20 Then Isaiah, the son of Amoz, sent to Hezekiah, saying, The Lord, the God of Israel, says, The prayer which you have made to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, has come to my ears. 21 This is the word which the Lord has said about him: In the eyes of the virgin daughter of Zion you are shamed and laughed at; the daughter of Jerusalem has made sport of you. 22 Against whom have you said evil and bitter things? against whom has your voice been loud and your eyes lifted up? even against the Holy One of Israel. 23 You have sent your servants with evil words against the Lord, and have said, With all my war-carriages I have come up to the top of the mountains, to the inmost parts of Lebanon; its tall cedars will be cut down, and the best trees of its woods; I will come up into his highest places, into his thick woods. 24 I have made water-holes and taken their waters, and with my foot I have made all the rivers of Egypt dry. 25 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. 26 This is why their townsmen had no power, they were broken and put to shame; they were like the grass of the field and the green plant, like grass on the house-tops. 27 But I have knowledge of your getting up and your resting, of your going out and your coming in. 28 Because your wrath against me and your words of pride have come up to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my cord in your lips, and I will make you go back by the way you came. 29 And this will be the sign to you: you will get your food this year from what comes up of itself; and in the second year from the produce of the same; and in the third year you will put in your seed and get in the grain and make vine-gardens and take of their fruit. 30 And those of Judah who are still living will again take root in the earth and give fruit. 31 For from Jerusalem those who have been kept safe will go out, and those who are still living will go out of Mount Zion: by the fixed purpose of the Lord of armies this will be done. 32 For this cause the Lord says about the king of Assyria, He will not come into this town, or send an arrow against it; he will not come before it with arms, or put up an earthwork against it; 33 By the way he came he will go back, and he will not get into this town, says the Lord. 34 For I will keep this town safe, for my honour, and for the honour of my servant David.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on 2 Kings 19:20-34
Commentary on 2 Kings 19:20-34
(Read 2 Kings 19:20-34)
All Sennacherib's motions were under the Divine cognizance. God himself undertakes to defend the city; and that person, that place, cannot but be safe, which he undertakes to protect. The invasion of the Assyrians probably had prevented the land from being sown that year. The next is supposed to have been the sabbatical year, but the Lord engaged that the produce of the land should be sufficient for their support during those two years. As the performance of this promise was to be after the destruction of Sennacherib's army, it was a sign to Hezekiah's faith, assuring him of that present deliverance, as an earnest of the Lord's future care of the kingdom of Judah. This the Lord would perform, not for their righteousness, but his own glory. May our hearts be as good ground, that his word may strike root therein, and bring forth fruit in our lives.