2 Kings 19:37 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
2 Kings 19:37
And it came to pass, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead.
to depress · verb, hithpael active participle, masculine singular absolute
house
בֵּ֣יתbeit
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine singular construct
Nisroch
נִסְרֹ֣ךְnis.Rokh
H5268
Nisrok · proper noun, a title
god
אֱלֹהָ֗יו'e.lo.Hav
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Adrammelech
וְֽאַדְרַמֶּ֨לֶךְve.'ad.ra.Me.lekh
H152
Adrammelek · conjunction + proper noun, a title
Sharezer
וְשַׂרְאֶ֤צֶר בָּנָיו֙ve.sar.'E.tzer ba.Nav
H8272
Sharetser · conjunction + proper noun, a man's name + noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
sons
בְּנ֖וֹbe.No
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name) · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
smote
הִכֻּ֣הוּhi.Ku.hu
H5221
to strike (lightly or severely · verb, hiphil perfect, 3rd person common plural + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
sword
בַחֶ֔רֶבva.Che.rev
H2719
drought · preposition with the article + noun, common feminine singular absolute
escaped
נִמְלְט֖וּnim.le.Tu
H4422
properly · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
land
אֶ֣רֶץ'E.retz
H776
the earth (at large · noun, common feminine singular construct
Armenia
אֲרָרָ֑ט'a.ra.Rat
H780
Ararat (or rather Armenia) · proper noun, a place name
Esar-haddon
אֵֽסַר'e.sar-
H634
Esar-chaddon · proper noun, a man's name
son
בֵּןbên
H1121
a son (as a builder of the family name)
reigned
וַיִּמְלֹ֛ךְvai.yim.Lokh
H4427
to reign · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Genesis 8:4 And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat.
Ezra 4:2 Then they came to Zerubbabel, and to the chief of the fathers, and said unto them, Let us build with you: for we seek your God, as ye do; an…
2 Kings 19:7 Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the swor…
Jeremiah 51:27 Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdom…
Deuteronomy 32:31 For their rock is not as our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges.
2 Kings 18:5 He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.
2 Kings 18:30 Neither let Hezekiah make you trust in the LORD, saying, The LORD will surely deliver us, and this city shall not be delivered into the hand…
2 Kings 19:10 Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not be de…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on 2 Kings 19:35–end
Sometimes it was long ere prophecies were accomplished and promises performed; but here the word was no sooner spoken than the work was done.
I. The army of Assyria was entirely routed. That night which immediately followed the sending of this message to Hezekiah, when the enemy had just set down before the city and were preparing (as we now say) to open the trenches, that night was the main body of their army slain upon the spot by an angel, Kg2 19:35. Hezekiah had not force sufficient to sally out upon them and attack their camp, nor would God do it by sword or bow; but he sent his angel, a destroying angel, in the dead of the night, to make an assault upon them, which their sentinels, tho…
SENNACHERIB SLAIN. (Kg2 19:37)
as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch--Assarae, or Asshur, the head of the Assyrian Pantheon, represented not as a vulture-headed figure (that is now ascertained to be a priest), but as a winged figure in a circle, which was the guardian deity of Assyria. The king is represented on the monuments standing or kneeling beneath this figure, his hand raised in sign of prayer or adoration.
his sons smote him with the sword--Sennacherib's temper, exasperated probably by his reverses, displayed itself in the most savage cruelty and intolerable tyranny over his subjects and slaves, till at length he was assassinated by his two sons, whom, it is said, he inten…
Nisroch his god - We know nothing of this deity; he is nowhere else mentioned.
Smote him with the sword - The rabbins say that his sons had learned that he intended to sacrifice them to this god, and that they could only prevent this by slaying him.
The same writers add, that he consulted his wise men how it was that such miracles should be wrought for the Israelites; who told him that it was because of the merit of Abraham who had offered his only son to God: he then said, I will offer to him my two sons; which when they heard, they rose up and slew him. When a rabbin cannot untie a knot, he feels neither scruple nor difficulty to cut it.
Dictionary and topics
Aarat — (high or holy ground), a mountainous district of Asia mentioned in the Bible in connection with the following events:— (1) As the resting-place of the ark after the deluge. (Genesis 8:4) (2) As the…
Adrammelech — Adar the king. (1.) An idol; a form of the sun-god worshipped by the inhabitants of Sepharvaim (2 Kings 17:31), and brought by the Sepharvite colonists into Samaria. (2.) A son of Sennacherib, king…
Ararat — Sacred land or high land, the name of a country on one of the mountains of which the ark rested after the Flood subsided (Gen. 8:4). The “mountains” mentioned were probably the Kurdish range of South…
Armenia — High land, occurs only in Authorized Version, 2 Kings 19:37; in Revised Version, “Ararat,” which is the Hebrew word. A country in western Asia lying between the Caspian and the Black Sea. Here the…
Assyria — The name derived from the city Asshur on the Tigris, the original capital of the country, was originally a colony from Babylonia, and was ruled by viceroys from that kingdom. It was a mountainous…
Esarhaddon — Assur has given a brother, successor of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:37; Isa. 37:38). He ascended the throne about B.C. 681. Nothing further is recorded of him in Scripture, except that he settled certain…
Hezekiah — Whom Jehovah has strengthened. (1.) Son of Ahaz (2 Kings 18:1; 2 Chr. 29:1), whom he succeeded on the throne of the kingdom of Judah. He reigned twenty-nine years (B.C. 726-697). The history of this…
Nisroch — Probably connected with the Hebrew word nesher, an eagle. An Assyrian god, supposed to be that represented with the head of an eagle. Sennacherib was killed in the temple of this idol (2 Kings 19:37;…
Prayer — Is converse with God; the intercourse of the soul with God, not in contemplation or meditation, but in direct address to him. Prayer may be oral or mental, occasional or constant, ejaculatory or…
Sennacherib, Or Sennacherib — (sin, the moon, increases brothers), was the son and successor of Sargon. [Sargon] His name in the original is read as Tsinakki-irib, the meaning of which, as given above indicates that he was not…
John Gill on 2 Kings 19:1
And it came to pass, when King Hezekiah heard it,.... The report of Rabshakeh's speech, recorded in the preceding chapter:
that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth; rent his clothes because of the blasphemy in the speech; and he put on sackcloth, in token of mourning, for the calamities he feared were coming on him and his people: and he went into the house of the Lord; the temple, to pray unto him. The message he sent to Isaiah, with his answer, and the threatening letter of the king of Assyria, Hezekiah's prayer upon it, and the encouraging answer he had from the Lord, with the account of the destruction of the Assyrian army, and the death of Sennacherib, are the same…
The fulfilment of the divine promise. - Kg2 19:35. "It came to pass in that night, that the angel of the Lord went out and smote in the army of the Assyrian 185,000 men; and when they (those that were left, including the king) rose up in the morning, behold there were they all (i.e., all who had perished) dead corpses," i.e., they had died in their sleep. מתים is added to strengthen פּגרים: lifeless corpses. ההוּא בּלּילה is in all probability the night following the day on which Isaiah had foretold to Hezekiah the deliverance of Jerusalem. Where the Assyrian army was posted at the time when this terrible stroke fell upon it is not stated, since the account is restricted to the principal fac…
his sons . . . killed him: Although Sennacherib’s assassination took place twenty years later in 681 BC, the narrator includes it here to conclude his discussion of the Assyrian king and to point out the irony in his death. He had boasted that no gods were able to rescue the peoples he attacked, yet his god failed to defend him against assassins from his own family! • At Sennacherib’s death, his son, Esarhaddon, succeeded him and reigned until 669 BC.
Rashi on 2 Kings 19:37
In the temple of Nisroch his god. A board from Noach's ark.31נסרת is a contraction of נסר מתיבתו של נח. 32Sancheiriv believed it was the deity which saved Noach from the Flood, so it will save him also. See Maseches Sanhedrin 96a.
Slew him with a sword. They heard him that he said he would slaughter them33Sancheiriv asked his wise men what was the merit that the Bnei Yisroel had that God fights their battles. They replied that their forefather Avrohom brought his son for a burnt offering. So he decided that he too will offer his two sons. When his sons heard this, they killed him.—Radak before him if they would spare him, so that they would not kill him---the princes of the kingdom, whose s…
Sharezer — (god) protect the king!, a son of Sennacherib, king of Assyria. He and his brother Adrammelech murdered their father, and then fled into the land of Armenia (2 Kings 19:37).
Adrammelech · 2. — 2.
Anger Of God, The · Exemplified against: Sennacherib — Exemplified against: Sennacherib
Armenia · A region in Western Asia — A region in Western Asia
Assassination · .Sennacherib, by his — .Sennacherib, by his
Assyria · Idolatry, the religion of — Idolatry, the religion of
Children, Wicked · Exemplified: Adrammelech and Sharezer — Exemplified: Adrammelech and Sharezer
Sennacherib · General references — General references
Sharezer · 1. — 1.
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
