2 Kings 19:21 - Exposition

This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him. "Him" is, of course, Sennacherib. It adds great liveliness and force to the opening portion of the oracle, that it should be addressed directly by Jehovah to Sennacherib, as an answer to his bold challenge. The only address at all similar in Scripture is that to Nebuchadnezzar ( Daniel 4:31 , Daniel 4:32 ), spoken by "a voice from heaven" But the present passage is one of far greater force and beauty. The virgin the daughter of Zion ; rather, the virgin daughter of Zion , or the virgin daughter , Zion . Cities were commonly personified by the sacred writers, and represented as "daughters" (see Isaiah 23:10 , Isaiah 23:12 ; Isaiah 47:1 , Isaiah 47:5 , etc.). "Virgin daughter" here may perhaps represent "the consciousness of impregnability" (Drechsler); but the phrase seems to have been used rhetorically or poetically, to heighten the beauty or pathos of the picture ( Isaiah 23:12 ; Isaiah 47:1 ; Jeremiah 46:11 ; Lamentations 2:13 ), without any reference to the question whether the particular city had or had not been previously taken. Jerusalem certainly had been taken by Shishak ( 1 Kings 14:26 ), and by Joash ( 2 Kings 14:13 ); but Zion, if it be taken as the name of the eastern city (Bishop Patrick, ad lee.), may have been still a "virgin fortress." Hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn ; or, despises thee and laughs thee to scorn . The Hebrew preterite has often a present sense. Whatever was the case a little while ago (see Isaiah 22:1-14 ), the city now laughs at thy threats. The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee ; or, wags her head at thee—in scorn and ridicule (comp. Psalms 22:7 ).