The people of Jerusalem are represented by this expression as nodding their heads in contempt at the retiring envoys of Sennacherib.
The answer of Isaiah to Hezekiah was a religious revelation to the king of Assyria.
The twenty-second verse puts into interrogative form a reproach against the ignorance of the king:
“Whom hast thou reproached and blasphemed? And against whom hast thou exalted thy voice and lifted up thine eyes on high?”
The meaning evidently is that the king did not know the real nature of the God of Israel and Judah, and that he was making an infinite mistake in confounding that nature with what he had already seen of the idols of the nations.
Humiliation is promised to the king of Assyria. A hook is to be thrust into his nose, a bridle is to be put on his lips, and he is to be turned back by the way which he came.
While the king of Assyria is humiliated, the remnant that escaped of the house of Judah is promised again to take root downward and bear fruit upward—literally, shall add root to root, shall take firmer root than ever, as a tree often does after a storm; the ravaged land was to be newly stocked by the remnant that was to be saved out of Jerusalem.
All these statements are supported by the declaration: “The zeal of the Lord of Hosts shall do this.”
Thus the promise is not made in any human name or guaranteed by the conquests of human history. It is immediately connected with the very purpose and power of the Most High. Nor is this the only instance in which divine strength is promised on behalf of Judah and of Israel. We read: “For I will defend this city, to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.”
We must always be careful to notice that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, and that no occasion is ever given for man to glory in man, but that everywhere from the beginning of religious history, as given in the Bible, it is God who is King, Ruler and Protector, and to Him all the glory of deliverance and conquest undividedly belongs.