Isaiah 37
WHEN the Assyrian armies came into the land of Judah on an expedition of conquest, Hezekiah had not gone to God about it, but tried in his own wisdom to pacify Sennacherib with a payment of gold and silver. The invader was not so easily turned away, and the appearance of Rabshakeh and his companions outside the wall of Jerusalem with the message from Sennacherib (chapter 36) showed poor Hezekiah that his tribute payment had been in vain; Sennacherib was determined to seize the country and take all the people away, as the ten tribes had been removed eight years before.
The king of Judah, overwhelmed at the prospect, went into the temple, now committing his burden to God. His message to Isaiah (verses 3 and 4) reveals a heavy heart, with but little faith that God would come to his help. (It is better to go to God first rather than last.)
The answer to Hezekiah’s faint hope seems to have been given by God to Isaiah so quickly that the messengers returned with it to the king. “Be not afraid”— words of unspeakable comfort to the distressed ruler; “. . . he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land” (verses 6, 7).
Rabshakeh had gone back to his master whose attention was diverted by news of the coming out of the king of the south to fight him; nevertheless he sent another message to Hezekiah, one far more daring than the first: “Let not thy God deceive thee.”
If Hezekiah had any doubt before as to the issue, it must have been dispelled now, the invader had insulted the living and true God, in whose hand his breath was, and whose were all his ways.
We notice a change in Hezekiah not in fear anymore, but in the confidence of faith he goes with the letter into the temple, and there addresses God, owning Him in devout expressions as Israel’s God, Jehovah of hosts, God of all the kingdoms of the earth, Creator of the heavens and the earth. He prays that His ear may be inclined to hear, His eyes opened to see, what Sennacherib had sent to reproach the living God. That boastful ruler had met and overcome the nations and their false gods, but was he not now to have to do with Jehovah, Israel’s God?
As before, it was through Isaiah that God let His mind be known. (Such was the state of God’s people in their later Old Testament history that He raised up prophets through whom to speak to the people; the priests are not even mentioned at this time).
Majestic was the answer to Isaiah’s prayer; God was for His feeble saints, and against their terrifying enemy. Sennacherib should presently learn that he had gone too far in his pride, even lifting his hand against the God who had commissioned him to carry out His purposes (verses 26, 27).
Hezekiah got a message of comfort (verses 30-32), but as to the Assyrian, he would not be permitted to enter Jerusalem, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come against it with shield or fortifications (verses 33, 34). God would defend the city, for His own sake and His servant David’s sake.
Whether at Libnah or elsewhere, we are not told, but in the night 185,000 of the Assyrians died at the hand of an angel of Jehovah. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, and there his own sons killed him, fulfilling the word of God (verse 7).
ML 11/12/1933