3. For children have come to the birth-stool. The poetic style makes these words seem initially cryptic, but the obvious meaning is that the children about to be born cannot emerge because when the mothers come to the birth-stool, they do not have the strength to push the babies out. The delegation from the king may want to speak to the prophet in his own characteristic language by first addressing him in a line of verse. In any case, the line forcefully frames their message to Isaiah with an image of desperate impotence that represents the plight of the people. As in the previous chapter, this entire episode is replicated, with only minor textual variants, in the Book of Isaiah (chapter 37). Isaiah in this narrative resembles Elijah and Elisha in being seen by others as a holy man who has the power to intercede on their behalf with God. Unlike them, however, he is a “literary prophet” who delivers his prophecies in the form of poetry, as he does here in the poem that runs from verse 21 to verse 28.

5. And the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. Their arrival was clearly implied by the end of verse 2. Perhaps one should construe the verb as a pluperfect, although its form does not indicate that. The same seemingly redundant clause also appears in Isaiah 37:5.

6. flunkies. The Hebrew neʿarim, youths or people in a subservient status, is usually represented in this translation as “lads,” but its use here by Isaiah, instead of the expected ‘avadim, “servants,” has a pejorative connotation.

7. an ill spirit. The Hebrew says only “a spirit,” but since it induces fear followed by flight, it appears to be a troubling spirit.

he shall hear a rumor. What this might be is never spelled out. If the prophecy is to be consistent with what is reported at the end of the chapter, it would be the news that his army has been stricken with a plague.

9. king of Cush. Cush is Nubia, just south of Egypt and politically linked with it. Egypt was a key player in the uprising against the Assyrian imperial forces, and so it is not surprising that the Nubian king would oppose Sennacherib. The connection of this report with the story of the siege against Jerusalem is not entirely clear. Perhaps Sennacherib is impelled to finish off Jerusalem quickly so that he can turn his forces to the south.

14. spread them out. The Hebrew reads “spread it out,” but the first part of the verse speaks of multiple letters.

15. You alone are God of all the kingdoms of the earth. These words are a direct rebuttal of the arrogant words spoken by Rabshakeh in verse 12. Hezekiah will make his rejoinder to the Assyrian boast still more explicit in verse 17.

21. She scorns you, mocks you. The “you” is of course Sennacherib. Zion, scorned by Sennacherib’s spokesman, has nothing but contempt for the presumptuous Assyrian king.

She wags her head at you. In biblical poetry, this is a conventional gesture of scorn.

22. raised your eyes up high / against Israel’s Holy One. Isaiah ups the ante of denunciation: Sennacherib’s presumption in declaring that he will destroy the Judahite kingdom is cast as an assault on the God of heaven and earth.

23. I will go up the heights of the mountains, / the far reaches of Lebanon. Although Sennacherib’s imperial campaign did include Phoenicia, here he is besieging Jerusalem. The mountains of Lebanon, however, are the proverbial loftiest heights in biblical poetry, and yarketey levanon, “the far reaches of Lebanon,” contains an echo of yarketey tsafon, “the far reaches of Tsafon,” the dwelling place of the gods. Sennacherib’s declaration at this point sounds rather like that of the overweening king who is brought down to Sheol in Isaiah 14. The cutting down of lofty cedars also figures in Isaiah 14:8.

its uttermost heights. The received text here reads melon, “night encampment,” but the parallel phrase in Isaiah 37:24 as well as one Hebrew manuscript shows merom, “heights” (a singular rendered here as a plural for the sake of the English idiom).

the woods of its undergrowth. The Hebrew karmel usually means “farmland,” which would be anomalous on the Lebanon heights, but as Yehuda Felix has noted, it can also mean “low shrubs” (compare Isaiah 29:17). This would be the sparse vegetation on the mountaintops above the treeline.

24. the waters of foreigners. The phrase, slightly opaque, is part of Sennacherib’s boast of conquest: he has seized the territories of nations and even sunk wells to exploit their water resources.

and dried up with the soles of my feet / all Egypt’s rivers. This is an antithetical act to the digging of wells—Egypt, blessed by the Nile, abounds in water. Here the Assyrian king makes himself, at least through the hyperbole, a divine figure with the power to dry up rivers as he treads upon them.

26. thatch on the roofs / by the east wind blasted. The speech Isaiah attributes to Sennacherib concludes with a metaphor common in biblical poetry of the nations as mere grass, blasted by the hot wind blowing from the eastern desert.

28. I will put My hook in your nose / and My bit between your lips. Sennacherib had imagined himself a god. Now the God of Israel describes him as a dumb helpless beast to be driven where God wants.

turn you back. This is Isaiah’s prophecy of Sennacherib’s flight back to Assyria.

29. eat aftergrowth this year. The “you” now is Hezekiah, and the verbs will then switch to the plural, referring to the people. Because the invading army has laid waste to the countryside, there will be no crops for two years—and yet, as a “sign,” the Judahites will survive.

35. the LORD’s messenger went out and struck down in the Assyrian camp, a hundred eighty-five thousand. The lifting of the siege is a historical event, though the reason for it is uncertain. If the report here is authentic, it would be because a plague swept through the Assyrian camp. But one must say that the writer has a vested interest in representing this event as a miraculous intervention, demonstrating God’s commitment to protect Jerusalem (in contrast to Samaria, destroyed by an Assyrian king twenty years earlier).

37. Adrammelech and Sarezer struck him down with the sword. The two figures named are Sennacherib’s sons. One gets the impression from the narrative report that the assassination took place directly after the emperor’s return to Nineveh. In fact, Sennacherib was murdered twenty years after the military campaign of 701 B.C.E. The writer, however, wants to present this killing in the temple of a pagan god as an immediate fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy (verse 7) and a prompt retribution against the boasting conqueror depicted in Isaiah’s poem.

And Esharaddon his son became king in his stead. Esharaddon had been Sennacherib’s chosen successor. It was evidently this choice that led Adrammelech, abetted by one of his brothers, to kill his father, hoping to seize the throne. One infers that he then discovered no support in the court for his claim to the crown and thus was obliged to flee with his brother to Ararat in the far north.