2 Kings 19:23

And hast said - Isaiah clothes in words the thoughts of Sennacherib’s heart - thoughts of the most extreme self-confidence. Compare Isaiah 10:7, where, probably at an earlier date, the same overweening pride is ascribed to this king.

With the multitude of my chariots - There are two readings here, which give, however, nearly the same sense. The more difficult and more poetical of the two is to be preferred. Literally, translated it runs - “With chariots upon chariots am I come up, etc.”

To the sides of Lebanon - , “Lebanon,” with its “cedars” and its “fir-trees,” is to be understood here both literally and figuratively. Literally, the hewing of timber in Lebanon was an ordinary feature of an Assyrian expedition into Syria. Figuratively, the mountain represents all the more inaccessible parts of Palestine, and the destruction of its firs and cedars denotes the complete devastation of the entire country from one end to the other.

The lodgings of his borders - literally, “the lodge of its (Lebanon’s) end;” either an actual habitation situated on the highest point of the mountain-range, or a poetical periphrasis for the highest point itself.

The forest of his Carmel - Or, “the forest of its garden” - i. e., “its forest which is like a garden,” etc.