2 Chronicles 32:4 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

So there was gathered much people together, who stopped all the fountains, and the brook that ran through the midst of the land, saying, Why should the kings of Assyria come, and find much water? Stopped all the fountains - This was prudently done, for without water how could an immense army subsist in an arid country? No doubt the Assyrian army suffered much through this, as a Christian army did eighteen hundred years after this. When the crusaders came, in a.d. 1099, to besiege Jerusalem, the people of the city stopped up the wells, so that the Christian army was reduced to the greatest necessities and distress.