Isaiah 36 and 37
A King of a country east of Jerusalem had conquered all the lands around, excepting Judah, and he thought he could take that also, so he came with a great army against the small cities first, and while fighting them he sent a man with a part of his army to tell the king of Judah, who lived in Jerusalem, that he would take that city also, and wanted them to surrender without fighting.
The man who came with the message was a bold, proud man like the king; he stood at a high place on the road into Jerusalem and shouted his demands to the men who came to meet him; he asked why they should think their city would be safe when all the cities around had been defeated and the people carried away. He was very scornful that the king and people should trust God to save them, he said the gods, or idols, of other lands had not saved them; he told them that the Lord had said to destroy the land, which was a he to, frighten them.
The men of the city did not try to answer the man’s boasts, for their king had said, “Answer him not.” They went back into the city and told the king his words. The king grieved to hear such a message, but he believed in God and took the message the man had sent, into the temple and prayed to God to save them from these wicked men; he also sent: for the prophet Isaiah, and God told Isaiah to tell him to send word to the boasting king that God knew his rage, but that he “should not come into the city, nor shoot all arrow there ... .” “By the way he came, by the same shall he return,” and “that he should fall by the sword in his own land.”
In the night God sent an angel to bring death to a great number of the boastful king’s army, and he hurried back to his land.
Even though he had seen the power of God in sending death, he did not believe Him, and kept on worshiping an idol, and was killed by his own sons, who were wicked as he, and wanted his throne. That king and his general were surely proud, wicked men to say they and their army were stronger than the Lord, and to scorn and defy Him.
Isaiah had told before that the king of Assyria would come against the land “as a river, strong and many,” just as he did, and that “God was with” His people (Isa. 8:7,10): So, that time, what was told to Isaiah came true.
The story of these boastful men is told twice more in the Bible, showing it was very necessary for the people to know (2 Kings 18:13; 2 Chron. 32).
There are solemn words about a “man of sin” with power from Satan, who will “oppose and exalt himself above all,” whom the man sent by the wicked king seems to foretell. How dreadful that any will follow him who denies the Lord’s great love and power, and “receive not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” (2 Thess. 2:3-10).
ML 11/30/1941