Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, — the oracle shifts to address Sennacherib directly: his conquest is not his own achievement but the LORD's predetermined plan. The phrase 'I determined it long ago... I planned from days of old' reinterprets Sennacherib's conquests as fulfillment of the LORD's purpose. The conquered cities did not fall to Sennacherib's power but because the LORD 'determined it long ago.' This theological interpretation transforms Sennacherib from a sovereign actor into an instrument of divine judgment.

COMMUNITY REFLECTIONS

Publish a note on this verse