19 Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Have they delivered Samaria from my hand?
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? It is supposed that Hamath was Antioch in Syria, that Arpad was that city from which colonies were brought to Damascus, and that Sepharvaim was a city situated in the country of Damascus. If this be true, Rabshakeh mentions the ancient names of cities, from which many nations had formerly come, and which afterwards lost not only their celebrity, but likewise their distinctive names, and aims at producing in them greater alarm, by reminding them of so great revolutions. However that may be, he mentions chiefly the neighboring cities, the destruction of which might affect them more deeply on account of their being better known to the Jews. And I have no doubt that these places belonged to Syria and Israel; as if he had said, "Look at these two kingdoms subdued, which were presided over by their gods as their guardians. Will your God resist me?"
Where are the gods of Hamath - In regard to these places, see the notes at Isaiah 10:9-11.
Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? - Sepharvaim was probably in Mesopotamia. Ptolemy mentions a city there of the name of Sipphara, as the most southern city of Mesopotamia, which is probably the same. It is evident that it was in the vicinity of Hamath and Arphad, and these are known to have been in Mesopotamia. When Shalmaneser carried Israel away captive from Samaria, he sent colonies of people into Palestine in their stead, among whom were the Sepharvaim 2-Kings 17:24, 2-Kings 17:31.
And have they delivered Samaria - (See the note at Isaiah 10:11). The author of the Books of Chronicles expresses this in a more summary manner, and says, that Rabshakeh joined Yahweh with the gods of the nations in the same language of reproach: 'And he spake against the God of Jerusalem, as against the gods of the people of the earth, which were the work of the hands of man,' 2-Chronicles 32:19.
Where are the gods - Many MSS. add the conjunction here also: And, or But, where are the gods, etc.
For other matters relative to this chapter, see the notes on 2-Kings 18:13 (note), etc.
Of Sepharvaim - The other copy, 2-Kings 18:34, adds, of "Henah and Ivah."
Have they delivered - וכי vechi. The copulative is not expressed here by the Septuagint, Syriac, Vulgate, and three MSS.; nor is it in any other copy. Ib. Houbigant reads הכי hachi, with the interrogative particle; a probable conjecture, which the ancient Versions above quoted seem to favor.
Where [are] the gods of (m) Hamath and Arphad? where [are] the gods of Sepharvaim? and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand?
(m) That is, of Antioch in Syria, of which these two other cities also were: by which we see how every town had its peculiar idol, and how the wicked make God an idol because they do not understand that God makes them his scourge, and punishes cities for sin.
Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad?.... What is become of them? where are they to be found? where's their power to protect and defend the people they presided over? thus they might be justly derided, but not so the God at Israel; these places are mentioned in Isaiah 10:9. Hamath was a city in Syria, thought by some to be the same afterwards called Antiochia and Epiphania, from Antiochus Epiphanes: Arphad is joined with it in Jeremiah 49:23 as a city of Syria; perhaps originally founded and inhabited by the Arvadite, mentioned with the Hamathite, in Genesis 10:18,
where are the gods of Sepharvaim? another place in Syria, the city Sipphore; not the Sipphara of Ptolemy (n), in Mesopotamia, or that, near Babylon, Abydenus (o) makes mention of, but a city in Syro-Phoenicia, 2-Kings 17:24,
and have they delivered Samaria out of my hand? the gods of the above places, which were worshipped in Samaria, or the gods peculiar to that place; though Samaria was not taken by the present king of Assyria, Sennacherib, but by a predecessor of his, Shalmaneser,
2Ki 17:3,6, which yet is here boasted of as a conquest of the present king.
(n) Geograph. l. 5. c. 18. (o) Apud Euseb. Praepar. Evangel. l. 9. c. 41. p. 457.
Hamath . . . Arphad--(See on Isaiah 10:9).
Sepharvaim--literally, "the two scribes"; now Sipphara, on the east of Euphrates, above Babylon. It was a just retribution (Proverbs 1:31; Jeremiah 2:19). Israel worshipped the gods of Sepharvaim, and so colonists of Sepharvaim were planted in the land of Israel (thenceforth called Samaria) by the Assyrian conqueror (2-Kings 17:24; compare 2-Kings 18:34).
Samaria--Shalmaneser began the siege against Hoshea, because of his conspiring with So of Egypt (2-Kings 17:4). Sargon finished it; and, in his palace at Khorsabad, he has mentioned the number of Israelites carried captive--27,280 [G. V. SMITH].
*More commentary available at chapter level.