2 Kings 19:7 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

I will send a blast upon him, Heb. a wind, a storm or tempest, by which name God's judgments are oft called, i.e. a violent, and sudden, and terrible stroke; namely, that miraculous destruction of his army, of which 2 Kings 19:35. Although the place may be rendered thus, I will put a spirit within him, so that he shall hear a rumour, and return, &c. For by spirit is many times understood an imagination, or inclination, or affliction; in which sense we read of the spirit of fear, 2 Timothy 1:7; of the spirit of jealousy, Numbers 5:14; of the spirit of slumber, Romans 11:8. Or, a spirit against (for so the Hebrew preposition beth is oft used, as hath been noted before) him; of whom this word is elsewhere used, as Judges 9:23 1 Samuel 16:14,23 1 Kings 22:23; as it is also given to man's soul, Job 12:10 Ecclesiastes 12:7, which is a spiritual substance, as the angels are. And this interpretation seems most agreeable to the design of this verse, which is in brief to represent all the judgments of God which were to befall him, and which are related in the following history; and therefore all the other particulars being contained in the following branches of this verse; the tidings of Tirhakah, 2 Kings 19:9, in these words, he shall hear a rumour; his returning to his own land, and being slain there, 2 Kings 19:36,37, in the next words; it seems most probable that the chiefest of all the judgments, to wit, the destruction of 185,000 soldiers in one night, 2 Kings 19:35, is not omitted here, but expressed in the first branch of the verse; and the spirit here is the same thing which is there called an angel; this latter word being there used to limit and explain the former, which otherwise was of a doubtful signification.