:yea, for the king it is prepared; for Sennacherib king of Assyria; that is, for his army, which perished here, though he did not; or for kings, the singular for the plural; for his princes, which, as he boastingly said, were "altogether kings", Isa 10:8 and particularly for Rabshakeh, the general of his army, who might be so called, and was eminently one of these kings.
Understood of hell, it may not only be interpreted of Satan, the king and prince of devils, for whom and his angels the everlasting fire of hell is prepared, Mt 25:41 but also of antichrist, the king of the bottomless pit, and of all antichristian kings; see Re 11:9.
Some render it, "by the king it is prepared"; so the Vulgate Latin version; by whom may be meant either Hezekiah, who cleared it from idols and idolatrous worship, and so eventually prepared it to make room for the Assyrian army; or else the King of kings.
So the Targum,"the King of worlds (of all worlds) prepared it;''and he seems manifestly designed in the next clause:he hath made [it] deep [and] large; to hold the whole army alive, and to bury them when dead; and so hell is large and deep enough to hold Satan and all his angels, antichrist and all his followers; yea, all the wicked that have been from the beginning of the world, and will be to the end of it:the pile thereof [is] fire and much wood; alluding to the burning of bodies in this place, and particularly of infants sacrificed to Molech; and refers to the burning of the Assyrian army, either by lightning from heaven, or by the Jews when they found them dead the next morning.
In hell, the "fire" is the wrath of God; the "wood" or fuel ungodly men:the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it; the pile of fire and wood. The Targum is,"the word of the Lord, like an overflowing torrent of brimstone, shall kindle it;''it shall be done by his order, at his word of command.
In hell, the wrath of God will be like a continual stream of brimstone, keeping up the fire of it, so that it shall ever burn, and never be quenched; hence it is called a lake burning with fire and brimstone; into which Satan, the beast, and false prophet, and the worshippers of antichrist, will be cast, Re 14:10.
The allusion is to the fire and brimstone rained by Jehovah, from Jehovah, upon Sodom and Gomorrah, Ge 19:24. T. Bab. Pesachim, fol. 54. 1. Nedarim, fol. 39. 2. & Erubim, fol. 19. 1.