nose, and my bridle into thy lips, and bring thee back by the way by which thou hast come.” The words are still addressed to the Assyrian, of whom the Lord inquires whether he does not know that the destructive deeds performed by him had been determined very long before. “Hast thou not heart?” namely, what follows, what the Lord had long ago made known through His prophets in Judah (cf. Isa 7:7-9; Isa 8:1-4 and Isa 8:7, etc.). למרחוק, from distant time have I done it, etc., refers to the divine ordering and governing of the events of the universe, which God has purposed and established from the very beginning of time. The pronoun אתהּ, and the suffixes attached to יצרתּיה and הביאתיה, do not refer with vague generality to the substance of 2Ki 19:23 and 2Ki 19:24, i.e., to the boastings of the Assyrians quoted there (Drechsler), but to להשׁות וּתהי, i.e., to the conquests and devastations which the Assyrian had really effected. The ו before יצרתיה introduces the apodosis, as is frequently the case after a preceding definition of time (cf. Ges. §155, a). להשׁות וּתהי, “that it may be to destroy” (להשׁות, a contraction of להשׁאות, Keri and Isaiah, from שׁאה; see Ewald, §73, c., and 245, b.), i.e., that it shall be destroyed, - according to a turn which is very common in Isaiah, like לבער היה, it is to burn = it shall be burned (cf. Isa 5:5; Isa 6:13; Isa 44:15, and Ewald, §237, c.). The rendering given by Ges., Knob., Then., and others, “that thou mayest be for destruction,” is at variance with this usage.
Verses 26-28
2Ki 19:26-28 2Ki 19:26 is closely connected, so far as the sense is concerned, with the last clause of 2Ki 19:25, but in form it is only loosely attached: “and their inhabitants were,” instead of “that their inhabitants might be.” יד קצרי, of short hand, i.e., without power to offer a successful resistance (cf. Num 11:23, and Isa 50:2; Isa 59:1). - They were herbage of the field, etc., just as perishable as the herbage, grass, etc., which quickly fade away (cf. Psa 37:2; Psa 90:5-6; Isa 40:6). The grass of the roofs fades still more quickly, because it cannot strike deep roots (cf. Psa 129:6). Blighted corn before the stalk, i.e., corn which is blighted and withered up, before it shoots up into a stalk. In Isaiah we have שׁדמה instead of שׁדפה, with a change of the labials, probably for the purpose of preserving an assonance with קמה, which must not therefore be altered into שׁדמה. The thought in the two verses is this: The Assyrian does not owe his victories and conquests to his irresistible might, but purely to the fact that God had long ago resolved to deliver the nations into his hands, so that
