[558] See 2 Chron. xi. 9, xxv. 27; Jer. xxxiv. 7. The allusion to this city in Micah (i. 13) is obscure: "O thou inhabitant of Lachish [swift steed], bind the chariot to the swift steed: she is the beginning of sin to the daughter of Zion: for the transgressions of Israel were found in thee." This seems to imply that some form of idolatry had come from Israel to Lachish, and from Lachish to Jerusalem. In Sennacherib's picture of the city, foreign worship is represented as going on in it (Layard, Monuments of Nineveh, Pls. 21 and 24; Rawlinson, Herodotus, i. 477).
[559] Isa. xxix., xxx., xxxi.
[560] Isa. xxxiii. 8.
[561] Isa. xx. 1.
[562] Jer. xxxix. 3. The meaning of the name is not certain. Sarîs, in Hebrew, is "eunuch"; but the word is not known in Assyrian records, and we should expect Rabsarîsîm, as in Dan. i. 3.
[563] Rabsak perhaps means chief officer or vizier, and is Hebraised into Rabshakeh. Prof. G. A. Smith (Isaiah, p. 345) calls him "Sennacherib's Bismarck." Rabshakeh, usually rendered "chief cupbearer," is an Aramaised form of Rabsak (great chief); but we know of no chief cupbearer at the Assyrian court (Schrader, K. A. T., 199 f.).
[564] From an Apis-stêlê he seems to have reigned twenty-six years (b.c. 694-668?).
[565] Isa. xxii. 1-13.
[566] Eliakim. See Isa. xxii. 21, 22.
[567] "Vain words"; lit., "a word of the lips." LXX., λόγοι χειλέων.