2 Kings 19:7 - Exposition

Behold, I will send a blast upon him. The meaning is doubtful. Most modern critics translate, with the LXX ; "I will put a spirit within him," and understand "a spirit of cowardice," or "a despondent mood" (Thenius), or "an extraordinary impulse of Divine inspiration, which is to hurry him blindly on" (Drechsler). But the idea of our translators, that the blast ( רוּה ) is external, and sent upon him, not put in him—that, in fact, the destruction of his army is referred to, seems defensible by such passages as Exodus 15:8 and Isaiah 25:4 . The prophecy was, no doubt, intentionally vague—enough for its immediate purpose, which was to comfort and strengthen Hezekiah—but not intended to gratify man's curiosity by revealing the exact mode in which God would work. And he shall hear a rumor ; literally, he shall hear a hearsay ; i.e. he shall be told something, which shall determine him on a hasty retreat. It is best, I think, to understand, not news of Tirhakah's advance (Knobel, Keil, Bahr), much less news of an insurrection in some other part of the empire (Cheyne), but information of the disaster to his army. It is no objection to this that Sennacherib was "with his army." No doubt he was. But he would learn the catastrophe from the mouth of some one who came into his tent and told him—he would "hear a hearsay" And shall return to his own land (see verse 36), and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land. (On Sennacherib's murder, see the comment upon verse 37.)