Isaiah 37:8

So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Warring against Libnah . . . Lachish.—Both names occur in Joshua 15:39; Joshua 15:42, as belonging to Judah. The step would seem to indicate a strategic movement, intended to check the march of Tirhakah’s army; but in our ignorance of the topography, we can settle nothing further. By some writers Libnah has been identified with Pelusium, or some other town in the Delta of the Nile. The narrative seems, perhaps, to suggest something more than a transfer of the attack from one small fortress in Judah to another; but that is all that can be said.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

37:1-38 This chapter is the same as 2Ki 19

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

So Rabshakeh returned - Returned from Jerusalem to the camp of his master. He had received no answer to his insulting message Isaiah 36:21; he saw there was no prospect that the city would surrender; and he therefore returned again to the camp.

And found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah - He had departed from Lachish. Why he had done this is unknown. It is possible that he had taken it, though this is not recorded anywhere in history. Or it is possible that he had found it impracticable to subdue it as speedily as he had desired; and had withdrawn from it for the purpose of subduing other places that would offer a more feeble resistance. Libnah was a city in the south of Judah Joshua 15:42, given to the priests, and declared a city of refuge 1 Chronicles 6:54, 1 Chronicles 6:57. Eusebius and Jerome say it was in the district of Eleutheropolis (Calmet). It was about ten miles to the northwest of Lachish. This city was taken by Joshua, and all its inhabitants put to the sword After taking this. Joshua next assaulted and took Lachish Joshua 10:29-32.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. returned—to the camp of his master.

Libnah—meaning "whiteness," the Blanche-garde of the Crusaders [Stanley]. Eusebius and Jerome place it more south, in the district of Eleutheropolis, ten miles northwest of Lachish, which Sennacherib had captured (see on [766]Isa 36:2). Libnah was in Judea and given to the priests (1Ch 6:54, 57).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So Rabshakeh returned,.... To the king of Assyria his master, to give him an account how things went at Jerusalem, and that he could get no direct answer from the king of Judah, and to consult with him what was proper to be done in the present situation of things; leaving the army before Jerusalem, under the command of the other two generals. For that he should take the army with him does not seem reasonable, when Hezekiah and his people were in such a panic on account of it; besides, the king of Assyria's letters to Hezekiah clearly suppose the army to be still at Jerusalem, or his menacing letters would have signified nothing; and after this the destruction of the Assyrian army before Jerusalem is related:

and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah; a city in the tribe of Judah, Joshua 10:29, and lay nearer to Jerusalem than Lachish, where Rabshakeh left him; so that he seemed to be drawing his army towards that city, on which his heart was set. Josephus (u) makes him to be at this time besieging Pelusium, a city in Egypt, but wrongly; which has led some into a mistake that Libnah and Pelusium are the same:

for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish; where he was, when he sent him to Jerusalem, Isaiah 36:2, having very probably taken it.

(u) Antiqu. l. 10. c. 1. sect. 4.

Geneva Study Bible

So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against {g} Libnah: for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.

(g) Which was a city toward Egypt, thinking by it to have stayed the force of his enemies.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. Libnah] another of the “defenced cities” of Judah (Joshua 10:29). Its situation is not known.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Rabshakeh... found the King of Assyria warring against Libnah. Libnah was a town at no great distance from Lachish (Joshua 10:31; Joshua 15:39-42). It was also near Mareshah (Joshua 15:42-44), and must therefore have belonged to the more southern portion of the Shefeleh, and probably to the eastern region, where the hills sink down into the plain. The exact site is very uncertain, and still remains to be discovered. Sennacherib's object in moving upon Libnah is doubtful; but it would seem, from his monuments, that he had captured Lachish (Layard, 'Nineveh and Babylon,' pp. 149-152), and had gone on to Libnah, as the next stronghold on the way to Egypt. Isaiah 37:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Rabshakeh, who is mentioned alone in both texts as the leading person engaged, returns to Sennacherib, who is induced to make a second attempt to obtain possession of Jerusalem, as a position of great strength and decisive importance. "Rabshakeh thereupon returned, and found the king of Asshur warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he had withdrawn from Lachish. And he heard say concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, (K. Behold), he has come out to make war with thee; and heard, and sent (K. and repeated, and sent) messengers to Hizkiyahu, saying." Tirhakah was cursorily referred to in Isaiah 18:1-7. The twenty-fifth dynasty of Manetho contained three Ethiopian rulers: Sabakon, Sebichōs (סוא equals סוא), although, so far as we know, the Egyptian names begin with Sh), and Tarakos (Tarkos), Egypt. Taharka, or Heb. with the tone upon the penultimate, Tirhâqâh. The only one mentioned by Herodotus is Sabakon, to whom he attributes a reign of fifty years (ii. 139), i.e., as much as the whole three amount to, when taken in a round sum. If Sebichos is the biblical So', to whom the lists attribute from twelve to fourteen years, it is perfectly conceivable that Tirhakah may have been reigning in the fourteenth year of Hezekiah. But if this took place, as Manetho affirms, 366 years before the conquest of Egypt by Alexander, i.e., from 696 onwards (and the Apis-stele, No. 2037, as deciphered by Vic. de Roug, Revue archol. 1863, confirms it), it would be more easily reconcilable with the Assyrian chronology, which represents Sennacherib as reigning from 702-680 (Oppert and Rawlinson), than with the current biblical chronology, according to which Hezekiah's fourteenth year is certainly not much later than the year 714.

(Note: On the still prevailing uncertainty with regard to the synchronism, see Keil on Kings; and Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums. pp. 713-4.)

It is worthy of remark also, that Tirhakah is not described as Pharaoh here, but as the king of Ethiopia (melekh Kūsh; see at Isaiah 37:36). Libnah, according to the Onom. a place in regione Eleutheropolitana, is probably the same as Tell es-Safieh ("hill of the pure" equals of the white), to the north-west of Bet Gibrin, called Alba Specula (Blanche Garde) in ten middle ages. The expression ויּשׁמע ("and he heard"), which occurs twice in the text, points back to what is past, and also prepares the way for what follows: "having heard this, he sent," etc. At the same time it appears to have been altered from ויּשׁב.