For he saith, Are not my princes altogether kings?
-Vauntings of the Assyrians. Illustrated by the self-laudatory inscriptions of Assyria deciphered by Hincks.
Verse 8. (Are) not my princes altogether kings? Eastern satraps and governors of provinces often had the title and diadem of kings. Hence, the title "King of kings," implying the greatness of Him who was over them (Ezekiel 26:7; Ezra 7:12).
Verse 9. (Is) not Calno as Carchemish? - Was there any one of these cities able to withstand me? Not one! So Rabshakeh vaunts (Isaiah 36:19).
Calno - Calneh, built by Nimrod (Genesis 10:10, "Calneh, in the laud of Shiner"), once his capital on the Tigris.
Carchemish - Circesium, on the Euphrates. Taken afterward by Necho, king of Egypt; and retaken by Nebuchadnezzar, in the fourth year of Jehoiakim, by the Euphrates (Jeremiah 46:2).
Hamath - in Syria, north of Canaan (Genesis 10:18). Taken by Assyria about 753 BC. From it colonists were planted by Assyria in Samaria.
Arpad - near Hamath. Samaria - now overthrown.
Damascus - (Isaiah 17:1-14.)
Verse 10,11. As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols - unable to resist me; hath overcome them (so Psalms 21:8).
And whose graven images - rather, and their. This clause, down to "Samaria," is parenthetical.
Did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria - were more powerful. He regards Jerusalem as idolatrous, an opinion which it often had given too much ground for; Yahweh was in his view the mere local god of Judea, as Baal of the countries where it was adored, nay, inferior in power to some national gods (Isaiah 36:19-20; Isaiah 37:12). See in opposition, Isaiah 37:20; Isaiah 46:1.
As my hand ... Shall I not, as I have done - a double protasis, or antecedent sentence. Agitation makes one accumulate sentences.