Therefore - Not because you have so great power; but because I have rendered them incapable of resisting you.

Were of small power - Hebrew, 'Short of hand;' they were feeble, imbecile, unable to resist you.

They were dismayed - Hebrew, 'They were broken and ashamed.' Their spirits sank; they were ashamed of their feeble powers of resistance; and they submitted to the ignominy of a surrender.

They were as the grass of the field - The same idea is expressed by Sennacherib himself in Isaiah 10:15, though under a different image (see the note on that verse). The idea here is, as the grass of the field offers no resistance to the march of an army, so it was with the strongly fortified towns in the way of Sennacherib.

As the grass on the housetops - In eastern countries the roofs of houses are always flat. They are made of a mixture of sand gravel, or earth; and on the houses of the rich there is a firmly constructed flooring made of coals, chalk, gypsum, and ashes, made hard by being beaten or rolled. On these roofs spears of wheat, barley, or grass sometimes spring up, but they are soon withered by the heat of the sun Psalm 129:6-8. The idea here, therefore, is that of the greatest feebleness. His enemies were not simply like the grass in the field, but they were like the thin, slender, and delicate blade that sprung up in the little earth on the roof of a house, where there was no room for the roots to strike down, and where it soon withered beneath the burning sun.

As corn blasted before it is grown up - Before it acquires any strength. The idea in all these phrases is substantially the same - that they were incapable of offering even the feeblest resistance.

Corn blasted - שדמה shedemah, parched: it does not appear that there is any good authority for this word. The true reading seems to be שדפה shedephah, blasted, as it is in six MSS. (two ancient) here, and in the other copy.

Therefore their inhabitants were of small power,.... Or, "short of hand" (u); it was not in the power of their hands to help themselves, because the Lord took away their strength, having determined that they should be destroyed for their sins; otherwise it would not have been in the power of Sennacherib to have subdued them; this takes off greatly from the king of Assyria's triumph, that they were a weak people, whom he had conquered, and were given up into his hands by the Lord, according to his purposes, or he had never been lord over them:

they were dismayed and confounded; not so much at the sight of Sennacherib's army, but because the Lord had dispirited them, and took away their natural courage from them, so that they became an easy prey to him:

they were as the grass of the field: which has no strength to stand before the mower:

and as the green herb; which is easily cropped with the hand of man, or eaten by the beasts of the field:

as the grass on the housetops: which has no matter of root, and is dried up with the heat of the sun:

and as corn blasted before it be grown up; before it rises up into anything of a stalk, and much less into ears; so the Targum,

"which is blasted before it comes to be ears;''

all which represent the feeble condition of the people overcome by him; so that he had not so much to glory of, as having done mighty things.

(u) breviati, "vel breves manu", Forerius; "abbreviati manu", Vatablus, Montanus.

Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded: they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops, and as grain blighted {s} before it is grown up.

(s) He shows that the state and power of most flourishing cities endures but a moment in respect to the Church, which will remain forever, because God is the maintainer of it.

of small...: Heb. short of hand

27. Therefore-not because of thy power, but because I made them unable to withstand thee.

grass-which easily withers (Isa 40:6; Ps 37:2).

on . housetops-which having little earth to nourish it fades soonest (Ps 129:6-8).

corn blasted before it be grown up-Smith translates, "The cornfield (frail and tender), before the corn is grown."

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