Isaiah 36:1

1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezeki'ah, Sennach'erib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

Isaiah 36:1 Meaning and Commentary

Isaiah 36:1

Now it came to pass in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah,
&c.] The following piece of history is inserted from the books of Kings and Chronicles, as an illustration of some preceding prophecies, and as a confirmation of them; see ( 2 Kings 18:13 ) ( 2 Chronicles 32:1 ) that Sennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the defenced
cities of Judah;
who in the Apocrypha:

``And if the king Sennacherib had slain any, when he was come, and fled from Judea, I buried them privily; for in his wrath he killed many; but the bodies were not found, when they were sought for of the king.'' (Tobit 1:18)

is said to be the son of Shalmaneser, as he certainly was his successor, who in the sixth year of Hezekiah, eight years before this, took Samaria, and carried the ten tribes captive, ( 2 Kings 18:10 2 Kings 18:11 ) he is called Sennacherib by Herodotus ^F3, who says he was king of the Arabians, and the Assyrians; who yet is blamed by Josephus ^F4, for not calling him the king of the Assyrians only of the Arabians, whereas he styles him both; and the same Josephus observes, that Berosus, a Chaldean writer, makes mention of this Sennacherib as king of Assyria; the same came up in a military way against the fortified cities of Judah, which were the frontier towns, and barriers of their country: and took them;
that is, some of them, not all of them; see ( Isaiah 37:8 ) , he thought indeed to have took them to himself, this was his intent, ( 2 Chronicles 32:1 ) , but was prevailed upon to desist, by a payment of three hundred talents of silver, and thirty talents of gold to him, by the king of Judah, ( 2 Kings 18:14-16 ) .

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FOOTNOTES:

F3 In Euterpe c. 141.
F4 Antiqu. Jud. l. 10. c. 1. sect. 4.

Isaiah 36:1 In-Context

1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezeki'ah, Sennach'erib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and took them.

2 And the king of Assyria sent the Rab'shakeh from Lachish to King Hezeki'ah at Jerusalem, with a great army. And he stood by the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the Fuller's Field.

3 And there came out to him Eli'akim the son of Hilki'ah, who was over the household, and Shebna the secretary, and Jo'ah the son of Asaph, the recorder.

4 And the Rab'shakeh said to them, "Say to Hezeki'ah, 'Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: On what do you rest this confidence of yours?

5 Do you think that mere words are strategy and power for war? On whom do you now rely, that you have rebelled against me?