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 the number of the persons slain - 185,000 in a single night - so immensely surpasses the effects even of the most terrible plagues, that this fact cannot be interpreted naturally; and the deniers of miracle have therefore felt obliged to do violence to the text, and to pronounce either the statement that it was “the same night” or the number of the slain a mythical exaggeration.

Verse 36
This divine judgment compelled Sennacherib to retreat without delay, and to return to Nineveh, as Isaiah 28 and 32, had predicted. The heaping up of the verbs: “he decamped, departed, and returned,” expresses the hurry of the march home. בּנינוה ויּשׁב, “he sat, i.e., remained, in Nineveh,” implies not merely that Sennacherib lived for some time after his return, but also that he did not undertake any fresh expedition against Judah. On Nineveh see at Gen 10:11.

Verse 37
2Ki 19:37 2Ki 19:37 contains an account of Sennacherib’s death. When he was worshipping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer slew him, and fled into the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his stead. With regard to נסרך, Nisroch, all that seems to be firmly established is that he was an eagle-deity, and represented by the eagle-or vulture-headed human figure with wings, which is frequently depicted upon the Assyrian monuments, “not only in colossal proportions upon the walls and watching the portals of the rooms, but also constantly in the groups upon the embroidered robes. When it