(29) Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose . . .--The Assyrian sculptures represent both beasts and men as dragged in this way (Ezekiel 38:4). (Comp. the same image in Isaiah 30:28.)

Verse 29. - Therefore will I put my hook in thy nose (comp. Ezekiel 29:4; Ezekiel 38:4; 2 Chronicles 33:11). The Assyrians were in the habit of passing "hooks" or "rings" through the noses or lips of their more distinguished prisoners, and attaching a thong to the hook or ring, by which they led the prisoners into the royal presence ('Ancient Monarchies,' vol. 1. p. 304; vol. 3. p. 436). The expressions used derive their force from these practices, but are not in the present place to be understood literally. God "turned Sennacherib back" and reconducted him to Nineveh. not with an actual "hook" or "thong," but by the "bridle" of necessity.

37:1-38 This chapter is the same as 2Ki 19Because thy rage against me, and thy tumult is come up into mine ears,..... The rage which Sennacherib expressed both by Rabshakeh, and in his letter against Hezekiah and his people, is taken by the Lord as against himself; so great was his care of them, and concern for them; and indeed there was a great deal of blasphemy belched out against himself; and so the Syriac version renders the next word, translated "tumult", "thy blasphemy"; though that may rather intend the blustering noise that Rabshakeh made, or the noise of the Assyrian army, the chariots and horsemen, and the multitude of the soldiers, which was not only heard by the Jews, and was terrible to them, but was taken notice of by the Lord, who had it in derision; hence he adds:

therefore will I put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips; comparing Sennacherib to leviathan, or the great whale, or to some very large and unruly fish, not easily caught and managed; see Job 41:1, or to a bear, or buffalo, in whose noses men put iron rings, and lead them about at pleasure; and also to a horse or mule, which are managed by the bit and bridle; signifying hereby the strength, fierceness, and fury of the Assyrian monarch, and the power of God to restrain him, which he could easily do:

and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest; from Jerusalem, the same way he came to it, to his own land again, and so he did, Isaiah 37:37.