2 Kings 18:13 to 2 Kings 19:37. Sennacherib's Campaign.
2 Kings 18:13. In the fourteenth year: if Hezekiah began to reign five years before the fall of Samaria (722 B.C.), and Sennacherib did not succeed till 706 B.C., this date cannot be correct. The king of Assyria took upwards of 200,000 Jewish captives.
2 Kings 18:14. Lachish (p. 28) was besieged by Sennacherib, and his exploits there are depicted on a bas-relief in the British Museum.
2 Kings 18:16. which Hezekiah overlaid: Skinner asks, Should it be Solomon? Like Ahaz (2 Kings 16:8), Hezekiah despoiled the Temple to buy off the Assyrians.
2 Kings 18:17. Tartan (the commander), Rabsaris (chief eunuch), Rabshakeh (chief cupbearer), were three great Assyrian officials. the conduit of the upper pool: cf. 2 Kings 20:20; see also 2 Chronicles 32:30.
2 Kings 18:19. the great king was a very ancient title, and was later assumed by the Persians. It is frequently used in the cuneiform inscriptions from very ancient times.
2 Kings 18:21. The Jews-' confidence that Egypt would protect them from the Assyrians and other invaders was denounced by Isaiah (Isaiah 30:1-5), and continually proved fallacious. A similar confidence had caused the ruin of the northern kingdom (2 Kings 17:4). Sargon defeated the Egyptians at Raphia in 718 B.C. (pp. 59, 71). Sennacherib had just before this won the victory of El-tekeh (pp. 59, 71). A century later their intrigues with Egypt proved fatal to the Jews in the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel.
2 Kings 18:22. Most critics regard this reference to Hezekiah's reform as an interpolation. But if genuine it bears witness alike to the unpopularity in some quarters of Hezekiah's reform and the shrewd appreciation of the political situation by the observant Rab-shakeh.
2 Kings 18:26. The Syrian language was widely diffused throughout the East, and is known as Aramaic (p. 36). It was used by the Jews in Egypt in the fifth century B.C., as the Mond and other papyri testify.