Isaiah 37:36

Then the angel of the Lord went forth,.... From heaven, at the command of the Lord, being one of his ministering spirits, sent forth by him, as for the protection of his people, so for the

Then the angel of the LORD went forth, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians a hundred and fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses.

(36) Then the angel of the Lord.—The words do not exclude—rather, as interpreted by 1 Chronicles 21:14, they imply—the action of some form of epidemic disease, dysentery or the plague, such as has not seldom turned the fortunes of a campaign, spreading, it may be, for some days, and then, aggravated by atmospheric conditions, such as the thunderstorm implied in Isaiah 29:6; Isaiah 30:27-30, culminating in one night of horror. History, as written from the modern stand-point, would dwell on the details of the pestilence. To Isaiah, who had learnt to see in the winds the messengers of God (Psalms 104:4), it was nothing else than the “angel of the Lord.” So he would have said of the wreck of the Armada, “Afflavit Deus et dissipantur inimici” or of Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow, “He sendeth forth his ice like morsels: who is able to abide his frost” (Psalms 147:17). The Assyrian records, as might be expected, make no mention of the catastrophe, but a singular parallel is presented by the account which Herodotus gives (ii. 141), on the authority of the Egyptian priests, of the destruction of Sennacherib’s army when he invaded Egypt, then under the rule of Sethon, a priest of Ptha or Hephæstos. The priest-king prayed to his gods, and the Assyrian army, then encamped before Pelusium, were attacked by myriads of field-mice, who gnawed the straps of quivers, bows, and shields, and so made all their weapons useless, and led to their taking flight. Therefore, the historian adds, there stood a statue of Sethon in the Temple of Hephaestos at Memphis, with a mouse in one hand and with the inscription, “Whosoever looks at me let him fear the gods.” Some writers (e.g., Ewald and Canon Rawlinson) have been led by this to the conclusion that the pestilence fell on Sennacherib’s army at Pelusium, and not at Jerusalem. It may be questioned, however, whether, even admitting that the narrative in its present form may be later than the exile, the probabilities are not in favour of the Biblical record, compiled as it was by writers who had documents and inherited traditions, rather than of the travellers’ tales which the vergers of Egyptian temples told to the good Herodotus. In the camp of the Assyrians.—Josephus (Bell. Jud., v. 7, 2) names a site in the outskirts of Jerusalem which in his time still bore this name. The narrative of Isaiah leaves room for a considerable interval between his prophecy and the dread work of the destroyer (2 Kings 19:35). “In that night” does not necessarily imply immediate sequence, the demonstrative adjective being used, like the Latin iste, or ille, for “that memorable night.”

Verse 36. Then the angel] Before "the angel," the other copy, 2Kg 19:35, adds "it came to pass the same night, that"... The Prophet Hosea, Hosea 1:7, has given a plain prediction of the miraculous deliverance of the kingdom of Judah: - "And to the house of Judah I will be tenderly merciful: And I will save them by JEHOVAH their God. And I will not save them by the bow; Nor by sword, nor by battle; By horses, nor by horsemen." - L.

36. The miraculous destruction of Sennacherib’s host. It is certainly remarkable that none of Isaiah’s prophecies delivered at the time predict this appalling disaster, the clearest anticipation of it being in ch. Isaiah 17:12-14, an oracle delivered some time before. At the same time some such occurrence is needed to account for Sennacherib’s precipitate retreat before Tirhakah. A confirmation of the main fact is also found in the Egyptian tradition, according to which Sennacherib had already reached Pelusium in Egypt, when in a single night his army was rendered helpless by a plague of field-mice which gnawed the bows of the soldiers and the thongs of their shields (Herodotus, ii. 141). Since the mouse was among the Egyptians a symbol of pestilence we may infer that the basis of truth in the legend was a deadly epidemic in the Assyrian camp; and this is the form of calamity which is naturally suggested by the terms of the biblical narrative. The scene of the disaster is not indicated in the O.T. record, and there is no obstacle to the supposition that it took place, as in the Egyptian legend, in the plague-haunted marshes of Pelusium. The silence of Sennacherib about his misfortune is quite intelligible. the angel of the Lord] is associated with the plague in 2 Samuel 24:15-16.

Then the angel of the Lord went forth - This verse contains the record of one of the most remarkable events which have occurred in history.

33-36. Thus far strongly assuring Hezekiah, Isaiah here gives definite details of the grounds of this assurance.