(24) I have digged and drunk strange waters.--Scarcity of water has hitherto been no bar to my advance. In foreign and hostile lands, where the fountains and cisterns have been stopped and covered in (2Chronicles 32:3), I have digged new wells.

And with the sole . . . places.--Rather, and I will dry up with the sole of my feet all the Nile arms of M?cor--i.e., Lower Egypt. (Comp. Isaiah 19:5 seq.) Neither mountains nor rivers avail to stop my progress. As the style is poetical, perhaps it would be correct to take the perfects, which in 2Kings 19:23-24 alternate with imperfects, in a future sense: "I--I will ascend lofty mountains . . . I will dig and drink strange waters" the latter in the arid desert that lies between Egypt and Palestine (the Et-Tih). Otherwise, both perfects and imperfects may mark what is habitual: "I ascend . . . I dig."

Verse 24. - I have digged and drunk strange waters; rather, perhaps, I dig, and drink... and dry up - the preterit having again a present sense. Sennacherib means that this is what he is wont to do. As mountains do not stop him (ver. 23), so deserts do not stop him - he digs wells in them, and drinks water "strange" to the soil - never before seen there. And with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places; rather, will 1 dry up all the rivers of Egypt (compare the Revised Version. "Mazor" is used for "Egypt" in Isaiah 19:6 and Micah 7:12). It is the old singular from which was formed the dual Mizraim. Whether it meant "land of strength" (Pusey), or "land of distress" (Ewald), may be doubted, since we have no right to assume a Hebrew derivation. There was probably a native word, from which the Hebrew Mazor, the Assyrian Muzr, and the Arabic Misr were taken. Sennacherib's beast is that, as he makes deserts traversable by digging wells, so, if rivers try to stop him, he will find a way of drying them up. Compare the boasts of Alaric in Claudian ('Bell. Get.,' pp. 525-532), who had probably this passage of Kings in his thoughts -

"To patior suadente fugam, cum cesserit omnis
Obsequiis natura meis?
Subsidere nostris Sub pedibus montes, arescere vidimus amnes
Fregi Alpes, galeisque Padum victricibus hausi."

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.