II Kings 19:23
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Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest outposts, the densest of its forests.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Jerusalem's great distress we read of in the foregoing chapter, and left it besieged, insulted, threatened, terrified, and just ready to be swallowed up by the Assyrian army. But in this chapter we have an account of its glorious deliverance, not by sword or bow, but by prayer and prophecy, and by the hand of an angel. I. Hezekiah, in great concern, sent to the prophet Isaiah, to desire his prayers (Kg2 19:1-5) and received from him an answer of peace (Kg2 19:6, Kg2 19:7). II. Sennacherib sent a letter to Hezekiah to fright him into a surrender (Kg2 19:8-13). III. Hezekiah thereupon, by a very solemn prayer, recommended his case to God, the righteous Judge, and begged help from him (Kg2 19:14-19). IV. God, by Isaiah, sent him a very comfortable message, assuring him of deliverance (Kg2 19:20-34). V. The army of the Assyrians was all cut off by an angel and Sennacherib himself slain by his own sons (Kg2 19:35-37). And so God glorified himself and saved his people.
Open source ↗19:23-24 highest mountains . . . of Lebanon: In his annals, Sennacherib told of scaling high mountain passes and felling Lebanon’s great trees. Sennacherib felt invincible, but he was a mere man, no match for the omniscient Lord of the universe (1 Chr 28:9).
Open source ↗Cross-references
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Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
Nevertheless, the king of Assyria sent the Tartan, the Rabsaris, and the Rabshakeh, along with a great army, from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. They advanced up to Jerusalem and stationed themselves by the aqueduct of the upper pool, on the road to the Launderer’s Field.
The splendor of its forests and orchards, both soul and body, it will completely destroy, as a sickness consumes a man.
Now, therefore, make a bargain with my master, the king of Assyria. I will give you two thousand horses—if you can put riders on them!
Since he had much livestock in the foothills and in the plain, he built towers in the desert and dug many cisterns. And since he was a lover of the soil, he had farmers and vinedressers in the hill country and in the fertile fields.
My hand reached as into a nest to seize the wealth of the nations. Like one gathering abandoned eggs, I gathered all the earth. No wing fluttered, no beak opened or chirped.’”
He also wrote letters mocking the LORD, the God of Israel, and saying against Him: “Just as the gods of the nations did not deliver their people from my hand, so the God of Hezekiah will not deliver His people from my hand.”