Let us examine those remaining matters whose meaning remains hidden. They tore their garments because they heard the Rabshakeh speaking blasphemy. The king also tore his clothing because he believed that it was due to his sins and the sins of the people that the Rabshakeh came to the gate of Jerusalem and spoke such things against the Lord. Hence, the high priest, because he believed the Savior to have been blasphemed, also cut his garments.^[1] Paul and Barnabas, moreover, when the Lycaonians offered to them the worship of God, cut their clothes.^[2]

For the sake of royal worship, therefore, Hezekiah wrapped himself in sackcloth and, walking from his palace to the temple, sent Eliakim, the high priest, Shebna, the scribe, and senior priests to the prophet Isaiah son of Amos, an act that must be attributed to the humility and prudence of the king. He proceeded to the temple and sent leaders of the people and senior priests, not draped in priestly stoles but covered in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amos, concerning which we read in the book of Kings: Himself covered in sackcloth, having entered the house of the Lord, he sent Eliakim, leader of the house, and Shebna the scribe and senior priests, covered with sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amos.^[1] Because Isaiah was writing a history about himself here in his book, he did not call himself a prophet but the son of a prophet, whereas the passage just quoted does use the title prophet because it comes from a different author of the history.^[2] Similarly, we read from the Gospel of Matthew that Matthew called himself a publican,^[3] whereas other Evangelists refrained from calling him a publican, granting him such apostolic dignity.^[4]

And they said to him, ‘Thus says Hezekiah,’ not thus says the king, not swelling pridefully with political power. This is a day of tribulation, of punishment, and a day of blasphemy, of our tribulation, of God’s punishment, of the enemies’ blasphemy. And he drew an analogy to a woman suffering the pains of childbirth—who has come to the point of delivery but is unable to give birth—to say, We have conceived from fear of you, Lord, and we suffered, and we gave birth to the spirit of salvation.^[1] Hezekiah continues: Perhaps the Lord your God heard the words of the Rabshakeh. We do not dare to call the Lord of all our Lord, whereby we would suffer such wrath, but we say your Lord. And we have confidence in [God’s] punishment because the living God is being blasphemed by the worship of idols of the dead. And they will chastise with the words which the Lord your God heard. Lift up a prayer, therefore, not for all the people who have already perished, but for the remnant who are besieged.

When the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. . . . Again he does not use the title of prophet, maintaining the humility with which he began. And Isaiah anticipated them, for he had heard of their departure from the king by the same Spirit from which he also learned of future events. Then he tells them what they ought to reply to their master, humbled in fidelity of conscience: Say to your master, who is your master, that my Lord says this: ‘Do not be afraid of the words with which not you but I am blasphemed. I will not foretell everything that I am about to do to the king of Assyria, lest I appear to be throwing my weight around, but the spirit which will be given to them is that of the adversary, not of God.’

Anyone who seeks to know why the history contained in the books of Kings and Chronicles appears to be confused in the book of the prophet should consider that prophecy may be mixed with history in the latter. . . . The liberation of the city and the downfall of Assyria and the reversion of the sun for ten hours^[1] and the fifteen years’ prolongation^[2] . . . belong both to prophecy and to history.

The Rabshakeh, according to the will of the Lord, abandoned his blockade of Jerusalem and directed himself to his master, whom he knew to be heading to fight Libnah, having either deserted or captured Lachish. Sennacherib himself, hearing that Tirhakah the king of Ethiopia was waging war against him, went out to confront him but nonetheless also sent a messenger with letters to Hezekiah to frighten those men who had not yet begun. And just as he had said to the people, Do not let Hezekiah seduce you,^[1] so now he speaks the same blasphemy to the king, saying, Do not let God deceive you. He made an example of the elders: because the gods of other lands were unable to deliver them from his hands, neither will Jerusalem be liberated. But in enumerating the other nations, he includes Hena and Ivvah, whom the Septuagint confused by saying Anavegava, using the Hebrew language to place the conjunction vaw^[2] between the two nations Hena and Ivvah, that it might appear to the ignorant to be one nation or city.

We are hastening past the obvious, that we would remain with doubts. But Herodotus writes^[1] (as does the most prolific Berosus,^[2] historian of the Chaldeans, whose faith can be derived from their own books) that Sennacherib the king of the Assyrians fought against the Egyptians and besieged Pelusium. And with mounds already amassed in the city for conquest Tirhakah the king of Ethiopia came to their assistance, and in one night 185 thousand soldiers of Assyria fell to disease near Jerusalem.

Against the blasphemies of King Sennacherib, Hezekiah’s customary armory failed. So he goes back to the temple and opens his letter before the Lord. Previously he was silent, for he did not dare to open his mouth in the temple for fear of the Lord, nor to pour out extemporaneous prayers to God. Now, however, because he has already heard Isaiah saying, Do not be afraid of the words which you hear, with which the sons of the king of the Assyrians have blasphemed me, and so on, he beseeches the Lord boldly and claims that the Lord alone is the living God, through whom we understand idols to be images of the dead. . . . That these idols weakened their makers is proven by many histories that record that the kings of Persia came to Greece, and subverted and ruined the temple of the Greeks. It also postulates vengeance, that through this opportunity all kingdoms would recognize that there is only one God, who is able to deliver his own from peril.

Because Hezekiah prayed to the Lord so boldly and did not send for Isaiah, as he had done previously, the prophet did not visit him in person but sent messengers who spoke to him the words of God: This is the sentence of the Lord on Sennacherib, against whom you prayed: the virgin of Zion and daughter of Jerusalem—who is called virgin and daughter because, with all the other nations worshiping the idols of dead men, she alone preserved the purity of the religion of God and the worship of one divinity—has mocked and despised you. And lest she provoke you to greater blasphemy, she did not respond in your presence, but wagged her head behind you, immune from vengeance, secure from punishment. She also said this: ‘It is not against me that you have rebelled but against the Lord. Nor did you do it yourself, but through your servants, that the arrogance of your blasphemy might be greater. For you said that with the multitude of your chariots you would ascend the heights of the mountains and the yokes of Lebanon, and that you would fell the highest of its cedars and firs.’ We should read this metaphorically^[1] as concerning all the Gentiles and their princes, or as concerning Jerusalem, which Lebanon represents, such that we would refer her cedars and firs to the rulers and aristocrats but the height of her summit and the forest of her Carmel to the temple.^[2] For he had said above: Have you not heard what the kings of Assyria did to all the earth, destroying it? Therefore, neither can you be liberated. And because he adds: I dug a well and drank water and dried up with my footsteps all the rivers of Egypt, it can be understood in accordance with history that all the streams ran dry before the multitude of the army, thus making it necessary to dig wells. This means that by means of his army he destroyed all the peoples, who are sometimes known under the name of waters, as only the Seventy translated:^[3] And I made a bridge and I turned the desert into waters and all the congregations of the waters.^[4] None of the nations were impassable to themselves, of course, but he trampled with his foot on all the waters of the people.

This is directed from the person of God against the words of Assyria, to whose blasphemy the Lord responds thus: Do you not know that you did this with my permission? Do you not know that I predict the future and command that certain things be done through you? Hence, what I decreed long ago is being fulfilled at this time: that the hills (that is, princes who fight among themselves) and the fortified cities will be shaken and eradicated, and will perish when I withdraw my hand and offer them none of the assistance to which they have grown accustomed. They were also compared not to olive groves and vineyards and fruitful trees but to straw and turf, to roof grass, all of which impede fruitfulness and wither before they reach maturity. In this way I have also foreknown your sitting down and your going out and your coming in, and I predicted through the prophets the insanity with which you would rage against me. Through these I knew long ago that you would say, ‘I will ascend to heaven; I will set my throne above the stars of heaven, and I will be like the Most High.’^[1] Thus, your anger and your pride have reached my ears, and I will bear you no longer, that you may understand that you are not capable by your own strength but by my will. For the impious Gentiles and the unfruitful trees deserved to be cut down and felled through you, as though you were my axe and saw. Hence, I put a ring or a bit in your nostrils to restrain your verbal blasphemy, that you would dare to speak such things no more. I will also place a bridle on your lips to tame your ferocity and to lead you back to Egypt. Scripture employs the same imagery in the Psalms against the impious: Constrain their jaws with a bit and bridle, that they not approach you.^[2]

A brother asked Antony,^[1] What shall I do for my sins? He replied, He who desires to be freed from his sins will be freed from them by tears and weeping. He who wishes to be strengthened in virtues will be strengthened by weeping and tears. The very praise of the Psalms is mourning. Remember the example of Hezekiah, king of Judah, as it is written in the prophet Isaiah, who by weeping not only recovered his health but won an increase of life for fifteen years.^[2] By the outpouring of his tears, the strength of the Lord brought to death the advancing army of the enemy, even 185,000.