of Canaan; now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste
defenced cities into ruinous heaps
^F20; which some render interrogatively, now should I bring, it to be laid waste, and fenced cities to be
ruinous heaps?
that is, the people of the Jews, the city of Jerusalem, and other fenced cities? no, I will not: or the meaning is, that that decree, which he had framed and formed in his own mind from all eternity, he was now bringing to pass; which was, that this king of Babylon should be a waster and destroyer of fortified cities, which he should reduce to heaps of ruin; wherefore he had no reason to vaunt as he had done, for he was only an instrument of executing the purposes and designs of God, though it was not in his heart, nor did he so mean.

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FOOTNOTES:

F20 (Myun Mylg) "in acervos et flores", "into heaps and flowers", that is, into heaps of dust, which being moved, and raised by the wind, fly away like flowers and blossoms of trees; so Gussetius, "in acervos volantes, aut ad volandum excitatos, scil. dum redacti in pulveres, magna ex parte, volant, excitati a ventis", Comment. Ebr. p. 502.

Isaiah 37:26 In-Context

24 By your servants have you defied the Lord, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots am I come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Levanon; and I will cut down the tall cedars of it, and the choice fir trees of it; and I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field;

25 I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet will I dry up all the rivers of Mitzrayim.

26 Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have I brought it to pass, that it should be your to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.

27 Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as a field [of grain] before it is grown up.

28 But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me.