Isaiah 37:14

Hezekiah received the letter. — The Hebrew noun is plural, as though the document consisted of more than one sheet.

And spread it before the Lord. — The act was one of mute appeal to the Supreme Arbiter. The corpus delicti was, as it were, laid before the judge, and then the appellant offered up his prayer. Mr. Cheyne quotes a striking parallel from the “Annals of Assurbanipal” (Records of the Past, vii. 67), who, on receiving a defiant message from the King of Elam, went into the Temple of Ishtar, and, reminding the goddess of all he had done for her, besought her aid, and received an oracle from her as a vision of the night.