[560] Isa. xxxiii. 8.
[561] Isa. xx. 1.
[562] Jer. xxxix. 3. The meaning of the name is not certain. _Sarîs_, in Hebrew, is "eunuch"; but the word is not known in Assyrian records, and we should expect _Rabsarîsîm_, as in Dan. i. 3.
[563] Rabsak perhaps means _chief officer_ or vizier, and is Hebraised into Rabshakeh. Prof. G. A. Smith (_Isaiah_, p. 345) calls him "Sennacherib's Bismarck." Rabshakeh, usually rendered "chief cupbearer," is an Aramaised form of Rabsak (great chief); but we know of no chief cupbearer at the Assyrian court (Schrader, _K. A. T._, 199 f.).
[564] From an Apis-stêlê he seems to have reigned twenty-six years (B.C. 694-668?).
[565] Isa. xxii. 1-13.
[566] Eliakim. See Isa. xxii. 21, 22.
[567] "Vain words"; lit., "a word of the lips." LXX., λόγοι χειλέων.
[568] Comp. Isa. xxx. 1-7; Ezek. xxix. 6. It seems to be an over-refinement to suppose that Sennacherib refers to the divisions between Egypt and Ethiopia.
[569] 2 Kings xviii. 23, A.V.: "Let Hezekiah give pledges."
[570] Heb., _Arâmîth_.
[571] 2 Kings xviii. 28, where _stood_ should be rendered _came forward_.
[572] The coarse expression is softened down by the Chronicler (2 Chron. xxxii. 18).
[573] The kings of Assyria usually called themselves "great king, mighty king, king of the multitude, king of the land Assur."
[574] Every one must notice the glaring inconsistency between this _defiance_ of Jehovah and the previous claim to the possession of His sanction. On Hamath, Arpad, etc., see Schrader, ii. 7-10.
[575] Isa. xxxiii. 8: "He hath broken the covenant, he hath despised the cities, he regardeth no man."
[576] 1 Kings xx. 32; 2 Kings vi. 30.
[577] Sennacherib had already carried off vast numbers. See Isa. xxiv. 1-12; Demetrius _ap._ Clem. Alex., _Strom._, i. 403.
[578] Isaiah's phrase, _na'arî melek_, "lads of the king," is contemptuous. LXX., παιδάρια.
[579] Heb., _ruach_; LXX., δίδωμι ἐν αὐτῷ πνεῦμα. Theodoret calls this "spirit" _cowardice_ (τὴν δειλίαν οἶμαι δηλοῦν).
[580] Libnah means "whiteness." Dean Stanley (_S. and P._, 207, 258) identifies it with a white-faced hill, the Blanchegarde of the Crusaders.
[581] The dates usually given are Sabaco, B.C. 725-712; Shabatok, 712-698; Tirhakah, 698-672. Manetho, Τάραχος; Strabo, Τεράκων, ὁ Αἰθιώψ. He was third king of the twenty-fifth dynasty, and the greatest of the Egyptian sovereigns who came from Ethiopia. He reigned gloriously for many years. We see his figure at Medinet Abou, smiting ten captive princes with an iron mace; but he was finally defeated by Esarhaddon, and in 668 by Assurbanipal at Karbanit (Canopus). He is called by his conqueror "Tar-ku-u, King of Egypt and Cush" (Schrader, _K. A. T._, 336 ff.).
[582] Heb., _Sepharîm_; Vulg., _litteræ_; 2 Chron. xxxii. 17. The more ordinary term for a letter is _iggereth_.
[583] 2 Kings xix. 12 (Heb.); Ezek. xxvii. 23. On these places see Schrader, ii. 11, 12. It had been indeed Sennacherib's work "to reduce fenced cities to ruinous heaps." He boasts on the Bellino Cylinder, "Their smaller towns without number I overthrew, and reduced them to heaps of rubbish" (_Records of the Past_, i. 27).
[584] "It is a prayer without words, a prayer in action, which then passes into a spoken prayer" (Delitzsch).
[585] The Assyrians are sometimes represented in their monuments as hewing idols to pieces in honour of their god Assur (Botta, _Monum._, pl. 140).
[586] LXX., κινεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν, "a gesture of scorn" (Psalm xxii. 7, cix. 25; Lam. ii. 15). With the vaunts of Sennacherib compare Claudian, _De bell. Geth._, 526-532.
"Cum cesserit omnis Obsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostris Sub pedibus montes, _arescere vidimus amnes_ ... Fregi Alpes, _galeis Padum victricibus hausi_." KEIL, _ad loc._
[587] Comp. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 (Heb.); Psalm xxxix. 1; Isa. xxx. 28; Ezek. xxxviii. 4, xxix. 4. The Assyrians drove a ring through the lower lip, the Babylonians through the nose. See Rawlinson, _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 314, iii. 436.