The Pulpit Commentary — 2 Kings — Section 362

or concer1lment. He relldily acknowledges which was only accompliBhed by the appear- that he hae shown the ambassadors e'llerv- ance on the scene of a. new power, Media, tliing. which hitherto had been regarded as of the Ver. 16.-And Isaiah ae.id unto Hezekiah, very slightest account. Nothing ahe.ll be Eee.r the word of the Lord. This is e. phrase left, ae.ith the Lord (comp. eh. xxv. 13-17 of warning very common in the mouth of a.nd Jer. Iii. 12-23). the prophets, when they are about to deliver Ver. 18.-And of thy sons that shall iasue e. rebuke or solemn condemnation (comp. froin thee, which thou she.It beget. Under I Kings xxii. 19 ; 2 Ohron. xviii. 18; Isa. "sons " are included by the Hebrew idiom i. 10; xxviii. 14; Jer. vii. 2; ix. 20; x. I; all descendants, however remote (Pusey's xix. 3, eto.; Ezek. xv. 35; xxxiv. 9; Hos. 'Lectures on Daniel,' pp. 406-409). Tbo iv. 1; Amos iii. I, eto.). princes carried off from Jerusalem by Nebu- Ver. 17.-Behold, the de.ye oome, that all chadnezzar were Hezekiah's descendants, that is in thine house, and that which thy either in the fourth or the fifth generation. fathers have le.id up in store unto this day, Shall they take away. Among the descend- 1he.ll be oe.rried into Babylon. These trea- ants of Hezekiah to.ken to Babylon by N ebu- sures of thy royal house, whereof thou art so chadnezzar were Jehoiachin (eh. xxiv. 15), proud and whioh thou h11st of thine own Zedekiah (eh. xxv. 7), Daniel (Dan. i. 3), accord me.de known to the Babylonians, to e.nd others. And they ahe.ll be e11I1uohs in obtain their e.llie.nce, will in fact excite their the pa.lace of the King of Babylon. Keil cupidity, a.ad the time will come when they, e.nd Bahr translate C'l;l'"Jr;> in this place by or what remains of them e.nd represents "chamberlains" or "footmen;" but there is them will be ce.rried off as plunder to Baby- no reason why the word should not have its lon by e. conquering monarch, who will strip ordinary sense of " eun ucbs " ( see the Sep- thy pe.le.ce of its valuables, and drag thy tuagint fooVTa., Ebvouxo1, and for the fulfil- descendants into captivity, and degrade ment, comp. Dan. i. 3-18). them to the condition of slaves or servants, Ver.19.-Then said Hezekia.h 1lllto Iaa.ie.h, and make them discharge menial offices Good is the word of the Lord whioh thou about his court. The revelation was now, he.et spoken. Hezekiah accepts the rebuke, it would seem, for the first time me.de that thereby a.cknow ledging himself to have been Babylon, and not Assyria, W9B the true in the wrong, and submits without remon- enemy which J udma had to foe.r, the destined strance to his punishment. "Good is the foe who would accomplish e.11 the threats of word of the Lord "-who "in his wrnth he.s the prophets from Moses downwards, who thought upon mercy." The king feels that would destroy,the holy city and the glorious God might, in justice, have visited him, in his temple of Solomon, and carry away the ark own person, with some immediate affliction of the covenant, and tear the people from or calamity. It is a relief to hear that the their homes, e.ud bring the kingdom of David blow will not fall daring his lifetime. There to an end, and give Jerusalem over e.s a may be a tinge of selfishness in his acqui- prey to desolation for seventy yea.re. Hence- escence, but it is not very pronounced, e.nd forth it was Babylon and not Assyria. which does not co.II for any severe a.nimad version. ,vas fee.red, Babylon and not Assyria whereto The Old Testament saints were not faultless, the prnphetio gaze of Isaiah himself was a.nu a.re not set before us ns perfect patterns. <lirected, and which became in his later pro- There is one only "Ensa.mple" given us phecies (xl.-lxvi.) the main object of his de- whose steps we are to follow in a.11 things. uunoie.tions. Considering the circumstances And he said-apparently after a. pa.use, per- of the time, the prophecy is e. most extra- haps turning to his coUitiers, whose looks ordinary one. Babylonia wo.s at the time me.y have expressed astonishment at the merely one of several kingdoms boruering words which he had just spoken-Is it not on Assyria which the Assyrians threatened good, if pee.oe and truth be in my days 1 i.e. with destruction. From the time of Tiglath- Am I not right to acquiesce iu the sentence pileser she he.d been coutinue.lly diminish- e.nd pronounce it "good," if it promises me in", while Assy1'io. had been oonlinually "peace and truth," or •• tranquillity und in~reasing, in power. 'figlath-pileser had steadfastness" ? Ought I not to accept overrnn tl,e country and established himself with tl.tankfnlncss the immediate boon, iu- as kin<> there. Shalmaneser's authority had steau of troubling myself nbout ~ remote been ~ncontested. If just at present 11, future? The sentiment is not far rewovcu nati vo prince held the throne, it we.s by a from that of the well-known lines- vei-y unoorte.in tenure, and a few years later Assyria regained complo~ mastery. ~-o " I do nut usk to see liuman foresight oould poss1Lly ha\'e e.nhci- The distant scene; ono step enough f0r rue." pateu suoh a com plate revcrsul o~ the rela- tive pnsilions of the two countries o.s was Vere. 20, 21.-The great works of Ilezekia~ lnvolveu iu Iso.ial.t's prophecy-a reversal and his decease. Hez,·kinh was known, llut  410 THE SECOND BOOK OF THE KINGS. Ccrr. xx. 1-21. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ·------- only as e. pions king, and the 1,.--ing in whose ob1t11nel opuns upon the Siloam pool, a 1Jiohe reign the pride of the Assyria.ns was dashed has been cut in the right-hand wo.ll in the to the ground, but also a.s one who, by works shape of a square tablet, and smoothed to of great importance, conferred permanent receive an inscription of six lines, the greater benefit on Jerusalem (see 2 Chron. xxxii. pa.rt of which has been recovered. The letters are of the old Hebrew or Phcenicion 3-5 and 30; Eoolns. xlviii. 17). The writ.er type, and by their forms indicate a do.ta feels that he oannot conclude his notice of " between the eighth and the sixth cen- Hezekiah's reign without some mention of turies" (Sayoc). The insoription, so far as these works. He enters, however, int.o no it is legible, appears to have run as follows: description, but, having referred the reader "Behold the tunnel! Now, this is the his- tory of the tunnel. As the exco.vators were for details t.o the "book of the chronicles," lifting up the pick, eoch towards the other, notes in t.he briefest possible wny the decease and while there were yet three oubits to be of Hezekiah, and the accession of his son broken through . . . the voice of the one and suocessor. called to his neighbour, for there was an excess (?) of the rock on the right. Then Ver. 20.-And the rest of the acts of they rose up ... they struok on the west of Hezekiah, and all his might. Hezekiah's the excavators ; the excavators struck, ea.eh "might" was ohiefiy shown in the earlier to meet the other, pick to .piok. And the portion of his reign, when he "smote the waters 11.owed from their outlet to the pool Pllilistines, even unt.o Gtiza, and the borders for a distance of a thousand cubits ; and thereof" (eh. xviiL 8). Against Assyria he three-fonrtbs (?) of e. cubit was the height W3.S unsuccessful, and must have succumbed, of the rock over the head of the excavation but for the miraculous destruction of Sen- here." We learn from it that the workmen nacherib's host. And how he made a pool; began at either end, and tunnelled through rather, the pool, or the re,ser'Doir. The writer the rock until they met in the middle-a. of Kings either knows of one pool only in result which their previous divergences from the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, or regards the straight line force us to attribute more one us so superior that it deserves to be to good fortune than to engineering sci('nce. called ,ca:r' liox11v, "the pool" Recent dis- And brought water into the city. The Well coveries make it highly probable that the of the Virgin was without, thePoolofSiloam " pool" intended is that of Siloam, or, if not within, the city-the wall of the town being the present Siloam reservoir, a larger one, e. carried across the Tyropceon valley from the little below it, now known as Birket e1, extreme point of Ophel to the opposite hill Hamra (see the • Quarterly Statement' of (see Neh. iii. 15). Are they not written in the Palestine Exploration Fund for April, the book of the chronicles of the kings of 1886, p. 88). That there was at lea.at one J'udah 1 Hezekiah's fame rest.ed very much other pool in Hezekiah'& time is evident from upon these works, as we see by what is said Isa. xxii. 9, 11. And a oondnit ; rather, of him by the son of Sireoh (see the com• the conduit. H " the pool " is Siloam, " the ment on vers. 20, 21). conduit " must almoBt certainly be that Ver. 21.-And Hezekiah slept with his which was excavated under Ophel for the fathers. The writer of Chronicles o.d<ls, purpose of conveying the water from the " And they buried him in the chiefost," or Well of the Virgin in the Kedron valley to rather, in the topmost, "of the sepulchres of the Siloam reaervoir on the western side of the sons of David" (2 Chron. xxxii. 33). tht: spur. This condnit, which is curiously The catacomb of David being now full, twisted, has e. length of 1708 feet, with a Hezekiah and his descendants (eh. xxi. 18, height varying from two feet to four or five, 26; xxiii. 30) ho.d t.o be bw-ied elsewhere. and a width of about two feet. The roof is The t.omb of Hezekiah was either over the fio.t, the sides perpendicular, and the floor catacomb of David, or on the ascent which hollowed into a groove for the more rapid led t.o it. And Manasseh his son reigned in pasaage of the water. About nineteen feet his stead. So 2 Chron., l. s. a.; and Josephus, from the southern extremity, where the ! Ant. Jud.,' x. 3. § I.