Synopsis of the Chapter
Sennacherib invades Judea; Hezekiah with Isaiah invokes God; He sends an Angel who strikes down 185,000 Assyrians. Therefore Sennacherib flees and is killed by his sons. Then Hezekiah, becoming proud (v. 24), is struck with illness, but is healed by Isaiah; and after many prosperous deeds he dies and leaves as successor his impious son Manasseh.
Verse 1: After These Things and This Faithfulness ¶
1. AFTER THESE THINGS AND THIS FAITHFULNESS, SENNACHERIB CAME — that is to say, after these things truly accomplished by Hezekiah, and truly narrated by me, God, wishing to test, exercise, and perfect the piety, virtue, and confidence of Hezekiah that he had in God, permitted Sennacherib to come and invade Judea.
Verse 4: The Stream ¶
4. THE STREAM (the spring of Gihon, as is clear from verse 30) THAT FLOWED THROUGH THE MIDST OF THE LAND — namely, the land that lay adjacent to Jerusalem. That is to say, Hezekiah partly stopped up the waters, especially the spring of Gihon, so that the camp of Sennacherib would be exhausted by thirst; and partly he diverted them by digging through the rock into the cisterns of the city, so that the besieged Jews would have water for drinking and other uses. See the commentary on Sirach 48:19.
Verse 21: The Lord Sent an Angel ¶
21. THE LORD SENT AN ANGEL. — This history was corrupted by Herodotus in his Euterpe, who says that Sennacherib invaded Egypt, but was put to flight by a priest of Vulcan through the introduction of mice, which gnawed through the bows and arms of the Assyrians. For he substitutes Egypt for Judea, a priest for Hezekiah, Vulcan for God, and mice for the Angel. Moreover, Sennacherib himself was almost the only one preserved in such a great slaughter of his men, and therefore he was spared, says St. Jerome in his commentary on chapter 30 of Isaiah, so that he might know the power of God and his blaspheming mouths be stopped, and he might become a witness of that majesty which he had shortly before despised. Pharaoh also was preserved through the ten plagues of Egypt, so that he might be the last to perish — which this man also suffered." It was fitting that the man be punished by the most grievous loss of a very great and flourishing army, and of the greatest riches — a loss he would not have felt if he had perished in an instant with his own men. It was fitting that he undergo incredible disgrace among his own people, through whose fault or incompetence such a slaughter had struck the most powerful kingdom. It was fitting, finally, that he be consumed by a far more bitter death, to be inflicted in every way: for he was to be pierced, as it appears, by many sword blows, and by his own sons, and in a place consecrated to a divinity. So Salianus. There is no doubt that in this disaster the Rabshakeh was struck down and more severely tormented by the Angel, since he was a blasphemer against God and a reviler of Hezekiah. Moreover, Hezekiah and the Jews were enriched by the rich spoils of so many slain Assyrians.
HIS SONS (Adrammelech and Sharezer) KILLED HIM WITH THE SWORD. — Rabbi Solomon, and from him Lyranus, gives the reason that Sennacherib, wishing to appease the gods who had caused such a great slaughter, intended to sacrifice these two sons to them; but they, getting wind of it, forestalled their father and killed him. Moreover, Sennacherib, having received the blow in Judea, fled and returned to his Nineveh, where he raged against the Jews and killed many — so much so that Tobias, who was burying them, was stripped of all his goods and escaped death by fleeing, from which flight forty-three days later Sennacherib was killed by his sons. All these things are narrated in Tobit, chapter 1, verse 21 and following. St. Jerome passes on the same cause from Rabbi Solomon in the Traditions. And Serarius and Genebrardus in his Chronology report the same from the Hebrew text of Tobit, chapter 1.
Lyranus and Abulensis in 4 Kings chapter 15, question 31, bring another reason, namely that Sennacherib was killed by his two older sons because their father, passing them over, wished Esarhaddon, the younger, to be the successor to the kingdom. The Scholastic History attributes the reason for this choice to the love that Sennacherib had for the mother of Esarhaddon. This is thought to have been the same reason why Rehoboam long before preferred Abijah the son of Maacah over his other sons, as is clear from 2 Paralipomenon 11:21.
The truer and more certain reason is the one given by Theodoret in his commentary on 4 Kings, who says: "Because he had been driven by rage against God, who had made him, he was killed by those who had been begotten from him."
Verse 31: About the Portent ¶
31. ABOUT THE PORTENT — of the retrograde movement of the sun and the shadow on the sundial of Ahaz, about which I treated at length in Isaiah chapter 38.