The posts. — The runners — i.e., couriers (ᾰγγαροι). The Syriac uses the Latin word Tabellarii, “letter- carriers,” which the Arabic mistakes for “folk of Tiberias”! The soldiers of the body-guard seem to have acted as royal messengers.
From the king. — From the hand of the king.
And according to the commandment. — The construction appears to be: they went with the letters... and according to the king’s order. The LXX. and Vulg. omit and, but the Syriac has it.
And he will return. — That he may return unto the survivors that are left unto you from the hand of the hings of Assyria.
Remnant. — Pĕlêtâh. — That the word really means survivors appears from comparison of the Assyrian balâtu, “to be alive;” bullŭtu, “life.”
The kings of Assyria. — See 2 Chronicles 28:16; 2 Chronicles 28:20. The words are a rhetorical reference to Tiglath-pileser’s invasion of the northern kingdom, and the depopulation of Galilee and Gilead. The chronicler’s language may have been influenced also by recollection of the last fatal inroad of Shalmaneser II., in the fourth year of Hezekiah (2 Kings 18:9). (See 2 Kings 15:29.)