Isaiah 36

PART 7.

Prophecies Fulfilled in Hezekiah’s Fourteenth Year, and Redemption of the People of Jehovah, chaps. 36-39.

THE FIRST ASSYRIAN ATTEMPT TO COMPEL THE SURRENDER OF JERUSALEM, chapters 36, 37.

The first part in the series of Isaiah’s visions closed with the preceding chapter, and the next four chapters form an historical appendix to it. They relate chiefly to Sennacherib’s invasion and the slaughter of his host; to Hezekiah’s sickness and miraculous recovery; and to the friendly intercourse between him and the king of Babylon. Isaiah’s authorship cannot justly be questioned. With unimportant additions, the same narrative is found in 2 Kings 18:13 to 2 Kings 20:19, which, with fair reasons, may be considered as prepared subsequently to this account in Isaiah. Two reasons, among many others, may be stated. First, the account in this place is marked almost throughout with the prophetic style and additions, and not with the annalistic style; and, second, there is express, though incidental, testimony to this end in 2 Chronicles 32:0, where substantially the same main facts are related; the passage in point is chapter 2 Chronicles 32:32: “Now the rest of the acts of Hezekiah, and his goodness, behold they are written in the visions of Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz, and in the book of the kings of Judah and Israel.”