And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they [were] all dead corpses.
Ver. 35. That night.] When the Assyrians were fitting themselves to assault Jerusalem, when in their conceits and hopes they had already devoured it, and were even fetching their blow at all the Jews at once, as if they had all had but one neck to cut off.
That the angel of the Lord.] One of God's mighties. Isa 10:34
Went out, and smote.] By a plague, as 2 Samuel 24:16; the Hebrews say, by a fire burning in their breasts and stifling them; and that Sennacherib himself hardly escaped, having his head and beard singed, according to Isaiah 33:11,12. Sure it is that his leaders and chief captains were cut off, 2Ch 32:21 and Rabshakeh, likely, among, if not above the rest, for his abominable blasphemies against the God of Israel.
A hundred fourscore and five thousand.] By a like dreadful hand of God, fifty-two thousand men of Heraclius the Greek Emperor's army were found dead in one night, without any apparent executioner, after that he had turned Monothelite, and incestuously married Martius, his own brother's daughter, making a law that others might do the like, Anno Christi 610. Herodotus in his second book relates of Sennacherib's defeat and death, something like this here related: but, either through ignorance of the full truth, or else by the instigation of the devil, to elude and impair the credit of the holy Scriptures, he applieth that to Sethon king of Egypt and priest of Vulcan, which properly belongeth to Hezekiah king of Judah, servant and favourite of the true God. Diabolus operum Dei Mimus est, et Momus.
And when they arose, &c.] Such as escaped and survived. The Vulgate hath it, When he (Sennacherib) arose in the morning, he saw. It is said of Heraclius, that upon that sad sight of his soldiers, so slain as above, he presently fell sick and died: though others write that his incest was punished with a strange priapism, which, together with a dropsy, ended his days