2nd Kings Chapter 19 verse 35 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 35-37. - DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB'S HOST, AND HIS OWN VIOLENT DEATH AT NINEVEH. The sequel is told in a few words. That night destruction came down on the host of Sennacherib, as it lay en-camped at some distance from Jerusalem, silently and swiftly. Without noise, without disturbance, the sleeping men slept the sleep of death, and in the morning, when the survivors awoke, it was found that a hundred and eighty-five thousand were slain. Upon this, with the remnant of his army, Sennacherib hastily returned to Nineveh. There, some time after - about seventeen years according to our reckoning - a conspiracy was formed against him by two of his sons, who murdered him as he was worshipping in a temple, and fled into Armenia. Another son, Esarhaddon, succeeded. Verse 35. - And it came to pass that night. The important expression, "that night," is omitted from the narrative of Isaiah 37:36, but is undoubtedly an original portion of the present history. It can have no other meaning - as Keil and Bahr have seen - than "the night following the day on which Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah the deliverance of Jerusalem." God's word "runneth very swiftly." No sooner was the premise given than the destroying angel received his orders, and "that night" the terrible stroke fell. That the angel of the Lord went out; or, an angel (ἄγγελος Κυρίου, LXX.). We cannot say, with Bahr, that it was "the same one who smote the firstborn in Egypt, and inflicted the pestilence after the census under David." Revelation does not tell us that there is definitely one destroying angel. "The angel of death" is a rabbinical invention. It accords rather with the analogy of God's dealings that he should use at one time the services of one minister, at another time those of another. And smote. Imagination has been over-busy in conjecturing the exact manner of the smiting. Some critics have suggested pestilence, or more definitely "the plague" (Gesenius, Dathe, Maurer, Ewald, Winer, Thenins, Keil, etc.); others a terrible storm (Vitringa, Stanley); others the simoom (Prideaux, Milman); others a nocturnal attack by Tirhakah (Ussher, Preiss, Michaelis). Some of these the text altogether precludes, as the attack of Tirhakah, which must have aroused the whole host, and not left the disaster to be discovered by those who "awoke early in the morning." Others are improbable, as the simoom, or a terrible storm with thunder and lightning, which have never been known to accomplish such a destruction. Pestilence is no doubt possible, but a pestilence of a strange and miraculous character, to which men succumbed without awaking or disturbing others. But the narrative rather points to sudden and silent death during sleep, such as often happens to men in the course of nature singly, and here on this occasion was made to happen in one night to a hundred and eighty-five thousand men by the Divine omnipotence acting abnormally. In the camp of the Assyrians. The destruction was not only at one time, but in one place. "The camp of the Assyrians" cannot mean half a dozen camps situated in half a dozen different places, as Keil supposes. Sennacherib was somewhere with his main army, encamped for the night, and there, wherever it was, the blow fell. But the exact locality is uncertain. All that the narrative makes clear is that it was not in the immediate vicinity of Jerusalem. Herodotus places the catastrophe at Pelusium (2. 141). Bahr thinks it was probably before Libnah. I should incline to place it between Libnah and the Egyptian frontier, Sennacherib, when he heard that Tirhakah was coming against him (ver. 9), having naturally marched forward to meet and engage his army. A hundred four score and five thousand. These figures do not pretend to exactness, and can scarcely have been more than a rough estimate. They are probably the Assyrians' own estimate of their loss, which the Jews would learn from such of the fugitives as fell into their hands. And when they - i.e., the survivors - arose early in the morning, they - i.e. the hundred and eighty-five thousand - were all dead corpses - absolutely dead, that is; not merely sick or dying. The fact makes against the theory of a pestilence.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(35-37) THE CATASTROPHE. SENNACHERIB'S RETREAT, AND HIS "VIOLENT END.(35) And it came to pass (in) that night.--This definition of time is wanting in the parallel text; but it is implied by the phrase in the morning (Isaiah 37:36; 2Kings 19:35). The night intended can hardly be the one which followed the day when the prophecy was spoken (see 2Kings 19:29). The expression "in that night," may perhaps be compared with the prophetic "in that day," and understood to. mean simply "in that memorable night which was the occasion of this catastrophe." (Theuius sees in this clause an indication that the present section was derived from another source, probably from the one used by the chronicler in 2Chronicles 32:20-23. Reuss thinks this confirmed by the fact that neither the prediction in 2Kings 19:7, nor that of 2Kings 19:21-34, speaks of so great and so immediate an overthrow.) . . .