2 Kings 19:22 - Exposition

Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? i.e. "Against whom hast thou been mad enough to measure thyself? Whom hast thou dared to insult and defy?" Not an earthly king—not a mere angelic being—but the Omnipotent, the Lord of earth and heaven. What utter folly is this! What mere absurdity? And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice? i.e. "spoken proudly"—in the tone in which a superior speaks of an inferior— and lifted up thine eyes on high? — i.e. "looked down upon"—treated with contempt, as not worth consideration— even against the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah's favorite phrase—used by him twenty-seven times, and only five times in the rest of Scripture—marks this entire prophecy as his genuine utterance, net the composition of the writer of Kings, but a burst of sudden inspiration from the Coryphaeus of the prophetic band. The oracle bears all the marks of Isaiah's elevated, fervid, and highly poetic style.