3 and they say unto him, `Thus said Hezekiah -- A day of distress, and rebuke, and despising `is' this day; for come have sons unto the birth, and power there is not to bring forth.
Favour us, O Jehovah, favour us, For greatly have we been filled with contempt, Greatly hath our soul been filled With the scorning of the easy ones, With the contempt of the arrogant!
When a pregnant woman cometh near to the birth, She is pained -- she crieth in her pangs, So we have been from Thy face, O Jehovah. We have conceived, we have been pained. We have brought forth as it were wind, Salvation we do not work in the earth, Nor do the inhabitants of the world fall.
Surely thus said Jehovah: A voice of trembling we have heard, Fear -- and there is no peace. Ask, I pray you, and see, is a male bringing forth? Wherefore have I seen every man, His hands on his loins, as a travailing woman, And all faces have been turned to paleness? Wo! for great `is' that day, without any like it, Yea, a time of adversity it `is' to Jacob, Yet out of it he is saved.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » John Gill's Exposition of the Bible » Commentary on 2 Kings 19
Commentary on 2 Kings 19 John Gill's Exposition of the Bible
INTRODUCTION TO 2 KINGS 19
This chapter relates that King Hezekiah, on a report made to him of Rabshakeh's speech, sent a message to the prophet Isaiah to pray for him, who returned him a comfortable and encouraging answer, 2 Kings 19:1 and that upon Rabshakeh's return to the king of Assyria, he sent to Hezekiah a terrifying letter, 2 Kings 19:8, which Hezekiah spread before the Lord, and prayed unto him to save him and his people out of the hands of the king of Assyria, 2 Kings 19:14, to which he had a gracious answer sent him by the prophet Isaiah, promising him deliverance from the Assyrian army, 2 Kings 19:20, which accordingly was destroyed by an angel in one night, and Sennacherib fleeing to Nineveh, was slain by his two sons, 2 Kings 19:35.
And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it,.... The report of Rabshakeh's speech, recorded in the preceding chapter:
that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth; rent his clothes because of the blasphemy in the speech; and he put on sackcloth, in token of mourning, for the calamities he feared were coming on him and his people: and he went into the house of the Lord; the temple, to pray unto him. The message he sent to Isaiah, with his answer, and the threatening letter of the king of Assyria, Hezekiah's prayer upon it, and the encouraging answer he had from the Lord, with the account of the destruction of the Assyrian army, and the death of Sennacherib, are the same "verbatim" as in Isaiah 37:1 throughout; and therefore the reader is referred thither for the exposition of them; only would add what RauwolffF20Travels, par. 3. ch. 22. p. 317. observes, that still to this day (1575) there are two great holes to be seen, wherein they flung the dead bodies (of the Assyrian army), one whereof is close by the road towards Bethlehem, the other towards the right hand against old Bethel.