(33) He came.--So the versions and Isaiah, rightly. The Heb. text here has "he cometh," or "shall come." With the thought comp. 2Kings 19:28 : "I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest."

And shall not come into this city.--And unto this city he shall not come (2Kings 19:32).

Verse 33. - By the way that he came, by the same shall he return (see ver. 28). Not merely, "he shall fail of his object" (Bahr, Keil), "he shall return disappointed;" but, literally, he shall retrace his steps, he shall quit Palestine by the same route by which he entered it - the coast route along the maritime plain, which left Jerusalem on the right at a distance of forty miles. And shall not come into - rather, unto - this city, saith the Lord. An emphatic ending (comp. Isaiah 22:14; Isaiah 45:13; Isaiah 54:17; Isaiah 55:8; Isaiah 59:20; Isaiah 65:25; Isaiah 66:21, 23).

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.