[582] Heb., _Sepharîm_; Vulg., _litteræ_; 2 Chron. xxxii. 17. The more ordinary term for a letter is _iggereth_. [583] 2 Kings xix. 12 (Heb.); Ezek. xxvii. 23. On these places see Schrader, ii. 11, 12. It had been indeed Sennacherib's work "to reduce fenced cities to ruinous heaps." He boasts on the Bellino Cylinder, "Their smaller towns without number I overthrew, and reduced them to heaps of rubbish" (_Records of the Past_, i. 27). [584] "It is a prayer without words, a prayer in action, which then passes into a spoken prayer" (Delitzsch). [585] The Assyrians are sometimes represented in their monuments as hewing idols to pieces in honour of their god Assur (Botta, _Monum._, pl. 140). [586] LXX., κινεῖν τὴν κεφαλήν, "a gesture of scorn" (Psalm xxii. 7, cix. 25; Lam. ii. 15). With the vaunts of Sennacherib compare Claudian, _De bell. Geth._, 526-532. "Cum cesserit omnis Obsequiis natura meis? Subsidere nostris Sub pedibus montes, _arescere vidimus amnes_ ... Fregi Alpes, _galeis Padum victricibus hausi_." KEIL, _ad loc._ [587] Comp. 2 Chron. xxxiii. 11 (Heb.); Psalm xxxix. 1; Isa. xxx. 28; Ezek. xxxviii. 4, xxix. 4. The Assyrians drove a ring through the lower lip, the Babylonians through the nose. See Rawlinson, _Ancient Monarchies_, ii. 314, iii. 436. [588] 2 Kings xix. 33. "The river of Egypt" (_Nachal-ha-Mizraim_) is the Wady-el-Arish. [589] Isa. x. 33, 34, xi. 1, xiv. 8; Stanley, _Lectures_, ii. 410. [590] אוֹת. A sign "is a thing, an event, or an action intended as a pledge of the Divine certainty of another. Sometimes it is a miracle (Gen. iv. 15, Heb.), or a permanent symbol (Isa. viii. 18, xx. 3, xxxvii. 30; Jer. xliv. 29)" (Delitzsch). [591] The first year they should eat _saphîach_ (LXX., αὐτόματα; Vulg., _quæ repereris_); the second year, _sachîsh_ (LXX., τὰ ἀνατέλλοντα; Vulg., _quæ sponte nascuntur_). [592] 2 Kings xix. 35: "It came to pass that night." Isaiah only has "then"; Josephus, κατὰ τὴν πρώτην τῆς πολιορκίας νύκτα. Menochius understands it "_in celebri illa nocte_." The LXX. omits "that," and simply says "in the night" (νυκτός). Comp. Psalm xlvi. 5 (Heb.); Isa. xvii. 14. [593] Josephus, followed by many moderns, and even by Keil, suggests a plague. The malaria of the Pelusiotic marshes easily breeds pestilence. The "_maleak Jehovah_" is "the destroyer" (_mashchith_) (Exod. xii. 23; 2 Sam. xxiv. 16.) Comp. Justin., xix. 11; Diod. Sic., xix. 434. [594] Comp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 15, 16. [595] The Babyl. Talmud and some Targums, followed by Vitringa, etc., attribute to it storms of lightning; Prideaux, Heine, and Faber, to the simoom; R. José, Ussher, etc., to a nocturnal attack of Tirhakah.