Isaiah 37:36 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Then the angel of the Lord went forth, and smote— Sennacherib, flushed with his victories, and breathing destruction against the kingdom of Judah, which had withdrawn its allegiance from him, in his opprobrious message to Hezekiah and his subjects, not only inveighed against them, but blasphemously reviled even their God, bringing down the great God of Israel to the contemptible level of the gods of the nations; putting him to open defiance, and charging him with impotence to his face. This then was the time for the Lord to vindicate his honour, to assert his supremacy and power, and to make both parties sensible, that he was "glorious in might, equally able to help and to cast down, to save and to destroy." Accordingly, this blasphemous tyrant had scarcely advanced to the holy city, before his forces were instantly broken, as appears from the verse before us. This tremendous act forced him to retreat with shame and confusion, and made it visible to all the nations, especially to the Jews, that JEHOVAH was a God "mighty in strength, and excellent in power:" that he was truly, what he styled himself, "The Lord of Hosts;" and that there was no other God that could deliver after this sort. Josephus asserts, that this destruction was occasioned by a pestilential disease: Antiq. lib. x. c. 2. But his authority, says Vitringa, in matters of this kind, is of no great weight. It is my opinion, continues he, that in a dreadful tempest, raised by this destroying angel, these men were killed by lightning; their bodies being burnt within, while their outward garments were untouched. See ch. Isaiah 10:16 Isaiah 29:6 Isaiah 30:30 and Psalms 76:8 which, probably, was composed upon this occasion. We have in prophane history accounts of remarkable destructions by lightning. See Diodor. lib 11. Justin, lib. xxiv. c. 8. and Pausan. Enaticis, lib. i. p. 5.