3
2KI 19:3
4
2KI 19:4
Perhaps Jehovah thy God will hear the blasphemies of the living God on the part of Rabshakeh. ישׁמע : hear, equivalent to observes, take notice of, and in this case punish. חי אלהים : the living God, in contrast to the gods of the heathen, who are only lifeless idols (cf. 1 Samuel 17:26, 1 Samuel 17:36). והוכיח is not to be taken in connection with לחרף , as if it stood for להוכיח , “and to scold with words” (Luth., Ges., etc.), but is a perf. rel. or a progressive perfect (Ewald, §234, a.), and the continuation of ישׁמע : “and will chastise (punish, sc. him) for the words which He has heard.” תף ונשׂאת “therefore lift up prayer (to heaven) for the (still) existing remnant, sc. of the people of God;” nearly all Judah having come into the power of Sennacherib since the carrying away of the ten tribes.
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“A day of distress, and of chastisement, and of rejection is this day.” תּוכחה : the divine chastisement. נאצה : contemptuous treatment, or rejection of the people on the part of God (compare נאץ , Deuteronomy 32:19; Jeremiah 14:21; Lamentations 2:6). “For children have come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth.” A figure denoting extreme danger, the most desperate circumstances. If the woman in travail has not strength to bring forth the child which has come to the mouth of the womb, both the life of the child and that of the mother are exposed to the greatest danger; and this was the condition of the people here (see the similar figure in Hosea 13:13). For לדה instead of לדת , see Ges. §69, 2 Anm.
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