(21) This is the word . . .--The prophecy which follows is well characterised by Cheyne as one "of striking interest, and both in form and matter stamped with the mark of Isaiah."

Concerning him.--Or, against him.

The virgin the daughter of Zion.--A poetic personification of place. Zion here, as Jerusalem in the next line, is regarded as mother of the people dwelling there. (Comp. 2Samuel 20:19.) The term Virgin naturally denotes the inviolable security of the citadel of Jehovah.

Hath shaken her head at thee.--Or, hath nodded behind thee. (Comp. Psalm 22:8.) The people of Jerusalem nod in scorn at the retiring envoys of Sennacherib.

Verse 21. - This is the word that the Lord hath spoken concerning him. "Him" is, of course, Sennacherib. It adds great liveliness and force to the opening portion of the oracle, that it should be addressed directly by Jehovah to Sennacherib, as an answer to his bold challenge. The only address at all similar in Scripture is that to Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 4:31, 32), spoken by "a voice from heaven" But the present passage is one of far greater force and beauty. The virgin the daughter of Zion; rather, the virgin daughter of Zion, or the virgin daughter, Zion. Cities were commonly personified by the sacred writers, and represented as "daughters" (see Isaiah 23:10, 12; Isaiah 47:1, 5, etc.). "Virgin daughter" here may perhaps represent "the consciousness of impregnability" (Drechsler); but the phrase seems to have been used rhetorically or poetically, to heighten the beauty or pathos of the picture (Isaiah 23:12; Isaiah 47:1; Jeremiah 46:11; Lamentations 2:13), without any reference to the question whether the particular city had or had not been previously taken. Jerusalem certainly had been taken by Shishak (1 Kings 14:26), and by Joash (2 Kings 14:13); but Zion, if it be taken as the name of the eastern city (Bishop Patrick, ad lee.), may have been still a "virgin fortress." Hath despised thee, and laughed thee to scorn; or, despises thee and laughs thee to scorn. The Hebrew preterite has often a present sense. Whatever was the case a little while ago (see Isaiah 22:1-14), the city now laughs at thy threats. The daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee; or, wags her head at thee - in scorn and ridicule (comp. Psalm 22:7).

19:20-34 All Sennacherib's motions were under the Divine cognizance. God himself undertakes to defend the city; and that person, that place, cannot but be safe, which he undertakes to protect. The invasion of the Assyrians probably had prevented the land from being sown that year. The next is supposed to have been the sabbatical year, but the Lord engaged that the produce of the land should be sufficient for their support during those two years. As the performance of this promise was to be after the destruction of Sennacherib's army, it was a sign to Hezekiah's faith, assuring him of that present deliverance, as an earnest of the Lord's future care of the kingdom of Judah. This the Lord would perform, not for their righteousness, but his own glory. May our hearts be as good ground, that his word may strike root therein, and bring forth fruit in our lives.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 "verbatim" as in Isaiah 37:1 throughout; and therefore the reader is referred thither for the exposition of them; only would add what Rauwolff (t) observes, that still to this day (1575) there are two great holes to be seen, wherein they flung the dead bodies (of the Assyrian army), one whereof is close by the road towards Bethlehem, the other towards the right hand against old Bethel.

(t) Travels, par. 3. ch. 22. p. 317.