Isaiah 36

CHAPTER 36

:-. SENNACHERIB'S INVASION; BLASPHEMOUS SOLICITATIONS; HEZEKIAH IS TOLD OF THEM.

This and the thirty-seventh through thirty-ninth chapters form the historical appendix closing the first division of Isaiah's prophecies, and were added to make the parts of these referring to Assyria more intelligible. So :-; compare :-. The section occurs almost word for word (2 Kings 18:13; 2 Kings 18:17-20; 2 Kings 18:14-16; 2 Kings 19:1-37); 2 Kings 18:13- :, however, is additional matter. Hezekiah's "writing" also is in Isaiah, not in Kings (2 Kings 18:13- :). We know from 2 Kings 18:13- : that Isaiah wrote the acts of Hezekiah. It is, therefore, probable, that his record here (2 Kings 18:13- :) was incorporated into the Book of Kings by its compiler. Sennacherib lived, according to Assyrian inscriptions, more than twenty years after his invasion; but as Isaiah survived Hezekiah (2 Chronicles 32:32), who lived upwards of fifteen years after the invasion (2 Chronicles 32:32- :), the record of Sennacherib's death (2 Chronicles 32:32- :) is no objection to this section having come from Isaiah; 2 Chronicles 32:1-33 is probably an abstract drawn from Isaiah's account, as the chronicler himself implies (2 Chronicles 32:32). Pul was probably the last of the old dynasty, and Sargon, a powerful satrap, who contrived to possess himself of supreme power and found a new dynasty (see on Isaiah 36:2). No attempt was made by Judah to throw off the Assyrian yoke during his vigorous reign. The accession of his son Sennacherib was thought by Hezekiah the opportune time to refuse the long-paid tribute; Egypt and Ethiopia, to secure an ally against Assyria on their Asiatic frontier, promised help; Isaiah, while opposed to submission to Assyria, advised reliance on Jehovah, and not on Egypt, but his advice was disregarded, and so Sennacherib invaded Judea, 712 B.C. He was the builder of the largest of the excavated palaces, that of Koyunjik. HINCKS has deciphered his name in the inscriptions. In the third year of his reign, these state that he overran Syria, took Sidon and other Phoelignician cities, and then passed to southwest Palestine, where he defeated the Egyptians and Ethiopians (compare 2 Kings 18:21; 2 Kings 19:9). His subsequent retreat, after his host was destroyed by God, is of course suppressed in the inscriptions. But other particulars inscribed agree strikingly with the Bible; the capture of the "defensed cities of Judah," the devastation of the country and deportation of its inhabitants; the increased tribute imposed on Hezekiah—thirty talents of gold—this exact number being given in both; the silver is set down in the inscriptions at eight hundred talents, in the Bible three hundred; the latter may have been the actual amount carried off, the larger sum may include the silver from the temple doors, pillars, &c. (2 Kings 18:16).