2 Kings 19:29

29. A sign unto thee Unto Hezekiah; for the oracle of the prophet here turns to comfort Judah and Jerusalem.

Such things as grow of themselves The spontaneous growth which springs up from the leavings of the previous harvest. Compare Leviticus 25:5; Leviticus 25:11.

That which springeth of the same Hebrew, סחישׁ , sachish, which Furst defines as the “aftergrowth out of the roots of stocks in the second year after sowing.” Strabo (xi, 4, 3) says of Albania, “In many places the ground, which has once been sown, produces two or three crops, the first of which is even fiftyfold, and that without a fallow.” The same is true of various parts of Palestine.

The third year sow ye, and reap But if, as 2 Kings 19:35 implies, the Assyrian army was smitten soon after this prophecy of Isaiah, why should they wait till the third year to cultivate the soil? Some say that this year was a sabbatical year, and the second year the year of jubilee, during both of which, according to the law, (Leviticus 25:4; Leviticus 25:11,) no sowing or reaping was allowed. This supposition may be true, but it seems to us far more simple and satisfactory to understand this year as that of Sennacherib’s invasion, which was now near its close, but during which the Jews had been obliged to eat such things as grow of themselves; the next, or second year, came so soon after the retreat of the Assyrians, and found the land in so unsettled a state, that there could be no cultivation of the soil that year; and so it was not till the third year that they could sow and reap. And all this, as it came to pass, was to be a sign to Hezekiah and his people of their miraculous deliverance from Assyria. So the sign in this case was not to be a prophecy or pledge of any thing yet future, as that the Assyrians would retreat the third year, for when that year came, and long before, the Assyrians had retreated; but the sign was of the nature of a suggestive memorial a proof or testimonial of the Divine interposition in their behalf.