The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 342

things as grow of themselves. The Aaeyrle.n omitting "of hosts;" and this is probably invasion, coming e1i.rly in the spring, e.e was the rigU reading. The meaning is that ueuo.l, ho.d prevented the Iara.elites from God's 2.ee.lous love and care for his people ■owing their le.ode. But they would soon will effect their corn plete restoration to be gone, and theu the Israelites could gather prosperity and glory, clifficult as it was at in such self-sown corn as they might find in the time to imagine such a restoration. the oorn-le.nds. The next year, probo.bly e. Ver. 32.-Therefore thus saith the Lord sabbe.tice.l yee.r, they were authorized to do concerning the King of ABByria. The oracle the so.me, notwithste.nding the general pro- concludes with e. general announcement, hibition (Lev. xxv. 5); the third year they e.ddreesed to all whom it may concern, not would return to their normal condition. to any one individually, concerning the The sign was not given with reference to existing distress. First, it is laid dowu Sennacherib's depe.rtnre, which belonged to what shall not be the issue. He-i.e. the first year, and must take place before Benne.cherib-she.11 not come into-rather, the ingathering of the self-sown corn could unto-this oity-i.e. Jerusalem-nor shoot begin, but with reference to the promise an arrow there-i.e. he shall not begin the that Jel'use.lem should be free from e.ny e.ttack, as was usually done, with discharges further e.tte.ck on his part. Sennacherib of arrows, to clear the we.Us of their reigned seventeen years longer, but led no defenclers, ancl make it safe for the sappers further expedition into Palestine. And in and miners ancl the siege a1tillery to draw the seoond year that which apringeth of the near-nor come before it with shield-i.e. same; and in the third year sow ye, and advance close, to raise the scaling-ladders, reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits or mine the walls, or fire the gates, under thereof. the protection of huge shields-nor oast 11, Ver. 30.-And the remnant that is esoaped bank age.inst it. Much less shall he pro- of the hoUBe of J'udah. Sennacherib, who ceed to the last extremity of raising mounds in his first expedition had carried away out against the we.lie, and planting upon them of Judma 200,150 prisoners (' Eponym his balislm and his battering-rams, with the Co.non.' p. 184, line 12), had in his second object of effecting e. breach. Each of the probably done coneidere.ble damage to the successive stages of a siege is touched, and towns in the south-west of Palestine- negatived. None of these things shall be Lachish, for instance, which was a city of done. There she.II be no siege. (For Judah (Josh. xv. 89; eh. xiv. 19). The representations of the Assyrian sieges, open country had been wasted, great banks, and engines, see Laye.rd, 'Monu- numbers killed, and many probably carried ments of Nineveh,' second series, plates off by fa.mine and pestilence. Thus both 21, 81, 89, 48, etc.; e.nd Re.wlinson, 'An- Hezekiah (ver. 4) and Iee.ie.h regard the cient Monarchies,' vol. i p. 803; vol ii. population still in the land as e. mere p. 81.) "1·emnant." She.11 yet age.in take root Ver. 88.-By the way that he co.me, by downward-i.e. be firmly fixed and estab- the same shall he return (see ver. 28). lished in the land, like e. vigorous tree Not merely, "he shall foil of his object" ihat strikes its roots into the soil deeply- (Bahr, Keil), "he shall return disap- and bear fruit upward; i.e. exhibit all the pointed;" but, literally, he shall retrace outward signs of prosperity.' Tile reign of his steps, he shall qnit Palestine by the Josiah, when the Jewish dowinion em- same route by which he entered it-the braced the whole of Palestine ( eh. xxiii. coast route along the maritime plain, which 15-20), was the special fulfilment of this left Jerusalem on the right at a <lisle.nee of prophecy. forty miles. And she.11 not come into- Ver. 31.-For out of Jerusalem shall go rather, unto-this oity, saith the Lord. An forth a remnant. The me.rob of Senna- emphatic ending (comp. Isa. xxii. 14; cherib e.nd the raid of Rabshakeh had xiv. 18; liv. 17; lv. 8; lix. 20; lxv. 25; driven the mass of the escaped population lxvi. 21, 28). of J udrea to take refuge within the walls of Ver. 84.-For I will defend this oity, to Jeruse.Jem, from which, on the retireweut save it-not merely with e. view of saving of the invaders, they would gladly "go it, but in such sort e.s effectually to save it forth," to rooultive.te their le.nds (ver. 29) -for mine own sake-i.e. because wy own and restore their ruined homes. And they honour is concerned in its preservRtion. that escape-rather, that shall escape-out especially after the taunts of Sennacherib of Mount Zion-" Mount Zion" is a variant (oh. xviii. 82-35; xix. 10-13}-e.nd for for Jerusalem, 11s in vcr. 21, and in Isaiah my servant David's se.)l:e. Not so much on and the Pso.lms so continually-the zeal of account of the promises made to David, as the Lord of ho8ts shall do this. So in Ise.. on e.ccount of the love which God bore b. 7 and xxxvii. 82. Here most manu- towe.rds him for his faithfulness an,l ee.rnc:;t 1oripts he.,•e "the zce.l of the Lord," devotion.  390 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. [on. x1x. 1-:17.