27. riches and honour] Compare 2 Kings xx. 13 (= Isaiah xxxix. 2).
shields] Hebrew māginnōth, i.e. small round shields. Perhaps, like Solomon’s (ix. 15, 16), they were overlaid with gold or silver. Barnes suggested the reading migdānōth, “precious things” (as in verse 23), instead of māginnōth. LXX. ὁπλοθήκας, i.e. “armouries”; Peshitṭa (text being doubtful here) “shields” or “pearls” or “precious gifts.”
²⁸storehouses also for the increase of corn and wine and oil; and stalls for all manner of beasts, and flocks in folds.
28. flocks in folds] The “folds” were enclosures with high stone walls as a defence against robbers and wild beasts. The text is probably faulty; Peshitṭa omits the clause.
²⁹Moreover he provided him cities, and possessions of flocks and herds in abundance: for God had given him very much substance.
29. cities] The context suggests that these cities were meant chiefly as places of refuge for the flocks and herds in time of war; but again it is probable that the text is corrupt, and that this word should be omitted.
³⁰This same Hezekiah also stopped the upper spring of the waters of Gihon, and brought them straight down on the west side of the city of David. And Hezekiah prospered in all his works.
30. stopped] Compare verses 3, 4.
Gihon] The upper spring of Gihon is represented to-day by St Mary’s Well; compare Bädeker, Palestine⁵, pp. 25, 83, and note on verse 3 above.
on the west side of the city] Render, westwards to the city. The direction followed by the tunnel through which Hezekiah brought the waters from the upper spring of Gihon (St Mary’s Well outside the city) to the Pool of Siloam within the walls is roughly west or south-west; see G. A. Smith, Jerusalem, 1. 102 f.