Verse 8
8. Judgment to be heard from heaven The case was a clear one. No delay of secondary causes. The judgment fell like a bolt from heaven. No one, not even Sennacherib, doubted it was of God.
The earth feared, and was still A sublime conception of the majesty of God. “When he arose to judgment” the tumult was hushed, the din of war ceased. Silence and fear pervaded the earth, when God arose for the “meek” ones. See on Psalms 46:10.“The Babylonian Talmud hath it, that this destruction of the army of the Assyrians was executed by lightning; and some of the targums are quoted for saying the same thing. But it seems most likely that it was effected by bringing on them the hot wind which is frequent in those parts, and often, when it lights among a multitude, destroys great numbers of them in a moment, as it frequently happens in those vast caravans of Mohammedans who go their annual pilgrimages to Mecca.” Prideaux.
And the words of Isaiah (Isaiah 37:7,) which threatened Sennacherib with a “ blast ” from heaven, seem to denote the same. The poet has the same:
“For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast,
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed.”
The account of Herodotus, (book ii, chap. 141,) 450 years before Christ, that “so immense a number of mice infested by night Sennacherib’s camp that their quivers and bows, together with what secured their shields to their arms, were gnawed in pieces,” and thus rendered the army powerless, while it corroborates the great fact of the catastrophe, and calls Sennacherib by name, is incorrect as to the circumstances, and puerile. See on Psalms 46:0
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