Isaiah 37:22

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

²¹Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²²this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: 'The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you.²³Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! ²⁴Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: "With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypress trees. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests. ²⁵I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt." ²⁶Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble. ²⁷Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are plants of the field, tender green shoots, grass on the roofs, scorched before it is grown. ²⁸But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me. ²⁹Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.' ³⁰And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

The virgin: Isaiah 23:12, Jeremiah 14:17, Lamentations 1:15, Lamentations 2:13, Amos 5:2

the daughter: Isaiah 1:8, Isaiah 10:32, Isaiah 62:11, Psalms 9:14, Zephaniah 3:14, Zechariah 2:10, Zechariah 9:9, Matthew 21:5

hath despised: Isaiah 8:9, Isaiah 8:10, 1 Samuel 17:36, 1 Samuel 17:44-47, Psalms 2:2-4, Psalms 27:1-3, Psalms 31:18, Psalms 46:1-7, Joel 3:9-12

shaken: Job 16:4, Psalms 22:7, Psalms 22:8, Matthew 27:39

Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 33:12 - The beloved 2 Kings 19:21 - The virgin Psalms 44:14 - shaking Psalms 48:11 - daughters Psalms 52:6 - laugh Psalms 53:5 - because Psalms 109:25 - when they Psalms 129:5 - be confounded Isaiah 10:24 - be not afraid Isaiah 47:1 - O virgin Jeremiah 18:16 - shall be Jeremiah 31:4 - O Lamentations 2:15 - wag Ezekiel 38:7 - General Micah 1:9 - he Zephaniah 2:10 - and magnified

Cross-References

Genesis 22:12
"Do not lay a hand on the boy or do anything to him," said the Angel, "for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your only son from Me."

Genesis 42:22
But Reuben replied: "Didn't I tell you not to sin against the boy? But you would not listen. Now we must account for his blood!"

Exodus 24:11
But God did not lay His hand on the nobles of Israel; they saw Him, and they ate and drank.

Deuteronomy 13:9
Instead, you must surely kill him. Your hand must be the first against him to put him to death, and then the hands of all the people.

Matthew 27:24
When Pilate saw that he was accomplishing nothing, but that instead a riot was breaking out, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd. "I am innocent of this man's blood," he said. "You bear the responsibility."

Acts 12:1
About that time, King Herod reached out to harm some who belonged to the church.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concerning him,.... The sentence he has pronounced upon him, the punishment he has determined to inflict on him, in answer to Hezekiah's prayer against him:

the virgin, the daughter of Zion; hath despised thee; and laughed thee to scorn; that, is the inhabitants of Zion, particularly of the fort of Zion, called a "virgin", because it had never been forced, or taken and to show that it was a vain thing in Sennacherib to attempt it, as well as it would have been an injurious one, could he have accomplished it; since God, the Father of this virgin, would carefully keep her from such a rape; and he who was her husband to whom she was espoused as a chaste virgin, would defend and protect her; and the whole is designed to show the impotent malice of the king of Assyria; otherwise, at the time when these words were spoken, the daughter of Zion was in a fearful and trembling condition, and not in a laughing frame; but this declares what she might do now, and would do hereafter, for anything that he could do against her. The Targum paraphrases it,

"the kingdom of the congregation of Zion;''

the whole nation. Some restrain this to the inhabitants of the upper part of the city of Jerusalem, as what follows to those of the lower part:

the daughter of Jerusalem hath shaken her head at thee; or "after thee o"; by way of scorn and derision; that is when he fled; which shows, that though these things are spoken as if they were past, after the manner of the prophets, yet were to come, and would be when Sennacherib fled, upon the destruction of his army. Of this phrase, as expressive of scorn, see Psalms 22:7. The Targum is, "the people that dwell in Jerusalem", &c.

o אחריך "post te", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The virgin, the daughter of Zion - Jerusalem (see the note at Isaiah 1:8; compare the note at Isaiah 23:12). The parallelism in this and the following verses shows that the poetic form of speech is here introduced.

Hast despised thee - That is, it is secure from thy contemplated attack. The idea is, that Jerusalem would exult over the ineffectual attempts of Sennacherib to take it, and over his complete overthrow.

Hath laughed thee to scorn - Will make thee an object of derision.

Hath shaken her head at thee - This is an indication of contempt and scorn (compare Psalms 22:7; Psalms 109:25; Jeremiah 18:16; Zephaniah 2:15; Matthew 27:39).