The opening verses of chap. xxxiii. fit the very moment of the crisis, as if Isaiah had flung them across the walls in the teeth of the Rabshakeh and the second embassy from Sennacherib, who had returned to demand the surrender of the city in spite of Hezekiah's tribute for her integrity: _Woe to thee, thou spoiler, and thou wast not spoiled, thou treacherous dealer, and they did not deal treacherously with thee_! _When thou ceasest to spoil, thou shalt be spoiled; and when thou makest an end to deal treacherously, they shall deal treacherously with thee._ Then follows the prayer, as already quoted, and the confidence in the security of Jerusalem (ver. 2). A new paragraph (vv. 7-12) describes Rabshakeh and his company demanding the surrender of the city; the disappointment of the ambassadors who had been sent to treat with Sennacherib (ver. 7); the perfidy of the great king, who had broken the covenant they had made with him and swept his armies back upon Judah (ver. 8); the disheartening of the land under this new shock (ver. 9); and the resolution of the Lord now to rise and scatter the invaders: _Now will I arise, saith Jehovah; now will I lift up Myself; now will I be exalted_. _Ye shall conceive chaff; ye shall bring forth stubble; your breath is a fire, that shall devour you. And the peoples shall be as the burnings of lime, as thorns cut down that are burned in the fire_ (vv. 10-12). After an application of this same fire of God's righteousness to the sinners _within_ Jerusalem, to which we shall presently return, the rest of the chapter pictures the stunned populace awaking to the fact that they are free. Is the Assyrian really gone, or do the Jews dream as they crowd the walls, and see no trace of him? Have they all vanished--the Rabshakeh, _by the conduit of the upper pool, with his loud voice_ and insults; the scribes to whom they handed the tribute, and who prolonged the agony by counting it under their eyes; the scouts and engineers insolently walking about Zion and mapping out her walls for the assault; the close investment of barbarian hordes, with their awesome speech and uncouth looks! _Where is he that counted? where is he that weighed the tribute? where is he that counted the towers? Thou shall not see the fierce people, a people of a deep speech that thou canst not perceive, of a strange tongue that thou canst not understand._ They have vanished. Hezekiah may lift his head again. O people--sore at heart to see thy king in sackcloth and ashes[63] as the enemy devoured province after province of thy land and cooped thee up within the narrow walls, thou scarcely didst dare to peep across--take courage, the terror is gone! _A king in his beauty thine eyes shall see; they shall behold the land spreading very far forth_ (ver. 17). We had thought to die in the restlessness and horror of war, never again to know what stable life and regular worship were, our Temple services interrupted, our home a battlefield.