The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep: and none of the men of might have found their hands.

The stouthearted are made a spoil, They have slept their sleep; And none of the men of might have found their hands.

All the foolish of heart were troubled. They have slept their sleep; and all the men of riches have found nothing in their hands.

The stout-hearted are made a spoil, they have slept their sleep; and none of the men of might have found their hands.

The stout-hearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep: and none of the men of might have found their hands.

Spoiled themselves have the mighty of heart, They have slept their sleep, And none of the men of might found their hands.

Gone is the wealth of the strong, their last sleep has overcome them; the men of war have become feeble.

Glorious art Thou and excellent, coming down from the mountains of prey.

The stout-hearted were spoiled, The power of God in destroying his enemies is here exalted by another form of expression. The verb 'stvllv, eshtolelu, which we translate were spoiled, is derived from sll, shalal, and the letter ', aleph, is put instead of the letter h, he. [1] Some translate, were made fools; [2] but this is too forced. I, however, admit that it is of the same import, as if it had been said, that they were deprived of wisdom and courage; but we must adhere to the proper signification of the word. What is added in the second clause is to the same purpose, All the men of might have not found their hands [3] that is to say, they were as incapable of fighting as if their hands had been maimed or cut off. In short, their strength, of which they boasted, was utterly overthrown. The words, they slept their sleep, [4] refer to the same subject; implying that whereas before they were active and resolute, their hearts now failed them, and they were sunk asleep in sloth and listlessness. The meaning, therefore, is, that the enemies of the chosen people were deprived of that heroic courage of which they boasted, and which inspired them with such audacity; and that, in consequence, neither mind, nor heart, nor hands, none either of their mental or bodily faculties, could perform their office. We are thus taught that all the gifts and power which men seem to possess are in the hand of God, so that he can, at any instant of time, deprive them of the wisdom which he has given them, make their hearts effeminate, render their hands unfit for war, and annihilate their whole strength. It is not without reason that both the courage and power of these enemies are magnified; the design of this being, that the faithful might be led, from the contrast, to extol the power and working of God. The same subject is farther confirmed from the statement, that the chariot and the horse were cast into a deep sleep at the rebuke of God [5] This implies, that whatever activity characterised these enemies, it was rendered powerless, simply by the nod of God. Although, therefore, we may be deprived of all created means of help, let us rest contented with the favor of God alone, accounting it all-sufficient, since he has no need of great armies to repel the assaults of the whole world, but is able, by the mere breath of his mouth, to subdue and dissipate all assailants.

Footnotes

1 - The verb is in the praet. hithpahel; and it has ', aleph, instead of h, he, according to the Chaldaic language, which changes h, the Hebrew characteristic of hiphil and hithpahel into '

2 - As the verb signifies, has plundered, spoiled; and as it is here in the praet. hithpahel, which generally denotes reciprocal action, that is, acting on one's self, it has been here rendered by some, despoiled themselves of mind, were mad, furious. Hammond reads, "The stout-hearted have despoiled or disarmed themselves." The Chaldee paraphrase is, "They have cast away their weapons."

3 - "ydyhm l' mts'v, may be rendered have not found their hands, i e., have not been able to use them for resistance, for the offending others, or even for their own defense." -- Hammond The Chaldee paraphrase is, "They could not take their weapons in their hands," i e., they could not use their hands to manage their weapons. In the Septuagint, the reading is, heuron ouden tais chersin auton; "they found nothing with their hands," i e., they were able to do nothing with them: the vast army of Assyrians, the most warlike and victorious then in the world, achieved nothing, but "returned with shame to face to their own land," (2 Chronicles 32:21.)

4 - "They slept their sleep." "They slept, but never waked again." -- Hammond. There may be here a direct allusion to the catastrophe which befell the Assyrian army during the night, when, as they were fast asleep in their tents, a hundred and eighty-five thousand of them were at once slain, Isaiah 37:36.

5 - The chariot and horse may be put poetically for charioteers and horsemen. Chariots formed a most important part of the array in the battles of the ancients. See Judges 4:3. Instead of "both the chariot and the horse," Horsley reads, "both the rider and the horse." "It is not improbable," says he, "that the pestilence in Sennacherib's army might seize the horses as well as the men, although the death of the beasts is not mentioned by the sacred historian."

The stout-hearted are spoiled - The valiant men, the men who came so confidently to the invasion. The word "spoiled" here, as elsewhere in the Scriptures, means "plundered," not (as the word is now used) "corrupted." See the notes at Colossians 2:8.
They have slept their sleep - They are dead; they have slept their last sleep. Death, in the Scriptures, as in all other writings, is often compared with sleep.
And none of the men of might - The men who came forth for purposes of war and conquest.
Have found their hands - The Septuagint renders this, "Have found nothing in their hands;" that is, they have obtained no plunder. Luther renders it, "And all warriors must suffer their hands to fall." De Wette, "Have lost their hands?" The idea seems to be, that they had lost the use of their hands; that is, that they had no use for them, or did not find them of any use. They could not employ them for the purpose for which they were intended, but were suddenly stricken down.

The stout-hearted are spoiled - The boasting blasphemers, such as Rab-shakeh, and his master Sennacherib, the king of Assyria.
They have slept their sleep - They were asleep in their tent when the destroying angel, the suffocating wind, destroyed the whole; they over whom it passed never more awoke.
None of the men of might - Is not this a strong irony? Where are your mighty men? their boasted armor, etc.?

The stouthearted are spoiled, they have slept their sleep: and none of the men of might have (d) found their hands.
(d) God has taken their spirits and strength from them as though their hands were cut off.

The stout hearted are spoiled,.... The Assyrian army, its officers and generals, that came up against Jerusalem, with great resolution and courage, and with daring impiety and blasphemy against the God of heaven, as Rabshakeh and others; these were spoiled, and their armour and riches became a prey to those they thought to have made a prey of. So principalities and powers were spoiled by Christ upon the cross, and Satan, the strong man armed, has in the conversion of a sinner his armour taken from him, and his spoils divided by him that is stronger than he; and such as are stouthearted, and far from true righteousness, are stripped of their own, and made willing, in the day of Christ's power upon them, to submit to his; and as for antichrist, whose look is more stout than his fellows, that exalts himself above all that is called God, and opens his mouth in blasphemy against him and his followers, he shall be destroyed with the breath of Christ's mouth, and the brightness of his coming: or "the stout hearted have spoiled themselves" (a); as the Midianites did, or gave themselves for a prey; so the Targum,
"the stouthearted have cast off from them the weapons of war;''
threw away their armour, and ran away, such of them as were not destroyed by the angel. It is observable, that the Hebrew word, translated "spoiled", is in the Syriac form:
they have slept their sleep: the sleep of death, as did the Assyrians when smitten by the angel, which was done in the night, when probably they were fast asleep, and so never awoke more, as the Babylonians, Jeremiah 51:57. So Jezebel, or the Romish antichrist, shall be cast into a bed, and her children killed with death, Revelation 2:22. Death is often in Scripture signified by a sleep, both the death of the righteous and of the wicked; but there is a difference between the one and the other; wherefore the death of the wicked here is called "their sleep"; the one sleep in Jesus, in his arms, and under his guardianship, the other not; to the one death is a true and proper rest from toil and labour, to the other only a cessation from doing mischief, Job 3:17, the one rests in hopes of a glorious resurrection, the other not; the one will awake in Christ's likeness, and to everlasting life; the other in the image of Satan, and to everlasting shame and contempt:
and none of the men of might have found their hands; none of the valiant soldiers in the Assyrian army could find their hands to fight their enemies, or defend themselves; as men in a deep sleep cannot find their hands to do anything, and are as if they had none, and still less in a dead sleep. The Targum is,
"they were not able to lay hold on their armour with their hands.''
This was the case of them that were killed; and as for those that remained alive, they were struck with such a panic, that their hearts could not endure, nor their hands be strong when God thus dealt with them; and so it will be with the antichristian army at the battle of Armageddon; and so it is with the wicked at death, they cannot find their hands so as to prevent it; and when it has seized upon them, they cannot find their hands to do any more mischief.
(a) "praedae se exposnerunt", Tigurine version, Gejerus; "dediderunt se in praedam", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator.

slept their sleep--died (Psalm 13:3).
none . . . found . . . hands--are powerless.

Sleep - Even a perpetual sleep.