clear. Josephus (Ant. x. 1, 5) and the Rabbis suppose the judgment to have overtaken the army that

lay before Jerusalem. This is also the view of Friedrich Delitzsch in Herzog's Real Ency. vol. xiii.,

p. 386. In 2 Chronicles 32:21, and in Isaiah 37:36, the words, "in that night," are omitted. This

seems of itself to indicate that all the 185,000 h ad not died in that one night.

From 2 Samuel 24:15, 16, we are led to infer that, while the judgment was directly sent of God,

the means employed was a pestilence. The number of victims amounted to not less than 185,000,

although the text does not indicate, and there is certainly no reason for believing that they all fell

in one night.*

* See the previous note. Much larger numbers than these are recorded to have perished by

pestilence in one place.

But to the sacred historian it seems from his prophetic view-point but as one unbroken scene in the

great drama of judgment, and he pictorially describes it as a field of the slain, on which they

looked as they "arose early in the morning." And so the Divine judgment completed what the turn

which the campaign had taken had begun. It was only natural that Sennacherib should depart and

return to his own land.*

* That some extraordinary event had determined the retreat of Sennacherib appears also from the

Egyptian legendary account preserved by Herodotus (II. 14 1). It describes how, on his advance

into Egypt - perhaps mixing. up the campaign of Sargon with that of Sennacherib (Schrader in

Riehm's Worterb., II., p. 1366a) - Sennacherib had been forced to fly through a disablement of his

army, field -mice having in one night gnawed through the quivers, bowstrings, and shield -straps of

his soldiers.

But the account in Holy Scripture in this also evidences its historical accuracy, that it describes

him as dwelling "at Nineveh." For Sennacherib not only made this his p ermanent residence,

fortified and converted it into his grand imperial fortress, but adorned it with two magnificent

* For further details, we refer to the articles, "Ninive" and "Sanherib," in Riehm's Handworterb. d.

Bibl. A1terth.

There is one event in the history of Israel which the Divine judgment on Sennacherib and the

deliverance of Judah must recall to every mind. It is Israel's miraculous deliverance at the time of

the Exodus and of the destruction of the army of Pharaoh in the waves o f the Red Sea (comp.

Exodus 14:23-31). Then, as now, was the danger extreme, and it seemed as if Israel were

defenseless and powerless before the mighty host of the enemy. Then, as now, was the word of the

LORD clear and emphatic; then, as now, it was the night season when the deliverance was

wrought; and then, as now, was it Israel's birth-time as a nation. For now, after the final

transportation of Israel, did Judah stand forth as the people of the LORD, the inheritors of the

promise, the representatives of the kingdom of God. As then, so now was Judah saved without

drawing sword or bow, only by the interposition of the LORD. And so it has to all times remained

by the side of the miracles of the Exodus as the outstanding event in the typical history of the

people of God, perpetuated not only in the later non-canonical literature of Israel, but possibly

forming the historical basis of Psalm 46,* and more probably that of Psalm 75 and 76.**

* But Delitzsch refers this Psalm to the deliverance of Judah in t he time of Jehoshaphat (2

Chronicles 20).

** Comp. Delitzsch on these Psalms. In the LXX. Psalm 76 (Sept., lxxv.), and also originally

Psalm 75 also bore the inscription, (...) In the Apocr. the references are in Ecclus. 48:18-22; 1

Macc. 7:41; 2 Macc. 8:19.