2 Kings 19:35

SMITING AND FLIGHT OF THE ASSYRIANS SENNACHERIB’S DEATH, 2 Kings 19:35-37.

That night Apparently the night that succeeded the day on which Isaiah sent his oracle to Hezekiah.

The angel of the Lord went out A supernatural minister of Jehovah’s will, as the one whom, in David’s time, Jehovah sent to scatter deadly pestilence upon Israel. 2 Samuel 24:15-16, notes. Josephus says, that in this case God sent upon the Assyrian army a pestilential plague, ( λοιμικην νοσον ,) and some interpreters assume that the angel of the Lord is a Hebraism for a destructive pestilence. It is very possible that the angel made use of plague or pestilence in his work of destruction, but there is no need of confounding the angel with the plague. There is no more improbability in Jehovah’s using superhuman beings than the Assyrian army to execute his judgments, and the numbers slain on this occasion clearly evidence a preternatural stroke of Divine vengeance.

Smote in the camp of the Assyrians “Where this overthrow took place, whether before Jerusalem, or at Libnah, or at some intervening point, has been disputed, and cannot be determined, in the absence of all data, monumental or historical. Throughout the sacred narrative it seems to be intentionally left uncertain whether Jerusalem was besieged at all whether Sennacherib, in person, ever came before it; whether his army was divided or united when the stroke befel them, and also what proportion of the host escaped. It is enough to know that one hundred and eighty-five thousand men perished in a single night.” Alexander.

When they arose When the survivors arose.

All dead corpses The one hundred and eighty-five thousand had perished while asleep. It is interesting in this connexion to note that this preternatural stroke against the Assyrian army is also recorded in legendary form in profane history. Herodotus relates (ii, 141): “As the two armies [Egyptian and Assyrian] lay opposite one another, there came in the night a multitude of field mice which devoured all the quivers and bowstrings of the enemy, [Assyrians,] and ate the thongs by which they managed their shields. Next morning they commenced their flight, and great multitudes fell, as they had no arms with which to defend themselves.”

36. Sennacherib… departed For Jehovah had put his hook in his nose, (2 Kings 19:28,) and led him back, like a strayed bull, to the place whence he had broken loose.

Returned, and dwelt at Nineveh “The murder of the disgraced Sennacherib ‘within fifty-five days’ of his return to Nineveh, seems to be an invention of the Alexandrian Jew who wrote the Book of Tobit, (i, 21.) The total destruction of the empire in consequence of the blow, is an exaggeration of Josephus, ( Antiquities, 2 Kings 10:2 ; 2 Kings 10:2,) rashly credited by some moderns. Sennacherib did not die till seventeen years after this misfortune; and the empire suffered so little that we find Esar-haddon, a few years later, in full possession of all the territory that any king before him had ever held, ruling from Babylonia to Egypt. Even Sennacherib himself was not prevented by his calamity from undertaking important wars during the latter part of his reign.” RAWLINSON, Ancient Monarchies, vol. ii, p. 169