Hezekiah's letter would be very different in form from our letters. The Assyrians did not use paper or even skins, but did their writing on clay. It is very likely that the letter was a tablet of terra cotta.
I. "Went up into the house of the Lord." Where was he so likely to find God as in His house? Notice the prayer of the king, how he speaks of God as dwelling between the cherubim. Perhaps he had heard how Sennacherib sat on his throne between winged bulls and lions; but he had heard Isaiah tell of seeing the Lord surrounded by winged intelligences. God has only to speak to His winged messenger, and the angel has gone to crush the foes of Jehovah and His people. This was a model prayer, not going all round the world, but fastening on the thing wanted and asking for that. If our prayers were more like telegrams, we should have speedier answers.
II. Was the letter ever answered? Yes, for Jehovah answered it Himself. We know what the result was, and how suddenly the bolt of vengeance struck down the proud blasphemer.
III. There is a postscript to God's answer. "It came to pass that night...they were all dead corpses." Suppose we read in the newspaper to-morrow, "Sudden death of 185,000 soldiers!" What a stir it would make! What a sight the camp must have been next morning! There has been considerable discussion as to the cause of the destruction of so large an army, and it is generally understood now to have been the simoom. Cambyses, king of the Medes, lost fifty thousand men by one of these dreadful winds. But whether the wind was the messenger or an angel, it matters not. God willed it, and nature hasted to do His bidding.
T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold,p. 179.
Hezekiah received the letter himself at the hand of the messengers, which was courteous; and he read it, which was calm and accurate; and he went up into the house of God, which was reverential; and he spread it before the Lord, which was filial and confiding.
I. Belief in the efficacy of prayer has latterly become very small. And at the root of this want of faith is this thought, that since God governs the world by general fixed laws, and since answers to particular prayers must be specialities, therefore oftentimes exceptions to these general laws, it is not to be expected that God will interrupt His universal system to meet any particular case. To this we answer two things: (1) In all other general laws, such as the laws of nations or even natural laws, provision is expressly made for exceptional occasions, and it is an axiom that under certain conditions the law shall not take any, or at least the same, effect. Why should not the same rule apply to the laws by which God regulates His providential dealings? (2) Why should not the particular answer to the particular prayer be itself a part of the grand universal law? Why should not God have ordained in His sovereignty that all true prayer shall bring certain results, as that any other cause in the world shall produce its own natural and proper effect?
II. Assuming then, as we well may, the fact that God does have respect to prayer, we ask, "What is it to spread a matter before God?" (1) You cannot spread anything before God till you have first spread yourself your whole heart and life before Him. (2) The whole trouble must be spread before Him; God loves minuteness; there is no spreading without minuteness. To speak out loud a sorrow or a care even to a thing inanimate is a help to definiteness, to clearness of thought, to manfulness, to duty; how much more so when we confide in God.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,9th series, p. 139.
References: 2 Kings 19:14. Old Testament Outlines,p. 81; S. Baring-Gould, One Hundred Sermon Sketches,p. 182; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 389. 2 Kings 19:14-16. Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 183. 2 Kings 19:15. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ix., p. 89.