II Kings 19:4
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Perhaps the LORD your God will hear all the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
Perhaps Jehovah thy God will hear the blasphemies of the living God on the part of Rabshakeh. ישׁמע: hear, equivalent to observes, take notice of, and in this case punish. חי אלהים: the living God, in contrast to the gods of the heathen, who are only lifeless idols (cf. Sa1 17:26, Sa1 17:36). והוכיח is not to be taken in connection with לחרף, as if it stood for להוכיח, "and to scold with words" (Luth., Ges., etc.), but is a perf. rel. or a progressive perfect (Ewald, 234, a.), and the continuation of ישׁמע: "and will chastise (punish, sc. him) for the words which He has heard." תף ונשׂאת "therefore lift up prayer (to heaven) for the (still) existing remnant, sc. of the people of God;" nearly all Judah having come into the power of Sennacherib since the carrying away of the ten tribes.
Open source ↗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 ↗19:4 Hezekiah was not denying his own relationship to the Lord by referring to him as your God; rather, he was acknowledging God’s special call upon Isaiah.
Open source ↗Cross-references
Other passages the community most often connects to this one. Tap to read.
Perhaps the LORD will see my affliction and repay me with good for the cursing I receive today.”
Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: “Though the number of the Israelites is like the sand of the sea, only the remnant will be saved.
This is what the Lord GOD says: Once again I will hear the plea of the house of Israel and do for them this: I will multiply their people like a flock.
Now therefore give me this hill country that the LORD promised me on that day, for you yourself heard then that the Anakim were there, with great and fortified cities. Perhaps with the LORD’s help I will drive them out, as the LORD has spoken.”
I will send him against a godless nation; I will dispatch him against a people destined for My rage, to take spoils and seize plunder, and to trample them down like clay in the streets.
You have done these things, and I kept silent; you thought I was just like you. But now I rebuke you and accuse you to your face.
Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor Me.”
In response, King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz cried out to heaven in prayer,
In the fourteenth year of Hezekiah’s reign, Sennacherib king of Assyria attacked and captured all the fortified cities of Judah.
For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.