Isaiah 37

And Eliakim son of Hilkiah, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah son of Asaph, the recorder, came in to Hezekiah with their garments torn, and reported to him the words of Rabshakeh. And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah had heard, he tore his garments, and was covered with sackcloth, and went into the house of God. And he sent Eliakim, who was over the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah, the son of the prophet Amos, and they said to him: Thus says Hezekiah: This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke and of blasphemy, for the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth. If by any means the Lord your God may hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom the king of the Assyrians his master sent to blaspheme the living God and to reproach him with words which the Lord your God has heard. Lift up therefore a prayer for the remnant that is found. And the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah; and Isaiah said to them: Thus shall you say to your master: Thus says the Lord: Do not be afraid before the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me. Behold, I will give him a spirit, and he shall hear a report, and shall return to his own land, and I will make him fall by the sword in his own land. Leaving aside what is plain, let us discuss only those things in which a hidden sense lies. They tear their garments because they hear Rabshakeh blaspheming. The king himself also tears his garments, because he believed it was owing to his own sins and the people's that Rabshakeh had come up to the gate of Jerusalem and had spoken such things against the Lord. Hence the high priest, because he believed the Savior had blasphemed, tore his garments (Matt 26); and Paul and Barnabas, when the Lycaonians offered them the worship due to God, tore their garments (Acts 14). In place of royal attire, then, he was covered with sackcloth; and going from the palace to the Temple, he sent Eliakim the high priest, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests to Isaiah, the son of the prophet Amos. In this the humility and prudence of the king is to be considered. He himself goes to the Temple; the princes of the people and the elders of the priests, covered not with priestly stoles but with haircloth, he sent to Isaiah, the son of the prophet Amos. For which in the volume of Kings one reads: He himself was covered with sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord, and he sent Eliakim the overseer of the house, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amos (2 Kgs 19:1, 2). Here, because Isaiah was writing the history about himself, he did not call himself a Prophet but the son of a Prophet; there, however, because the writer of the history was another, he writes that he himself was a Prophet. This we read also of Matthew the Evangelist: that Matthew himself called himself a publican (Matt 9), while the other Evangelists were silent about the name of publican and set down only the apostolic dignity; and that in the pairings of the Apostles he is second in his own list and first in the others'.

In this part he shows how Ezechias fought against the blasphemies of the Assyrians with humility and prayers, and concerning this he does three things. First, he recounts how he went to the place of prayer, assuming the dress of humility: and covered himself with sackcloth: the word came to the king: and he rose up out of his throne, and cast away his robe from him, and was clothed in sackcloth, and sat in ashes (Jonah 3:6).

Second, not presuming to pour out his prayer to God by himself, he seeks, through messengers, the intercession of the prayer of the prophet, where he recounts the sending of the messengers: and he sent Eliacim, above: should not the people seek of their God? (Isa 8:19).

And they said, it says, to him: Thus says Hezekiah, not 'the king', not swelling with the title of empire: This day is a day of tribulation and of rebuke and of blasphemy: of our tribulation, of God's rebuke, of the enemies' blasphemy. And he sets down the likeness of a woman in labor and in pain, who has come up to the birth and cannot bring forth, nor say: From fear of you, O Lord, we have conceived, and have been in pain, and have brought forth the spirit of salvation.

The messengers explain the tribulation—and it ought to be read thus: and they came (Isa 37:5), and they said to him—this day is a day of tribulation, which we suffer in outer persecutions, and of distress, as to sorrows of heart, of divine rebuke, and of blasphemy, of enemies; the children are come, that is, the concepts of counselors, and there is not strength to bring forth, to execute them; or: we suffer so like women in labor: that day is a day of wrath, a day of tribulation and distress (Zeph 1:15).

There follows: If by any means the Lord your God may hear the words of Rabshakeh (Isa 26:18 LXX). For we do not dare to call the Lord of all our Lord, since through his anger we suffer so much; but we call him your Lord. And we have this confidence of vengeance: that the living God is blasphemed by a worshiper of dead idols. And they have reproached with words which the Lord your God has heard. Lift up therefore a prayer, our prayer, which lies prostrate: not for the whole people, which has already perished, but for the remnant, which is besieged.

They offer their petition—that it might be thus ordained: wherefore lift up your prayer; it may be: pray you for us to the Lord your God for all this remnant (Jer 42:2).

Prayer is lifted up, through eminence of contemplation: I have lifted up my eyes to the mountains (Ps 120[121]:1); through fervor of affection: let us lift up our hearts with our hands to the Lord in the heavens (Lam 3:41); through tears of compunction: every night I will lift up (Ps 6:7[6]); lift up weeping (Joel 1:5); through zeal for good works: the lifting up of my hands (Ps 140[141]:2).

And when the servants of king Hezekiah had come to Isaiah: again he was silent about the name of Prophet, in order to keep the humility he had begun. And Isaiah anticipated them: for by the same spirit by which he knew things to come, he had heard the king too, though absent; and he tells them what they should answer to their master, humbled in this confidence of conscience. Say, he says, to your master, who is your lord; for my Lord says this: Do not fear the words with which not you but I have been blasphemed. Nor do I tell all that I am going to do to the king of the Assyrians, lest I seem to boast of my power; but only that a spirit is to be given him, not of God but an adverse one. And having heard a report, let him return to his own land and fall in it by the sword: so that Hezekiah might hear both things he desired together, that he was to be freed from siege and danger, and that the hostile and angry king would die in his own land. If anyone asks why in a book of Prophecy the history written in the volumes of Kings and Chronicles seems to be mixed in, let him consider that prophecy is coupled with the history, as much concerning the liberation of the city as concerning the destruction of the Assyrian, and the turning back of the sun by ten hours, and the prolonging of life by a space of fifteen years, which belongs both to prophecy and to history.

Third, he sets out the response of the prophet: and Isaiah said to them; in which he excludes the king's fear: be not afraid: be not afraid at their presence (Jer 1:8).

And he foretells the death of king Sennacherib: behold, I will send a spirit upon him. He that shall kill by the sword must be killed by the sword (Rev 13:10).

And Rabshakeh returned and found the king of the Assyrians fighting against Libnah: for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish. And he heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, people saying: He has come out to fight against you. And when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying: Thus shall you say to Hezekiah king of Judah, speaking: Let not your God, in whom you trust, deceive you, saying: Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of the Assyrians. Behold, you have heard all that the kings of the Assyrians have done to all the lands which they overthrew, and will you be able to be delivered? Have the gods of the nations rescued them, whom my fathers overthrew, Gozan and Haran, and Rezeph, and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Ana and Ava? In the same words and with the same sense it is written in the volume of Kings and of Chronicles that Rabshakeh, according to the will of the Lord, abandoned the siege of Jerusalem and went on to his master, who, as he had learned, was going to attack Libnah, Lachish having been either abandoned or taken. Sennacherib himself too, hearing that Tirhakah king of the Ethiopians was bringing war against him, went to meet him as he came, and nonetheless sends messengers and letters to Hezekiah, so that those whom he had not yet taken by force he might terrify by words. And just as he had said to the people, Let not Hezekiah deceive you (2 Kgs 18:29), so he speaks the same blasphemy to the king: Let not your God deceive you (2 Kgs 19:10). And he sets out the examples of his forefathers: that just as their gods could not deliver the other lands out of their hands, so neither would Jerusalem be delivered.

Here he sets out the return of Rabsaces to Sennacherib. And the meaning of this is evident.

We pass quickly over the plain things in order to dwell on the doubtful ones. That Sennacherib king of the Assyrians fought against the Egyptians and besieged Pelusium, and that, when the mounds had already been built to take the city, Tirhakah king of the Ethiopians came to its help, and that in one night near Jerusalem one hundred and eighty-five thousand of the Assyrian army fell by pestilence, is related by Herodotus, and most fully by Berosus, the writer of Chaldean history, whose credibility must be sought from their own books.

Here he recounts how he offended Israel by threatening them through letters; and concerning this, he does three things. First, he sets out his proud threat: and he heard say about Tharaca, who came to the aid of the Egyptians; and when he heard it, he ran to meet him on the way, leaving Judea; and before he withdrew, he wrote these words. Afterwards, when he came and besieged Pelusium in Egypt, when the king of Ethiopia came, he refused to fight with him, saying mockingly that he was a priest of Pluto, on account of his blackness; or because mice chewed up the strings of their bows and left his army unarmed, above: as my hand has found the kingdoms of the idol (Isa 10:10).

In the enumeration of the other nations he sets down ANA (הנע) and AVA (ועוה), which the Seventy ran together, saying anavegava; and the conjunction and, that is, vau, between the two nations Ana and Ava, they set down in the Hebrew tongue, so that to the ignorant it seems one nation or city.

And Hezekiah took the books from the hand of the messengers and read them; and he went up into the house of the Lord and spread them out before the Lord, and prayed to the Lord, saying: O Lord of hosts, God of Israel, who sit upon the Cherubim, you alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth: for you made heaven and earth. Incline, O Lord, your ear and hear; open, O Lord, your eyes and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib which he sent to blaspheme the living God. For truly, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have made desolate the lands and their regions, and have given their gods to the fire: for they were not gods, but works of men's hands, wood and stones; and they broke them in pieces. And now, O Lord our God, save us from his hand, and let all the kingdoms of the earth know that you alone are God. Against the blasphemies of king Sennacherib Hezekiah seized his accustomed weapons. And again he goes to the Temple and spreads out his letters before the Lord. Before, he had been silent: for, terrified by fear of the Lord, he did not dare to open his mouth in the Temple or to pour out free prayers to God. But now, because he had already heard Isaiah saying: Do not be afraid before the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me, and the rest, he boldly entreats the Lord and asserts that God alone is living; whereas the idols we understand as images of the dead.

Second, he sets out the prayer of Ezechias, placing before it the reception of the letter.

In this prayer, he confesses the power of God through the subjection of the angels: Lord God of hosts: is there any numbering of his soldiers? (Job 25:3); through the worship of the Jews: God of Israel who sits upon the cherubims, because the propitiatory, which was like the seat of God, and which also gave answers, was upon the wings of cherubim: you that sit upon the cherubims (Ps 79:2–3[80:1–2]).

But since the tabernacle was arranged according to the pattern of the heavenly church, as can be seen from Exodus 25, it seems that he is wrongly said to sit upon the cherubim; rather he should be said to sit upon the thrones.

And to this it is to be said that he sits upon the cherubim, that is, over them, because he sits upon the seraphim, who are beyond them. Or, according to Gregory and Dionysius, nothing is possessed there individually, but what belongs to the lower is also eminently attributed to the higher: thus what is proper to the thrones, the cherubim have even more eminently. Or it is to be said that he sits upon the thrones as upon the seat of judgment, and upon the cherubim as upon the chair of a teacher, for "cherubim" is translated "pouring of wisdom": and therefore it was fittingly said that answers were given from there.

He also shows the power of God through the disposition of kingdoms: you alone are the God of all the kingdoms of the earth: till he knew that the most High ruled in the kingdom of men (Dan 5:21); and he proves God's power through the production of creatures: you have made heaven and earth: who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all things that are in them (Ps 145[146]:6).

And he accuses Sennacherib of blasphemy: incline, O Lord, your ear: O Lord God of heaven and earth, behold their pride (Jdt 6:15).

And what he adds: For truly, O Lord, the kings of the Assyrians have made desolate the lands and their regions, and have given their gods to the fire: for they were not gods, but works of men's hands, wood and stones; and they broke them in pieces, is proved by many histories, which write that the kings of the Persians came into Greece and overthrew and plundered the temples of the Greeks.

He proves with this the foolishness of his blasphemy: for of a truth, O Lord: the idols of the Gentiles are silver and gold, the works of the hands of men (Ps 113:12[115:4]).

And he asks for vengeance, so that through his occasion all kingdoms may know that he alone is God, who can deliver his own from danger.

Third, he asks also in this prayer for the mercy of salvation: and now, O Lord: that all nations may acknowledge that you are God, and there is no other besides you (Jdt 9:19).

And Isaiah son of Amos sent to Hezekiah, saying: Thus says the Lord God of Israel: As to what you have asked me concerning Sennacherib king of the Assyrians, this is the word which the Lord has spoken concerning him: The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and mocked you; behind you the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head. Whom have you reproached, and whom have you blasphemed, and against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up the height of your eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel? By the hand of your servants you have reproached the Lord and have said: With the multitude of my chariots I have gone up to the height of the mountains, the ridges of Lebanon, and I will cut down its lofty cedars and its choice fir trees, and I will enter the height of its summit, the forest of its Carmel. I dug, and drank water, and dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of the embankments. Because Hezekiah had entreated the Lord so boldly and did not send to Isaiah as he had sent before, the Prophet himself does not go to him, but sends messengers to tell him in the words of God: Concerning Sennacherib, against whom you pray, this is the Lord's sentence: The virgin of Zion and daughter of Jerusalem (who is called virgin and daughter for this reason, that while all the nations worship the images of dead men, she alone preserves the chastity of the religion of God and the worship of the one Godhead) has mocked you and despised you; and she who, lest she provoke you to greater blasphemy, had not answered you when you were present, has shaken her head behind you as you go away, sure of vengeance, secure about punishment.

Third, the prophet promises through messengers that the prayer of the king will be heard: and Isaiah the son of Amos sent to Ezechias; and concerning this he does two things: first, he promises the destruction of their enemies; second, the liberation of the city: wherefore thus says the Lord (Isa 37:33). Concerning the first, he does three things: first, he threatens him with the ruin of destruction; second, he sets out the sign: but to you this shall be a sign (Isa 37:30); third, he shows the fruit of the destruction: and that which shall be saved (Isa 37:31). Concerning the first, he does two things.

First, he threatens the punishment of confusion for his contempt for the Jews: the virgin the daughter of Zion has despised you, when she refused to respond to you; will wag the head, in the future, when you flee with a few men, the others having been killed, above: you that despise, shall not yourself also be despised? (Isa 33:1). The just shall see, and shall rejoice, and the innocent shall laugh them to scorn (Job 22:19).

And she has said this: Not against me, but against the Lord you have been proud; and not you yourself, but through your servants, so that the arrogance of the blasphemer might be the greater. For you said that with the multitude of your chariots you would climb the height of the mountains and the ridges of Lebanon, and cut down its lofty cedars and fir trees. This we ought to take either μεταφορικῶς of all the nations and their princes, or of Jerusalem, which is what Lebanon means, so that we refer its cedars and firs to all its powerful and noble men, and the height of its summit and the forest of Carmel to the Temple. For he himself had said above: Have you not heard what the kings of the Assyrians have done to all the lands which they overthrew? Therefore neither will you be able to be delivered.

Second, he threatens the punishment of destruction for the fault which he committed against God; and concerning this, he does three things: first, he sets out the fault; second, he adds to this divine power, where it says, have you not heard what I have done to him of old? (Isa 37:26); third, he infers the punishment, where it says, therefore I will put a ring in your nose (Isa 37:29). Concerning the first, he accuses him of two sins. First, of blasphemy: whom have you reproached? (these are the words of Ezechias to Sennacherib), as if to say: not me, but God, below: upon whom have you jested? (Isa 57:4).

Second, he accuses him of pride, which he drew from the greatness of his deeds: and you have said: with the multitude of my chariots, as though by my own power and not by God's, the top of Libanus, the summits of the mountains, that is, of the powerful: our mighty hand, and not the Lord, has done all these things (Deut 32:27); from the greatness of his intentions: and I will cut down its tall cedars, the powerful among the Jews, and will enter to the top of its height, the house of the Lord, to the forest, the people: open your gates, O Libanus, and let fire devour your cedars (Zech 11:1).

And what he adds: I dug and drank water, and dried up with the sole of my foot all the streams of the embankments, can be understood according to the history: that because of the multitude of his army he dried up all the streams, so that he was compelled to dig wells for himself; according to the metaphor: that he laid waste with his army all the peoples, who are sometimes described under the name of waters. For which the Seventy alone translated: and I have set a bridge, and I have made desolate the waters, and every gathering of waters: that is, that no nation was impassable to him, but he trod with his foot upon all the waters of the peoples.

From the multitude of his warriors: I have dug, as if to say: I have such a large army that the water that I find is not enough, unless I dig wells; or, metaphorically: I dried up the consolations of all nations: like a garden of pleasure before it, and behind it a desolate wilderness (Joel 2:3).

Have you not heard what I did to it long ago? From the days of old I formed it, and now I have brought them, and it has come to be for the uprooting of the hills that fight together, and of fortified cities. Their inhabitants, with shortened hand, trembled and were confounded: they became like the hay of the field, and the grass of the pasture, and the herb of the housetops, which withered before it ripened. Your dwelling, and your going out, and your coming in I have known, and your madness against me, when you raged against me. Your pride has come up into my ears; I will therefore put a ring in your nostrils, and a bridle in your lips, and I will lead you back by the way by which you came. These things are to be understood as spoken in the person of God against the words of the Assyrian: that the Lord answered his blasphemy thus: Do you not know that these things which you have done, you did by my will, and that I foretold them as to come, and commanded that they be done through you? So what I decreed long ago has been fulfilled in its time: that the hills, that is, the princes who formerly fought among themselves, and the most fortified cities, when I drew back my hand and did not furnish my accustomed help, should be uprooted and tremble and perish, and be compared not to the olive and the vine and fruitful trees, but to hay and grass and the herbs of the housetops, which are a hindrance to the crops and wither before they come to maturity.

Here he adds divine power, speaking in the person of God himself. And first, as to eternal preordination: what I have done, what I have intended to do concerning exaltation and destruction, of old, from eternity, from the days of old I have formed it, the evil of punishment, which is carried out through him, I foresaw and preordained: for all things were known to the Lord our God, before they were created (Sir 23:20).

Second, as to the temporal execution of his eternal intention: and now I have brought it to effect. Hills, princes, fighting together, fighting each other. Short of hand, that is, my hand is drawn back from their aid; or their hand was diminished from their own aid; and like the grass of the housetops: let them be as grass upon the tops of houses (Ps 128[129]:6).

So I knew beforehand your sitting, and your going out, and your coming in, and I spoke of the madness with which you were going to rage against me, through the Prophets as they prophesied (above, on Isa 14:13): through whom I had long ago known that you would say: I will ascend into heaven; above the stars of heaven I will set my throne, and I will be like the Most High.

Third, as to the knowledge of all his deeds: your dwelling, that is, the seat of the king, your coming in, to the land of the Jews: for his eyes are upon the ways of men, and he considers all their steps (Job 34:21).

So your fury and your pride have reached my ears, and I will by no means bear with you any longer, so that you may understand that what you were able to do, you were able to do not by your own strength but by my decision. For the impious nations and the unfruitful trees deserved to be cut down and to fall through you, as through my axe and saw. So I will put a ring, or a muzzle, in your nostrils, to bind fast your blaspheming mouth, so that you may by no means dare to speak such things any more; and I will put a bridle on your lips, to tame your ferocity and lead you back to the Assyrians. This figure Scripture also uses in the Psalms against the impious: With bridle and muzzle bind fast the jaws of those who do not draw near to you (Ps 31 [32]:9).

Here he infers the punishment: a ring in your nose, like an ox, a bit between your lips, like a horse, that is, the power of my divinity in curbing you: he has opened his quiver, and has afflicted me, and has put a bridle into my mouth (Job 30:11).

There is a bit of human discretion: if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man. He is able also with a bridle to lead about the whole body (Jas 3:2); of divine government, below: for my praise I will bridle you (Isa 48:9); of diabolical deception, above: the bridle of error (Isa 30:28); of temporal affliction: he has opened his quiver, and has afflicted me, and has put a bridle into my mouth (Job 30:11); of eternal damnation: with bit and bridle bind fast their jaws (Ps 31[32]:9).

But this shall be a sign to you: Eat this year what springs up of itself, and in the second year feed on fruits; but in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. And what has been saved of the house of Judah, and what is left, shall send down root downward and bear fruit upward: for out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and salvation from mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this. All these things the Prophet speaks to Hezekiah through messengers: what Sennacherib said, what the Lord answered him. Now he addresses his speech to the king himself, lest perhaps he doubt that the things spoken will come. And it was for this reason above all that the Prophets had credit for their words among the people: because they told not only of things that were to come many ages later, but also of things to be fulfilled at once and after no great space of time; and that within two years both the Assyrian king would perish and security would be restored to the city of Jerusalem. This, he says, will be the sign of the things to come that I foretell: that this year you will eat what springs up of itself; or, according to the Seventy, what you sowed before. And in the second year, according to Symmachus, feed on fruits; or, according to the same Seventy, on what has sprouted from the former crops and from seed falling to the ground. But in the third year, the Assyrian now put to flight and the siege lifted, sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruits.

Here he sets out the sign. For the army of the Assyrians came when the harvest was imminent, and thus the Jews were not able to collect the fruit, and the Assyrians remained in the land until after the time of sowing, so they were also not able to sow. Thus therefore it is said to them that in the remaining part of the year, while Sennacherib was going to Egypt, they should eat the things that spring of themselves, namely from the grain trampled by the hooves of the horses and chariots; or, as in 2 Kings 19:29, whatever you might have found in your barns before it was gathered for the siege; or, according to the Septuagint, what you had sown, that is, what remained trampled in the fields. And in the second year, while he remained in Egypt (for he stayed there through the year), because you will gather nothing when you have sown nothing, eat fruits, or things that spring of themselves, as in 2 Kings 19:29, and in this second year Assyria will be destroyed; and thus, in the third year, you will be able to sow and gather freely. Or, according to Andrew, this is counsel, and to you this shall be a sign refers to the preceding.

For the remnant of this small city, which is now walled in by a hostile army and does not believe it will escape, will receive such abundance and happiness in all things that, like a tree founded on a deep root, they will be filled with the thickest fruits. For out of Jerusalem and out of mount Zion a remnant shall go forth and fill the land of Judea, not by its own merit but by the mercy of God, nay by the zeal with which he was jealous for his people against the impious.

Here he sets out the fruit of the destruction of their enemies, setting out a similitude of a tree, which bears much fruit if it sends out roots in the earth: and he shall be as a tree that is planted by the waters, that spreads out its roots towards moisture (Jer 17:8).

He sets out the explanation of the similitude: for out of Jerusalem, below: I will give salvation in Zion (Isa 46:12); and he assigns the reason: the zeal of the Lord of hosts shall do this, above (Isa 9:7) has the same thing.

Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of the Assyrians: He shall not enter this city, and he shall not shoot an arrow there, nor shall a shield seize it, and he shall not cast up a mound around it. By the way by which he shall come, by it he shall return, and he shall not enter this city, says the Lord; and I will protect this city and save it for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant. He returns to his subject, and after the hope of things to come he shakes off the present fear. For there was not as much gladness over the things he had promised would come long afterward as there was anxiety about those that were imminent. And when he says that the Assyrian will withdraw, and will not raise a shield against Jerusalem nor shoot darts, nor is the city to be walled in with siege works and a mound, and that the adversary will return by the way he came, and the city will be freed from the present siege, and at the end adds: for my own sake and for the sake of David my servant, this signifies that they are preserved not by their own merit but by God's clemency, nay by the memory of their father David. In this they are reminded both of their own negligence and of his faith and righteousness: that God so loves righteousness that he protects even the descendants of holy men, not by their own merit but by the virtue of their forefathers.

Here he promises liberation: he shall not come into this city, as he intended, above: take counsel together, and it shall be defeated: speak a word, and it shall not be done (Isa 8:10).

And he assigns the reason: and I will protect this city for my own sake, below: for my own sake will I do it (Isa 48:11), and for the sake of David: for your servant David's sake (Ps 131[132]:10).

When the Old Testament says that Sennacherib's invasion was stopped by angels, and Herodotus says it was stopped by a lot of mice who came and ate up all the bowstrings of his army, an open-minded man will be on the side of the angels. Unless you start by begging the question, there is nothing intrinsically unlikely in the existence of angels or in the action ascribed to them. But mice just don't do these things.

And the Angel of God went out and struck in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and they arose in the morning, and behold, all were corpses of the dead. And Sennacherib king of the Assyrians went out and departed and returned, and dwelt in Nineveh. And it came to pass, while he was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they fled into the land of Ararat; and Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place. One hundred and eighty-five thousand of the bravest men are slain by one Angel in one night, and without wounds on the slain a cruel death runs through them, driving the souls out of the bodies by the will of God. Concerning which one reads in Chronicles: And the Lord sent an Angel, who struck every strong man and warrior and the commander of the army of the king of the Assyrians; and he returned with disgrace to his own land (2 Chr 32:21). He was preserved for this reason, that he might know the power of God and restrain his blaspheming mouth, and become a witness of that majesty which a little before he had despised. As for what he added, And they arose in the morning, let us take it either of the Israelites or of the rest of his army: although it is written in the volume of Kings that when the king himself had risen at daybreak, he saw all the bodies of the dead (2 Kgs 19).

A brother asked Antony, "What shall I do for my sins?" He replied, "He who desires to be freed from his sins will be freed from them by tears and weeping. He who wishes to be strengthened in virtues will be strengthened by weeping and tears. The very praise of the Psalms is mourning. Remember the example of Hezekiah, king of Judah, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, who by weeping not only recovered his health but won an increase of life for fifteen years." By the outpouring of his tears, the strength of the Lord brought to death the advancing army of the enemy, even 185,000.

Here he sets out the punishment which Sennacherib sustained from God. First, as to the slaughter of his army: and slew, above: at the voice of the angel the people fled (Isa 33:3).

Pharaoh too is preserved through the ten plagues of Egypt, so as to perish last: which this man also suffered. For when he had returned to Nineveh, the chief city of his kingdom, and was worshiping in the temple of Nisroch his god, as though bringing back a victory over his enemies, and was entering the shrine of his idol triumphant and giving thanks, the despiser of the true God is slaughtered in the sanctuary of a false deity: and he perishes not by the Angel's sword, which would have been a fate shared with many, but by the parricide of his sons. And when they had fled into the land of Ararat, which is understood as Armenia, Esarhaddon succeeded to his father's place, who, as Scripture testifies, sent inhabitants to Samaria, so that the land should not remain uncultivated. Ararat is a level region in Armenia, through which the Araxes flows, of incredible fertility, at the roots of mount Taurus, which extends as far as there. So the Ark too, in which Noah was delivered with his children when the Flood ceased, was carried not to the mountains of Armenia in general, which is called Ararat, but to the highest mountains of Taurus, which overhang the plains of Ararat.

Second, as to the confusion and flight of those who were left: and they arose in the morning, above: there shall be trouble: the morning shall come, and he shall not be (Isa 17:14).

Third, as to the slaying of Sennacherib himself: and it came to pass, as he was worshipping . . . that Adramelech and Sarasar, his firstborn sons, who were envious of their younger brother, who was born of another mother, and whom they wished to supplant. And thus the just shall escape out of distress (Prov 12:13).