Isaiah 33:23

THIS prophecy was uttered when the city of Jerusalem was reduced to the direst extremity. The Assyrian hosts threatened the city with utter destruction. Rabshakeh, a fitting herald for his tyrannical master, had advanced to inspect the walls while Sennacherib tarried at Lachish. False to all treaties, the heavy sum paid down by Hezekiah could not ensure the promised mercy from the ferocious despot. The treasuries of the city were exhausted, and therefore no further attempt in that direction could be made. No help could be looked for from any other nation.

THIS prophecy was uttered when the city of Jerusalem was reduced to the direst extremity. The Assyrian hosts threatened the city with utter destruction. Rabshakeh, a fitting herald for his tyrannical master, had advanced to inspect the walls while Sennacherib tarried at Lachish. False to all treaties, the heavy sum paid down by Hezekiah could not ensure the promised mercy from the ferocious despot. The treasuries of the city were exhausted, and therefore no further attempt in that direction could be made. No help could be looked for from any other nation. Even Egypt was in deadly fear of the great power of Nineveh. The Assyrians were strong as lions, and cruel as evening wolves. No nation had ever equaled them in remorseless and wanton cruelty. Punishments the most horrible were constantly executed upon those whom they vanquished. Impalement, flaying alive, and piercing out the eyes were their ordinary amusements after the close of battle. Look at the stones disinterred from Nineveh, and you will see engraved there by themselves memorials of the horrible barbarities which they constantly perpetrated. Sennacherib's army was exceedingly great. It had already stormed many cities. Arphad and Sepharvaim, Hamath and Samaria had fallen an easy spoil—cities that were surrounded by rivers had been defeated by diverting the current and so drying up the streams. Or else by using galleys with oars, the Assyrian monarch had reached the walls and applied the scaling ladders. The army was so well equipped, so numerous, and so thoroughly well supplied with all munitions of war, that there was not the slightest hope of the escape of Jerusalem except by Divine power.

Thy tacklings are loosed - Here the Assyrians are represented under the figure of a ship wrecked by a violent storm; and the people on the beach, young, old, feeble, and diseased, gathering the spoil without any to hinder them. Kimchi, who understands the whole of this chapter of Hezekiah and the king of Assyria, says, “There are others of our rabbins who apply it all to the days of the Messiah.” Their mast “Thy mast” - For תרנם tornam, “their mast, “the Syriac reads תרניך torneycha, “thy mast;” the Septuagint and Vulgate, תרנך tornecha, ὁ ἱστος σου εκλινεν, “thy mast is fallen aside.” - Septuagint. They seem to have read נטה natah or פנה panah, תרנך tornecha, or rather, לא כן lo con, “is not firm,” the negative having been omitted in the present text by mistake. However, I have followed their sense, which seems very probable, as the present reading is to me extremely obscure.