(33) Nor come before it with shields.--The clause points to the two forms of attack: (1) the invaders marching to the assault, protected by their serried shields against the darts and stones which were flung by hand or from engines by the besieged; and (2) the earthworks which were piled up to make the attack on the walls more feasible. (Comp. Habakkuk 1:10; Ezekiel 4:2.) Isaiah's prediction is not only that Jerusalem will not be taken, but that the enemy, though now encamped around it, will not even proceed to the usual operations of a siege.

Verse 33. - Therefore, etc. A new clause is commenced - the concluding clause of the prophecy. For Hezekiah's satisfaction and consolation something more definite is needed than the vague assurances that "the daughter of Jerusalem shook her head at Sennacherib" (ver. 22), and that God would "put a bridle in Sennacherib's mouth" (ver. 29). Accordingly, it is now declared, in the plainest terms, that he shall not even lay siege to the city, but shall return by the way by which he came - the coast route - leaving Jerusalem untouched, nay, unattempted. He shall not come into this city; rather, unto the city. He was at Libnah, in the Shefeleh, thirty or forty miles from Jerusalem, when we last heard of him (ver. 8); and, having then been just informed of the advance of Tirhakah, he is likely to have proceeded on towards Egypt. There is, at any rate, not the slightest intimation of his having made a retrograde movement towards the Jewish capital. Nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it. The main points of an Assyrian siege are happily seized. The first assailants were the archers. They boldly approached in large bodies, and strove to clear the battlements of the defenders. Then shields were brought into play. Under their cover the archers drew nearer; the scaling parties brought up their ladders; the miners attacked the foundations of the walls; and the torch-bearers endeavoured to fire the gates. Finally, if these tactics did not avail, banks were raised against the walls, which were then assailed with battering-rams till they were breached and the assailants could cuter. God promises that Jerusalem shall experience none of these things at Sennacherib's hands.

37:1-38 This chapter is the same as 2Ki 19Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria,.... The issue of his expedition, and the fruitfulness of it; how vain his attempts would be, and how successless in this undertaking:

he shall not come into this city; shall not enter into it, and take possession of it, though so sure of it; or, "shall not come unto it (w)"; for some think he never was any nearer it than Libnah, from whence he sent his letters to Hezekiah, Isaiah 37:8,

nor shoot an arrow there; neither he nor his archers, so as to annoy or kill anyone person in it:

nor come before it with shields; or, "with a shield"; that is, he himself with one; otherwise his army under Rabshakeh was before it with men armed with shields; or the sense is, he shall not prevent it, or seize upon it, with his shielded men:

nor cast a bank against it; raise a mount, in order to fix his batteries upon, and play his artillery from, and shoot his arrows in to greater advantage.

(w) "non veniet ad civitatem hanc", Oecolampadius, Musculus, Gataker; "ad urbem hanc": Vitringa.