Isaiah 37:13

Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) Where is the king of Hamath . . .—The question which had been asked in Isaiah 36:19 as to the gods of the cities named is now asked of their kings, and the implied answer is that they are in the dungeons of Nineveh.

Hena, and Ivah.—The sites have not been identified, but Anah is found as the name of a city on the Euphrates, and Ivah may be the same as the Ava of 2Kings 17:24.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

37:1-38 This chapter is the same as 2Ki 19

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The king of Hamath - (See the note at Isaiah 36:19).

Hena and Ivah - Hena is mentioned in 2 Kings 18:34; 2 Kings 19:13. It was evidently in Mesopotamia, and was probably the same which was afterward called Ana, situated near a ford of the Euphrates. The situation of Ivah is not certainly known. It was under the Assyrian dominion, and was one of the places from which colonists were brought to Samaria 2 Kings 17:24, 2 Kings 17:31. Michaelis supposes that it was between Berytus and Tripoli, but was under the dominion of the Assyrians.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. Hena … Ivah—in Babylonia. From Ava colonists had been brought to Samaria (2Ki 17:24).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim,.... The same, as some think, with the gods or idols of those places; see Gill on Isaiah 36:19; though it may be the princes that ruled over those cities are meant, who were either slain, or become tributary to the king of Assyria. It is added,

Henah and Ivah: which some take to be the names of the gods or kings of Sepharvaim; but rather, since Sepharvaim is of the dual number, it was a double city, the river Euphrates passing between them; and these, as Musculus conjectures, were the names of them; or it may be, these were distinct cities from that, but what or where they were is not certain. Ptolemy makes mention of a place called Ingine, near Gausanitis or Gozan, supposed to be Henah; though others rather think it to be Ange, which he places in Arabia (i), which I think is not so probable. Ivah perhaps is the same with Avah, in 2 Kings 17:24. The Targum does not take them for names or places, but translates them,

"hath he not removed them, and carried them captive?''

and so Jarchi's note is,

"the king of Assyria hath moved and overthrown them, and destroyed them, and removed them out of their place;''

referring to the other cities.

(i) Geograph. l. 6. c. 7.

Geneva Study Bible

Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arphad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Hamath … Arphad … Sepharvaim] See ch. Isaiah 36:19. Hena and Ivah (R.V. more correctly, Ivvah) are not known. The latter is probably the same as Ava or Avva (2 Kings 17:24).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Hamath... Arphad... Sepharvaim (see the comment upon Isaiah 36:19). Isaiah 37:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The message. "Thus shall ye say to Hizkiyahu king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Asshur. Behold, thou hast surely heard what (K. that which) the kings of Asshur have done to all lands, to lay the ban upon them; and thou, thou shouldst be delivered?! Have the gods of the nations, which my fathers destroyed, delivered them: Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the Benē-‛Eden, which are in Tellasar? Where is (K. where is he) the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of 'Ir-Sepharvaim, Hena', and 'Ivah?"Although ארץ is feminine, אותם (K. אתם), like להחרימם, points back to the lands (in accordance with the want of any thoroughly developed distinction of the genders in Hebrew); likewise אשׁר quas pessumdederunt. There is historical importance in the fact, that here Sennacherib attributes to his fathers (Sargon and the previous kings of the Derketade dynasty which he had overthrown) what Rabshakeh on the occasion of the first mission had imputed to Sennacherib himself. On Gozan, see p. 33. It is no doubt identical with the Zuzan of the Arabian geographers, which is described as a district of outer Armenia, situated on the Chabur, e.g., in the Merasid. ("The Chabur is the Chabur of el-Hasaniye, a district of Mosul, to the east of the Tigris; it comes down from the mountains of the land of Zuzan, flows through a broad and thickly populated country in the north of Mosul, which is called outer Armenia, and empties itself into the Tigris." Ptolemy, on the other hand (Isaiah 37:18, Isaiah 37:14), is acquainted with a Mesopotamian Gauzanitis; and, looking upon northern Mesopotamia as the border land of Armenia, he says, κατέχει δὲ τῆς ξηώρας τὰ μὲν πρὸς τῆ Αρμενία ἡ Ανθεμουσία (not far from Edessa) ὑφ ἥν ἡ Χαλκῖτις ὑπὸ δὲ ταύτην ἡ Γαυζανῖτις, possibly the district of Gulzan, in which Nisibin, the ancient Nisibis, still stands.

(Note: See Oppert, Expdition, i.60.)

For Hrn (Syr. Horon; Joseph. Charran of Mesopotamia), the present Harrn, not far from Charmelik, see Genesis, p. 327. The Harran in the Guta of Damascus (on the southern arm of the Harus), which Beke has recently identified with it, is not connected with it in any way. Retseph is the Rhesapha of Ptol. v. 18, 6, below Thapsacus, the present Rusafa in the Euphrates-valley of ez-Zor, between the Euphrates and Tadmur (Palmyra; see Robinson, Pal.). Telassar, with which the Targum (ii. iii.) and Syr. confound the Ellasar of Genesis 14:1, i.e., Artemita (Artamita), is not the Thelseae of the Itin. Antonini and of the Notitia dignitatum - in which case the Benē-‛Eden might be the tribe of Bt Genn (Bettegene) on the southern slope of Lebanon (i.e., the 'Eden of Coelesyria, Amos 1:5; the Paradeisos of Ptol. v. 15, 20; Paradisus, Plin. v. 19) - but the Thelser of the Tab. Peuting., on the eastern side of the Tigris; and Benē-‛Eden is the tribe of the 'Eden mentioned by Ezekiel (Ezekiel 27:23) after Haran and Ctesiphon. Consequently the enumeration of the warlike deeds describes a curve, which passes in a north-westerly direction through Hamath and Arpad, and then returns in Sepharvaim to the border of southern Mesopotamia and Babylonia. 'Ir-Sepharvaim is like 'Ir-Nchs, 'Ir-shemesh, etc. The legends connect the name with the sacred books. The form of the name is inexplicable; but the name itself probably signifies the double shore (after the Aramaean), as the city, which was the southernmost of the leading places of Mesopotamia, was situated on the Euphrates. The words ועוּה הנע, if not take as proper names, would signify, "he has taken away, and overthrown;" but in that case we should expect ועוּוּ הניעוּ or ועוּיתי הניעתי. They are really the names of cities which it is no longer possible to trace. Hena' is hardly the well-known Avatho on the Euphrates, as Gesenius, V. Niebuhr, and others suppose; and 'Ivah, the seat of the Avvı̄m (2 Kings 17:31), agrees still less, so far as the sound of the word is concerned, with "the province of Hebeh (? Hebeb: Ritter, Erdk. xi. 707), situated between Anah and the Chabur on the Euphrates," with which V. Niebuhr combines it.

(Note: For other combinations of equal value, see Oppert, Expdition, i. 220.)