come. In 2Ki 19:33 we have 2Ki 19:28 taken up again, and 2Ki 19:32 is repeated in 2Ki 19:33 for the purpose of strengthening the promise. Instead of בּהּ יבוא we have in Isaiah בּהּ בּא: “by which he has come.” The perfect is actually more exact, and the imperfect may be explained from the fact that Sennacherib was at that very time advancing against Jerusalem. In 2Ki 19:34 we have אל גּנּותי instead of the על גּנּותי of Isaiah: על is more correct than אל. “For my sake,” as Hezekiah had prayed in v. 19; and “for my servant David’s sake,” because Jehovah, as the unchangeably true One, must fulfil the promise which He gave to David (sees at 1Ki 11:13).
Verse 35
2Ki 19:35The fulfilment of the divine promise. - 2Ki 19:35. “It came to pass in that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the army of the Assyrian 185,000 men; and when they (those that were left, including the king) rose up in the morning, behold there were they all (i.e., all who had perished) dead corpses,” i.e., they had died in their sleep. מתים is added to strengthen פּגרים: lifeless corpses. ההוּא בּלּילה is in all probability the night following the day on which Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah the deliverance of Jerusalem. Where the Assyrian army was posted at the time when this terrible stroke fell upon it is not stated, since the account is restricted to the principal fact. One portion of it was probably still before Jerusalem; the remainder were either in front of Libnah (2Ki 19:8), or marching against Jerusalem. From the fact that Sennacherib’s second embassy (2Ki 19:9.) was not accompanied by a body of troops, it by no means follows that the large army which had come with the first embassy (2Ki 18:17) had withdrawn again, or had even removed to Libnah on the return of Rabshakeh to his king (2Ki 19:8). The very opposite may be inferred with much greater justice from 2Ki 19:32. And the smiting of 185,000 men by an angel of the Lord by no means presupposes that the whole of Sennacherib’s army was concentrated at one spot. The blow could certainly fall upon the Assyrians wherever they were standing or were encamped. The “angel of the Lord” is the same angel that smote as המּשׁחית the first-born of Egypt (Exo 12:23, compared with Exo 12:12 and Exo 12:13), and inflicted the pestilence upon Israel after the numbering of the people by David (2Sa 24:15-16). The last passage renders the conjecture a very probable one, that the slaying of the Assyrians was also effected by a terrible pestilence. But
