2 Chronicles 32:13

Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) What I and my fathers have done.—The Assyrian kings are fond of such references to their predecessors.

The people of other lands.—Rather, the peoples of the countries.

Those lands.—The countries.

Their lands.—Their country. The chronicler omits the names of the vanquished states given in 2Kings 18:34, some of which had probably become obscure by lapse of time.

Assurbanipal relates that in his eighth campaign he carried off the gods of Elam with the other spoils: “His gods, his goddesses, his furniture, his goods, people small and great, I carried off to Assyria;” and he adds the names of nineteen of these deities.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

32:1-23 Those who trust God with their safety, must use proper means, else they tempt him. God will provide, but so must we also. Hezekiah gathered his people together, and spake comfortably to them. A believing confidence in God, will raise us above the prevailing fear of man. Let the good subjects and soldiers of Jesus Christ, rest upon his word, and boldly say, Since God is for us, who can be against us? By the favour of God, enemies are lost, and friends gained.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

fathers - i. e. "predecessors." Sennacherib really belonged to a dynasty that had only furnished one king before himself.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9-20. (See on [466]2Ki 18:17-35; also 2Ki 19:8-34).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Hath not the same Hezekiah taken away his high places,.... For the sense of this and the three following verses, see the notes on Isaiah 36:17; see Gill on Isaiah 36:18, Isaiah 36:19, Isaiah 36:20

Geneva Study Bible

Know ye not what I and my fathers have done unto all the people of other lands? were the gods of the nations of those lands any ways able to deliver their lands out of mine hand?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. the people of other lands] R.V. the peoples of the lands. In 2 Kings 18:34 the lands are specified and include Samaria.

of those lands … their lands] R.V. of the lands … their land.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Some of these deeds of Sennacherib and his fathers, i.e. predecessors in the kingdom of Assyria, are mentioned in detail in 2 Kings 17, passim. 2 Chronicles 32:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The description of Sennacherib's all-conquering power: cf. 2 Kings 18:35; Isaiah 36:20, and Isaiah 37:11-13. "Who is there among all the gods of these peoples, whom my fathers utterly destroyed, who could have delivered his people out of my hand, that your God should save you?" The idea is, that since the gods of the other peoples, which were mightier than your God, have not been able to save their peoples, how should your God be in a position to rescue you from my power? This idea is again repeated in 2 Chronicles 32:15, as a foundation for the exhortation not to let themselves be deceived and misled by Hezekiah, and not to believe his words, and that in an assertative form: "for not one god of any nation or kingdom was able to deliver his people, ... much less then (כּי אף) your gods: they will not save you;" and this is done in order to emphasize strongly the blasphemy of the Assyrian generals against the Almighty God of Israel. To communicate more of these blasphemous speeches would in the chronicler's view be useless, and he therefore only remarks, in 2 Chronicles 32:16, "And yet more spake his (Sennacherib's) servants against God Jahve, and against His servant Hezekiah;" and then, in 2 Chronicles 32:17, that Sennacherib also wrote a letter of similar purport, and (2 Chronicles 32:18) that his servants called with a loud voice in the Jews' speech to the people of Jerusalem upon the wall, to throw them into fear and terrify them, that they might take the city. What they called to the people is not stated, but by the infinit. וּלבהלם ליראם it is hinted, and thence we may gather that it was to the same effect as the blasphemous speeches above quoted (יראם, inf. Pi., as in Nehemiah 6:19). - On comparing 2 Kings 18 and 19, it is clear that Sennacherib only sent the letter to Hezekiah after his general Rabshakeh had informed him of the fruitlessness of his efforts to induce the people of Jerusalem to submit by speeches, and the news of the advance of the Cushite king Tirhakah had arrived; while the calling aloud in the Jews' language to the people standing on the wall, on the part of his generals, took place in the first negotiation with the ambassadors of Hezekiah. The author of the Chronicle has arranged his narrative rhetorically, so as to make the various events form a climax: first, the speeches of the servants of Sennacherib; then the king's letter to Hezekiah to induce him and his counsellors to submit; and finally, the attempt to terrify the people in language intelligible to them. The conclusion is the statement, 2 Chronicles 32:19 : "They spake of the God of Jerusalem as of the gods of the peoples of the earth, the work of the hands of man;" cf. 2 Kings 19:18.