Isaiah Chapter 37 verse 26 Holy Bible
Hast thou not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have I brought it to pass, that it should be thine to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
read chapter 37 in ASV
Has it not come to your ears how I did it long before, purposing it in times long past? Now I have given effect to my design, so that by you strong towns might be turned into masses of broken walls.
read chapter 37 in BBE
Hast thou not heard that long ago I did it, and that from ancient days I formed it? Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest lay waste fortified cities [into] ruinous heaps.
read chapter 37 in DARBY
Hast thou not heard long ago, how I have done it; and of ancient times, that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldest be to lay waste defenced cities into ruinous heaps.
read chapter 37 in KJV
read chapter 37 in WBT
Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? now have I brought it to pass, that it should be your to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps.
read chapter 37 in WEB
Hast thou not heard from afar? -- it I did, From days of old -- that I formed it. Now, I have brought it in, And it is to make desolate, Ruinous heaps -- fenced cities,
read chapter 37 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 26. - Hast thou not heard, etc.? An abrupt transition, such as is common in Isaiah. From speaking in the person of Sennacherib, the prophet without warning breaks off, and returns to speaking in the person of Jehovah, as his mouthpiece. "Hast thou not heard," he says, long ago; or rather, "that from long ago! have done this?" Art thou so ignorant, so devoid of that light of nature, which should "lighten every man that cometh into the world" (John 1:9), as not to know God's method of governing the world? How that "from long ago," in his eternal counsels, he designs the rise and fall of nations, and the mode in which their destruction is to be brought about? Art thou not aware that conquerors are mere instruments in God's hands - "the rods of his anger" (Isaiah 10:5) - to work his will, and then to have his will worked upon them in turn (see Isaiah 10:6-19)? Sennacherib seems to be really reproached for not knowing what he ought to have known, and might have known, if he had listened to the voice of conscience and reason. Now have brought it to pass, etc. All that Sennacherib had done, he had done as God's instrument, by his permission - nay, by his aid. He had been the axe in the hand of the hewer (Isaiah 10:15), the saw, the rod, the staff, of God's indignation (Isaiah 10:5), the executor of his vengeance. The very purpose of his being was that he should "lay waste (certain) defenced cities into ruinous heaps."
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(26) Hast thou not heard . . .--The speech of Sennacherib ends, and that of Jehovah begins. The adverb "long ago" should be connected with the words that follow. The events of history had all been foreseen and ordered, as in the remote past, by the counsels of Jehovah. Kings and armies were but as His puppets in the drama of the world's history. The words "hast thou not heard" suggest the thought that Isaiah assumes that Sennacherib had heard of his prophecies, or those of his fore-runners, as to the purposes of Jehovah--an assumption which, looking to the fact that he had ministers who were well acquainted with Hebrew (Isaiah 36:12), was in itself probable enough.
