Isaiah 22:2 - Exposition

A joyous city (comp. Isaiah 22:13 ). Thy slain men are not slain with the sword. It is a blockade rather than a siege. Men die, not of wounds, but of privations ( Lamentations 4:9 ). Sennacherib himself says, "Hezekiah, like a caged bird, within Jerusalem, his royal city, I confined; towers round about him I raised; and the exit of the great gate of his city I shut".