{"commentary":{"id":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","website":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamieson-Fausset-Brown_Bible_Commentary","licenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/","licenseNotes":null,"licenseNotice":null,"englishName":"Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary","language":"eng","textDirection":"rtl","sha256":"db3d4c8b3c1f32ef9d1430a57392e02bda3a17aac1f9bbe398461de021a3cb13","availableFormats":["json"],"listOfBooksApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/books.json","listOfProfilesApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/profiles.json","numberOfBooks":66,"totalNumberOfChapters":1187,"totalNumberOfVerses":17056,"totalNumberOfProfiles":0,"languageName":"English","languageEnglishName":"English"},"book":{"id":"ISA","commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","name":"Isaiah","commonName":"Isaiah","introduction":"ISAIAH, son of Amoz (not Amos); contemporary of Jonah, Amos, Hosea, in Israel, but younger than they; and of Micah, in Judah. His call to a higher degree of the prophetic office (Isa 6:1-13) is assigned to the last year of Uzziah, that is, 754 B.C. The first through fifth chapters belong to the closing years of that reign; not, as some think, to Jotham's reign: in the reign of the latter he seems to have exercised his office only orally, and not to have left any record of his prophecies because they were not intended for all ages. The first through fifth and sixth chapters are all that was designed for the Church universal of the prophecies of the first twenty years of his office. New historical epochs, such as occurred in the reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah, when the affairs of Israel became interwoven with those of the Asiatic empires, are marked by prophetic writings. The prophets had now to interpret the judgments of the Lord, so as to make the people conscious of His punitive justice, as also of His mercy. Isa. 7:1-10:4 belong to the reign of Ahaz. The thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters are historical, reaching to the fifteenth year of Hezekiah; probably the tenth through twelfth chapters and all from the thirteenth through twenty-sixth chapters, inclusive, belong to the same reign; the historical section being appended to facilitate the right understanding of these prophecies; thus we have Isaiah's office extending from about 760 to 713 B.C., forty-seven years. Tradition (Talmud) represents him as having been sawn asunder by Manasseh with a wooden saw, for having said that he had seen Jehovah (Exo 33:20; Kg2 21:16; Heb 11:37). Ch2 32:32 seems to imply that Isaiah survived Hezekiah; but \"first and last\" is not added, as in Ch2 26:22, which makes it possible that his history of Hezekiah was only carried up to a certain point. The second part, the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters, containing complaints of gross idolatry, needs not to be restricted to Manasseh's reign, but is applicable to previous reigns. At the accession of Manasseh, Isaiah would be eighty-four; and if he prophesied for eight years afterwards, he must have endured martyrdom at ninety-two; so Hosea prophesied for sixty years. And Eastern tradition reports that he lived to one hundred and twenty. The conclusive argument against the tradition is that, according to the inscription, all Isaiah's prophecies are included in the time from Uzziah to Hezekiah; and the internal evidence accords with this.\n\nHis WIFE is called the prophetess [Isa 8:3], that is, endowed, as Miriam, with a prophetic gift.\n\nHis CHILDREN were considered by him as not belonging merely to himself; in their names, Shearjashub, \"the remnant shall return\" [Isa 7:3, Margin], and Maher-shalal-hash-baz, \"speeding to the spoil, he hasteth to the prey\" [Isa 8:1, Margin], the two chief points of his prophecies are intimated to the people, the judgments of the Lord on the people and the world, and yet His mercy to the elect.\n\nHis GARMENT of sackcloth (Isa 20:2), too, was a silent preaching by fact; he appears as the embodiment of that repentance which he taught.\n\nHis HISTORICAL WORKS.--History, as written by the prophets, is retroverted prophecy. As the past and future alike proceed from the essence of God, an inspired insight into the past implies an insight into the future, and vice versa. Hence most of the Old Testament histories are written by prophets and are classed with their writings; the Chronicles being not so classed, cannot have been written by them, but are taken from historical monographs of theirs; for example, Isaiah's life of Uzziah, Ch2 26:22; also of Hezekiah, Ch2 32:32; of these latter all that was important for all ages has been preserved to us, while the rest, which was local and temporary, has been lost.\n\nThe INSCRIPTION (Isa 1:1) applies to the whole book and implies that Isaiah is the author of the second part (the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters), as well as of the first. Nor do the words, \"concerning Judah and Jerusalem\" [Isa 1:1], oppose the idea that the inscription applies to the whole; for whatever he says against other nations, he says on account of their relation to Judah. So the inscription of Amos, \"concerning Israel\" [Amo 1:1], though several prophecies follow against foreign nations. EWALD maintains that the fortieth through sixty-sixth chapters, though spurious, were subjoined to the previous portion, in order to preserve the former. But it is untrue that the first portion is unconnected with those chapters. The former ends with the Babylonian exile (Isa 39:6), the latter begins with the coming redemption from it. The portion, the fortieth through forty-sixth chapters, has no heading of its own, a proof that it is closely connected with what precedes, and falls under the general heading in Isa 1:1. JOSEPHUS (The Antiquities of the Jews, 11. 1, sec. 1, 2) says that Cyrus was induced by the prophecies of Isaiah (Isa 44:28; Isa 45:1, Isa 45:13) to aid the Jews in returning and rebuilding the temple Ezr 1:1-11 confirms this; Cyrus in his edict there plainly refers to the prophecies in the second portion, which assign the kingdoms to him from Jehovah, and the duty of rebuilding the temple. Probably he took from them his historical name Cyrus (Coresh). Moreover, subsequent prophets imitate this second portion, which EWALD assigns to later times; for example, compare Jer. 50:1-51:64 with Isaiah's predictions against Babylon [Isa. 13:1-14:23]. \"The Holy One of Israel,\" occurring but three times elsewhere in the Old Testament [Kg2 19:22; Psa 78:41; Psa 89:18; Jer 50:29; Jer 51:5], is a favorite expression in the second, as in the first portion of Isaiah: it expresses God's covenant faithfulness in fulfilling the promises therein: Jeremiah borrows the expression from him. Also Ecclesiasticus 48:22-25 (\"comforted\"), quotes Isa 40:1 as Isaiah's. Luk 4:17 quotes Isa 61:1-2 as Isaiah's, and as read as such by Jesus Christ in the synagogue.\n\nThe DEFINITENESS of the prophecies is striking: As in the second portion of isaiah, so in Mic 4:8-10, the Babylonian exile, and the deliverance from it, are foretold a hundred fifty years before any hostilities had arisen between Babylon and Judah. On the other hand, all the prophets who foretell the Assyrian invasion coincide in stating, that Judah should be delivered from it, not by Egyptian aid, but directly by the Lord. Again Jeremiah, in the height of the Chaldean prosperity, foretold its conquest by the Medes, who should enter Babylon through the dry bed of the Euphrates on a night of general revelry. No human calculation could have discovered these facts. EICHORN terms these prophecies \"veiled historical descriptions,\" recognizing in spite of himself that they are more than general poetical fancies. The fifty-third chapter of Isaiah was certainly written ages before the Messiah, yet it minutely portrays His sufferings: these cannot be Jewish inventions, for the Jews looked for a reigning, not a suffering, Messiah.\n\nRationalists are so far right that THE PROPHECIES ARE ON A GENERAL BASIS whereby they are distinguished from soothsaying. They rest on the essential idea of God. The prophets, penetrated by this inner knowledge of His character, became conscious of the eternal laws by which the world is governed: that sin is man's ruin, and must be followed by judgment, but that God's covenant mercy to His elect is unchangeable. Without prophetism, the elect remnant would have decreased, and even God's judgments would have missed their end, by not being recognized as such: they would have been unmeaning, isolated facts. Babylon was in Isaiah's days under Assyria; it had tried a revolt unsuccessfully: but the elements of its subsequent success and greatness were then existing. The Holy Ghost enlightened his natural powers to discern this its rise; and his spiritual faculties, to foresee its fall, the sure consequence, in God's eternal law, of the pride which pagan success generates--and also Judah's restoration, as the covenant-people, with whom God, according to His essential character, would not be wroth for ever. True conversion is the prophet's grand remedy against all evils: in this alone consists his politics. Rebuke, threatening, and promise, regularly succeed one another. The idea at the basis of all is in Isa 26:7-9; Lev 10:3; Amo 3:2.\n\nThe USE OF THE PRESENT AND PRETERITE in prophecy is no proof that the author is later than Isaiah. For seers view the future as present, and indicate what is ideally past, not really past; seeing things in the light of God, who \"calls the things that are not as though they were.\" Moreover, as in looking from a height on a landscape, hills seem close together which are really wide apart, so, in events foretold, the order, succession, and grouping are presented, but the intervals of time are overlooked. The time, however, is sometimes marked (Jer 25:12; Dan 9:26). Thus the deliverance from Babylon, and that effected by Messiah, are in rapid transition grouped together by THE LAW OF PROPHETIC SUGGESTION; yet no prophet so confounds the two as to make Messiah the leader of Israel from Babylon. To the prophet there was probably no double sense; but to his spiritual eye the two events, though distinct, lay so near, and were so analogous, that he could not separate them in description without unfaithfulness to the picture presented before him. The more remote and antitypical event, however, namely, Messiah's coming, is that to which he always hastens, and which he describes with far more minuteness than he does the nearer type; for example, Cyrus (compare Isa 45:1 with Isa 53:1-12). In some cases he takes his stand in the midst of events between, for example, the humiliation of Jesus Christ, which he views as past, and His glorification, as yet to come, using the future tense as to the latter (compare Isa 53:4-9 with Isa 53:10-12). Marks of the time of events are given sparingly in the prophets: yet, as to Messiah, definitely enough to create the general expectation of Him at the time that He was in fact born.\n\nThe CHALDÆISMS alleged against the genuineness of the second portion of Isaiah, are found more in the first and undoubted portion. They occur in all the Old Testament, especially in the poetical parts, which prefer unusual expressions, and are due to the fact that the patriarchs were surrounded by Chaldee-speaking people; and in Isaiah's time a few Chaldee words had crept in from abroad.\n\nHis SYMBOLS are few and simple, and his poetical images correct; in the prophets, during and after the exile, the reverse holds good; Haggai and Malachi are not exceptions; for, though void of bold images, their style, unlike Isaiah's, rises little above prose: a clear proof that our Isaiah was long before the exile.\n\nOf VISIONS, strictly so called, he has but one, that in the sixth chapter; even it is more simple than those in later prophets. But he often gives SIGNS, that is, a present fact as pledge of the more distant future; God condescending to the feebleness of man (Isa 7:14; Isa 37:30; Isa 38:7).\n\nThe VARIETIES IN HIS STYLE do not prove spuriousness, but that he varied his style with his subject. The second portion is not so much addressed to his contemporaries, as to the future people of the Lord, the elect remnant, purified by the previous judgments. Hence its tenderness of style, and frequent repetitions (Isa 40:1): for comforting exhortation uses many words; so also the many epithets added to the name of God, intended as stays whereon faith may rest for comfort, so as not to despair. In both portions alike there are peculiarities characteristic of Isaiah; for example, \"to be called\" equivalent to to be: the repetition of the same words, instead of synonyms, in the parallel members of verses; the interspersing of his prophecies with hymns: \"the remnant of olive trees,\" &c., for the remnant of people who have escaped God's judgments. Also compare Isa 65:25 with Isa 11:6.\n\nThe CHRONOLOGICAL ARRANGEMENT favors the opinion that Isaiah himself collected his prophecies into the volume; not Hezekiah's men, as the Talmud guesses from Pro 25:1. All the portions, the dates of which can be ascertained, stand in the right place, except a few instances, where prophecies of similar contents are placed together: with the termination of the Assyrian invasion (the thirty-sixth through thirty-ninth chapters) terminated the public life of Isaiah. The second part is his prophetic legacy to the small band of the faithful, analogous to the last speeches of Moses and of Jesus Christ to His chosen disciples.\n\nThe EXPECTATION OF MESSIAH is so strong in Isaiah, that JEROME To Paulinus calls his book not a prophecy, but the gospel: \"He is not so much a prophet as an evangelist.\" Messiah was already shadowed forth in Gen 49:10, as the Shiloh, or tranquillizer; also in Psalms 2, 45, 72, 110. Isaiah brings it out more definitely; and, whereas they dwelt on His kingly office, Isaiah develops most His priestly and prophetic office; the hundred tenth Psalm also had set forth His priesthood, but His kingly rather than, as Isaiah, His suffering, priesthood. The latter is especially dwelt on in the second part, addressed to the faithful elect; whereas the first part, addressed to the whole people, dwells on Messiah's glory, the antidote to the fears which then filled the people, and the assurance that the kingdom of God, then represented by Judah, would not be overwhelmed by the surrounding nations.\n\nHis STYLE (HENGSTENBERG, Christology of the Old Testament,) is simple and sublime; in imagery, intermediate between the poverty of Jeremiah and the exuberance of Ezekiel. He shows his command of it in varying it to suit his subject.\n\nThe FORM is mostly that of Hebrew poetical parallelism, with, however, a freedom unshackled by undue restrictions.\n\nJUDAH, the less apostate people, rather than Israel, was the subject of his prophecies: his residence was mostly at Jerusalem. On his praises, see Ecclesiasticus 48:22-25. Christ and the apostles quote no prophet so frequently. \n\n\n\nNext: Isaiah Chapter 1\n\n","order":23,"numberOfChapters":66,"sha256":"05afbc35163ce25bd06467062226b36d66e6285d8ca85b4815540db57d9466be","firstChapterNumber":1,"firstChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/1.json","firstChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":1},"lastChapterNumber":66,"lastChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/66.json","lastChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":66},"totalNumberOfVerses":1200},"chapter":{"number":37,"content":[{"type":"verse","number":2,"content":["unto Isaiah--implying the importance of the prophet's position at the time; the chief officers of the court are deputed to wait on him (compare Kg2 22:12-14).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":3,"content":["rebuke--that is, the Lord's rebuke for His people's sins (Psa 149:7; Hos 5:9). \n\nblasphemy--blasphemous railing of Rab-shakeh. \n\nthe children, &c.--a proverbial expression for, We are in the most extreme danger and have no power to avert it (compare Hos 13:13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":4,"content":["hear--take cognizance of (Sa2 16:12). \n\nreprove--will punish him for the words, &c. (Psa 50:21). \n\nremnant--the two tribes of the kingdom of Judah, Israel being already captive. Isaiah is entreated to act as intercessor with God.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":6,"content":["servants--literally, \"youths,\" mere lads, implying disparagement, not an embassy of venerable elders. The Hebrew is different from that for \"servants\" in Isa 37:5. \n\nblasphemed me-- (Isa 36:20).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":7,"content":["blast--rather, \"I will put a spirit (Isa 28:6; Kg1 22:23) into him,\" that is, so influence his judgment that when he hears the report (Isa 37:9, concerning Tirhakah), he shall return [GESENIUS]; the \"report\" also of the destruction of his army at Jerusalem, reaching Sennacherib, while he was in the southwest of Palestine on the borders of Egypt, led him to retreat. \n\nby the sword-- (Isa 37:38).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":8,"content":["returned--to the camp of his master. \n\nLibnah--meaning \"whiteness,\" the Blanche-garde of the Crusaders [STANLEY]. EUSEBIUS and JEROME place it more south, in the district of Eleutheropolis, ten miles northwest of Lachish, which Sennacherib had captured (see on Isa 36:2). Libnah was in Judea and given to the priests (Ch1 6:54, Ch1 6:57).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":9,"content":["Tirhakah--(See on Isa 17:12; Isa 18:6). Egypt was in part governed by three successive Ethiopian monarchs, for forty or fifty years: Sabacho, Sevechus, and Tirhakah. Sevechus retired from Lower Egypt owing to the resistance of the priests, whereupon Sethos, a prince-priest, obtained supreme power with Tanis (Zoan in Scripture), or Memphis, as his capital. The Ethiopians retained Upper Egypt under Tirhakah, with Thebes as the capital. Tirhakah's fame as a conqueror rivalled that of Sesostris; he, and one at least, of the Pharaohs of Lower Egypt, were Hezekiah's allies against Assyria. The tidings of his approach made Sennacherib the more anxious to get possession of Jerusalem before his arrival. \n\nsent-- Kg2 19:9 more fully expresses Sennacherib's eagerness by adding \"again.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":10,"content":["He tries to influence Hezekiah himself, as Rab-shakeh had addressed the people. \n\nGod . . . deceive--(Compare Num 23:19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":11,"content":["all lands-- (Isa 14:17). He does not dare to enumerate Egypt in the list.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":12,"content":["Gozan--in Mesopotamia, on the Chabour (Kg2 17:6; Kg2 18:11). Gozan is the name of the district, Chabour of the river. \n\nHaran--more to the west. Abraham removed to it from Ur (Gen 11:31); the Carroe of the Romans. \n\nRezeph--farther west, in Syria. \n\nEden--There is an ancient village, Adna, north of Baghdad. Some think Eden to be the name of a region (of Mesopotamia or its vicinity) in which was Paradise; Paradise was not Eden itself (Gen 2:8). \"A garden in Eden.\" \n\nTelassar--now Tel-afer, west of Mosul [LAYARD]. Tel means a \"hill\" in Arabic and Assyrian names.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":13,"content":["Hena . . . Ivah--in Babylonia. From Ava colonists had been brought to Samaria (Kg2 17:24).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":14,"content":["spread--unrolled the scroll of writing. God \"knows our necessities before we ask Him,\" but He delights in our unfolding them to Him with filial confidence (Ch2 20:3, Ch2 20:11-13).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":16,"content":["dwellest--the Shekinah, or fiery symbol of God's presence, dwelling in the temple with His people, is from shachan, \"to dwell\" (Exo 25:22; Psa 80:1; Psa 99:1). \n\ncherubim--derived by transposition from either a Hebrew root, rachab, to \"ride\"; or rather, barach, to \"bless.\" They were formed out of the same mass of pure gold as the mercy seat itself (Exo 25:19, Margin). The phrase, \"dwellest between the cherubim,\" arose from their position at each end of the mercy seat, while the Shekinah, and the awful name, JEHOVAH, in written letters, were in the intervening space. They are so inseparably associated with the manifestation of God's glory, that whether the Lord is at rest or in motion, they always are mentioned with Him (Num 7:89; Psa 18:10). (1) They are first mentioned (Gen 3:24) \"on the edge of\" (as \"on the east\" may be translated) Eden; the Hebrew for \"placed\" is properly to \"place in a tabernacle,\" which implies that this was a local tabernacle in which the symbols of God's presence were manifested suitably to the altered circumstances in which man, after the fall, came before God. It was here that Cain and Abel, and the patriarchs down to the flood, presented their offerings: and it is called \"the presence of the Lord\" (Gen 4:16). When those symbols were removed at the close of that early patriarchal dispensation, small models of them were made for domestic use, called, in Chaldee, \"seraphim\" or \"teraphim.\" (2) The cherubim, in the Mosaic tabernacle and Solomon's temple, were the same in form as those at the outskirts of Eden: compound figures, combining the distinguishing properties of several creatures: the ox, chief among the tame and useful animals; the lion among the wild ones; the eagle among birds; and man, the head of all (the original headship of man over the animal kingdom, about to be restored in Jesus Christ, Psa 8:4-8, is also implied in this combination). They are, throughout Scripture, represented as distinct from God; they could not be likenesses of Him which He forbade in any shape. (3) They are introduced in the third or gospel dispensation (Rev 4:6) as \"living creatures\" (not so well translated \"beasts\" in English Version), not angels, but beings closely connected with the redeemed Church. So also in Eze. 1:5-25; 10:1-22. Thus, throughout the three dispensations, they seem to be symbols of those who in every age should officially study and proclaim the manifold wisdom of God. \n\nthou alone--literally, \"Thou art He who alone art God of all the kingdoms\"; whereas Sennacherib had classed Jehovah with the heathen gods, he asserts the nothingness of the latter and the sole lordship of the former.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":17,"content":["ear . . . eyes--singular, plural. When we wish to hear a thing we lend one ear; when we wish to see a thing we open both eyes.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":18,"content":["have laid waste--conceding the truth of the Assyrian's allegation (Isa 36:18-20), but adding the reason, \"For they were no gods.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":19,"content":["cast . . . gods into . . . fire--The policy of the Assyrians in order to alienate the conquered peoples from their own countries was, both to deport them elsewhere, and to destroy the tutelary idols of their nation, the strongest tie which bound them to their native land. The Roman policy was just the reverse.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":20,"content":["The strongest argument to plead before God in prayer, the honor of God (Exo 32:12-14; Psa 83:18; Dan 9:18-19).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":21,"content":["Whereas thou hast prayed to me--that is, hast not relied on thy own strength but on Me (compare Kg2 19:20). \"That which thou hast prayed to Me against Sennacherib, I have heard\" (Psa 65:2).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":22,"content":["Transition to poetry: in parallelism. \n\nvirgin . . . daughter--honorable terms. \"Virgin\" implies that the city is, as yet, inviolate. \"Daughter\" is an abstract collective feminine personification of the population, the child of the place denoted (see on Isa 23:10; Isa 1:8). Zion and her inhabitants. \n\nshaken . . . head--in scorn (Psa 22:7; Psa 109:25; Mat 27:39). With us to shake the head is a sign of denial or displeasure; but gestures have different meanings in different countries (Isa 58:9; Eze 25:6; Zep 2:15).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":23,"content":["Whom--not an idol.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":24,"content":["said--virtually. Hast thou within thyself? \n\nheight--imagery from the Assyrian felling of trees in Lebanon (Isa 14:8; Isa 33:9); figuratively for, \"I have carried my victorious army through the regions most difficult of access, to the most remote lands.\" \n\nsides--rather, \"recesses\" [G. V. SMITH]. \n\nfir trees--not cypresses, as some translate; pine foliage and cedars are still found on the northwest side of Lebanon [STANLEY]. \n\nheight of . . . border--In Kg2 19:23, \"the lodgings of his borders.\" Perhaps on the ascent to the top there was a place of repose or caravansary, which bounded the usual attempts of persons to ascend [BARNES]. Here, simply, \"its extreme height.\" \n\nforest of . . . Carmel--rather, \"its thickest forest.\" \"Carmel\" expresses thick luxuriance (see on Isa 10:18; Isa 29:17).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":25,"content":["digged, and drunk water--In Kg2 19:24, it is \"strange waters.\" I have marched into foreign lands where I had to dig wells for the supply of my armies; even the natural destitution of water there did not impede my march. \n\nrivers of . . . besieged places--rather, \"the streams (artificial canals from the Nile) of Egypt.\" \"With the sole of my foot,\" expresses that as soon as his vast armies marched into a region, the streams were drunk up by them; or rather, that the rivers proved no obstruction to the onward march of his armies. So Isa 19:4-6, referring to Egypt, \"the river--brooks of defense--shall be dried up.\" HORSLEY, translates the Hebrew for \"besieged places,\" \"rocks.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":26,"content":["Reply of God to Sennacherib. \n\nlong ago--join, rather, with \"I have done it.\" Thou dost boast that it is all by thy counsel and might: but it is I who, long ago, have ordered it so (Isa 22:11); thou wert but the instrument in My hands (Isa 10:5, Isa 10:15). This was the reason why \"the inhabitants were of small power before thee\" (Isa 37:27), namely, that I ordered it so; yet thou art in My hands, and I know thy ways (Isa 37:28), and I will check thee (Isa 37:29). Connect also, \"I from ancient times have arranged ('formed') it.\" However, English Version is supported by Isa 33:13; Isa 45:6, Isa 45:21; Isa 48:5.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":27,"content":["Therefore--not because of thy power, but because I made them unable to withstand thee. \n\ngrass--which easily withers (Isa 40:6; Psa 37:2). \n\non . . . housetops--which having little earth to nourish it fades soonest (Psa 129:6-8). \n\ncorn blasted before it be grown up--SMITH translates, \"The cornfield (frail and tender), before the corn is grown.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":28,"content":["abode--rather, \"sitting down\" (Psa 139:2). The expressions here describe a man's whole course of life (Deu 6:7; Deu 28:6; Kg1 3:7; Psa 121:8). There is also a special reference to Sennacherib's first being at home, then going forth against Judah and Egypt, and raging against Jehovah (Isa 37:4).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":29,"content":["tumult--insolence. \n\nhook in . . . nose--Like a wild beast led by a ring through the nose, he shall be forced back to his own country (compare Job 41:1-2; Eze 19:4; Eze 29:4; Eze 38:4). In a bas-relief of Khorsabad, captives are led before the king by a cord attached to a hook, or ring, passing through the under lip or the upper lip, and nose.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":30,"content":["Addressed to Hezekiah. \n\nsign--a token which, when fulfilled, would assure him of the truth of the whole prophecy as to the enemy's overthrow. The two years, in which they were sustained by the spontaneous growth of the earth, were the two in which Judea had been already ravaged by Sennacherib (Isa 32:10). Thus translate: \"Ye did eat (the first year) such as groweth of itself, and in the second year that . . . but in this third year sow ye,\" &c., for in this year the land shall be delivered from the foe. The fact that Sennacherib moved his camp away immediately after shows that the first two years refer to the past, not to the future [ROSENMULLER]. Others, referring the first two years to the future, get over the difficulty of Sennacherib's speedy departure, by supposing that year to have been the sabbatical year, and the second year the jubilee; no indication of this appears in the context.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":31,"content":["remnant--Judah remained after the ten tribes were carried away; also those of Judah who should survive Sennacherib's invasion are meant.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":33,"content":["with shields--He did come near it, but was not allowed to conduct a proper siege. \n\nbank--a mound to defend the assailants in attacking the walls.\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":34,"content":["(See Isa 37:29, Isa 37:37; Isa 29:5-8).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":35,"content":["I will defend--Notwithstanding Hezekiah's measures of defense (Ch2 32:3-5), Jehovah was its true defender. \n\nmine own sake--since Jehovah's name was blasphemed by Sennacherib (Isa 37:23). \n\nDavid's sake--on account of His promise to David (Psa 132:17-18), and to Messiah, the heir of David's throne (Isa 9:7; Isa 11:1).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":36,"content":["Some attribute the destruction to the agency of the plague (see on Isa 33:24), which may have caused Hezekiah's sickness, narrated immediately after; but Isa 33:1, Isa 33:4, proves that the Jews spoiled the corpses, which they would not have dared to do, had there been on them infection of a plague. The secondary agency seems, from Isa 29:6; Isa 30:30, to have been a storm of hail, thunder, and lightning (compare Exo 9:22-25). The simoon belongs rather to Africa and Arabia than Palestine, and ordinarily could not produce such a destructive effect. Some few of the army, as Ch2 32:21 seems to imply, survived and accompanied Sennacherib home. HERODOTUS (2.141) gives an account confirming Scripture in so far as the sudden discomfiture of the Assyrian army is concerned. The Egyptian priests told him that Sennacherib was forced to retreat from Pelusium owing to a multitude of field mice, sent by one of their gods, having gnawed the Assyrians' bow-strings and shield-straps. Compare the language (Isa 37:33), \"He shall not shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields,\" which the Egyptians corrupted into their version of the story. Sennacherib was as the time with a part of his army, not at Jerusalem, but on the Egyptian frontier, southwest of Palestine. The sudden destruction of the host near Jerusalem, a considerable part of his whole army, as well as the advance of the Ethiopian Tirhakah, induced him to retreat, which the Egyptians accounted for in a way honoring to their own gods. The mouse was the Egyptian emblem of destruction. The Greek Apollo was called Sminthian, from a Cretan word for \"a mouse,\" as a tutelary god of agriculture, he was represented with one foot upon a mouse, since field mice hurt corn. The Assyrian inscriptions, of course, suppress their own defeat, but nowhere boast of having taken Jerusalem; and the only reason to be given for Sennacherib not having, amidst his many subsequent expeditions recorded in the monuments, returned to Judah, is the terrible calamity he had sustained there, which convinced him that Hezekiah was under the divine protection. RAWLINSON says, In Sennacherib's account of his wars with Hezekiah, inscribed with cuneiform characters in the hall of the palace of Koyunjik, built by him (a hundred forty feet long by a hundred twenty broad), wherein even the Jewish physiognomy of the captives is portrayed, there occurs a remarkable passage; after his mentioning his taking two hundred thousand captive Jews, he adds, \"Then I prayed unto God\"; the only instance of an inscription wherein the name of GOD occurs without a heathen adjunct. The forty-sixth Psalm probably commemorates Judah's deliverance. It occurred in one \"night,\" according to Kg2 19:35, with which Isaiah's words, \"when they arose early in the morning,\" &c., are in undesigned coincidence. \n\nthey . . . they--\"the Jews . . . the Assyrians.\"\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":37,"content":["dwelt at Nineveh--for about twenty years after his disaster, according to the inscriptions. The word, \"dwelt,\" is consistent with any indefinite length of time. \"Nineveh,\" so called from Ninus, that is, Nimrod, its founder; his name means \"exceedingly impious rebel\"; he subverted the existing patriarchal order of society, by setting up a system of chieftainship, founded on conquest; the hunting field was his training school for war; he was of the race of Ham, and transgressed the limits marked by God (Gen 10:8-11, Gen 10:25), encroaching on Shem's portion; he abandoned Babel for a time, after the miraculous confusion of tongues and went and founded Nineveh; he was, after death, worshipped as Orion, the constellation (see on Job 9:9; Job 38:31).\n\n"]},{"type":"verse","number":38,"content":["Nisroch--Nisr, in Semitic, means \"eagle;\" the termination och, means \"great.\" The eagle-headed human figure in Assyrian sculptures is no doubt Nisroch, the same as Asshur, the chief Assyrian god; the corresponding goddess was Asheera, or Astarte; this means a \"grove,\" or sacred tree, often found as the symbol of the heavenly hosts (Saba) in the sculptures, as Asshur the Eponymus hero of Assyria (Gen 10:11) answered to the sun or Baal, Belus, the title of office, \"Lord.\" This explains \"image of the grove\" (Kg2 21:7). The eagle was worshipper by the ancient Persians and Arabs. \n\nEsar-haddon--In Ezr 4:2 he is mentioned as having brought colonists into Samaria. He is also thought to have been the king who carried Manasseh captive to Babylon (Ch2 33:11). He built the palace on the mound Nebbiyunus, and that called the southwest palace of Nimroud. The latter was destroyed by fire, but his name and wars are recorded on the great bulls taken from the building. He obtained his building materials from the northwest palaces of the ancient dynasty, ending in Pul.\n\n\n\n\nNext: Isaiah Chapter 38\n\n"]}],"introduction":"CONTINUATION OF THE NARRATIVE IN THE THIRTY-SIXTH CHAPTER. (Isa. 37:1-38)\n\nsackcloth--(See on Isa 20:2). \n\nhouse of the Lord--the sure resort of God's people in distress (Psa 73:16-17; Psa 77:13).\n\n"},"thisChapterLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/37.json","thisChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":37},"nextChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/38.json","nextChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":38},"previousChapterApiLink":"/api/c/jamieson-fausset-brown/ISA/36.json","previousChapterReference":{"commentaryId":"jamieson-fausset-brown","book":"ISA","chapter":36},"numberOfVerses":34}