Thine heart shall meditate terror. Where is the scribe? where is the receiver? where is he that counted the towers? Where is the scribe? - The person appointed by the king of Assyria to estimate their number and property in reference to their being heavily taxed.
Where is the receiver? - Or he who was to have collected this tribute.
Where is he that counted the towers? - That is, the commander of the enemy's forces, who surveyed the fortifications of the city, and took an account of the height, strength, and situation of the walls and towers, that he might know where to make the assault with the greatest advantage; as Capaneus before Thebes is represented in a passage of the Phoenissae of Euripides, which Grotius has applied as an illustration of this place: -
Εκεινος ἑπτα προσβασεις τεκμαιρεται
Πυργων, ανω τε και κατω τειχη μετρων.
Ver. 187.
"To these seven turrets each approach he marks;
The walls from their proud summit to their base
Measuring with eager eye."
He that counted the towers "Those who were ordered to review the fortified places in Judea, that they might be manned and provisioned for the king of Assyria. So sure was he of gaining Jerusalem and subduing the whole of Judea, that he had already formed all these arrangements." - Dodd's notes.