THE BOOK OF ISAIAH
Learning from your Father’s Failure
Isaiah 36-37 SCC 9/15/13
An ultimatum 36:1-20
36:1: The fourteenth year of Hezekiah was 701 B.C. On an Assyrian record,
Sennacherib claimed to have taken 46 cities of Judah during this campaign. The
record is on the Prism of Sennacherib now in the British Museum.
36:2: Rabshakeh is a
title that seems about equivalent to field commander. Lachish stood
about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem. A bas-relief, now in the British Museum,
shows Sennacherib besieging Lachish. The place where the Assyrian commander
took his stand near Jerusalem was the same place where Isaiah had stood when he
urged Ahaz to trust God 23 years earlier. It was because Ahaz failed to trust
God earlier that the Assyrian official stood there now. The very nation that
Ahaz had trusted proved to be the greatest threat to her safety only one
generation later. Father and son both faced a threat of destruction, both
recognized the inadequacy of their own strength, but one trusted man and
suffered defeat; the other trusted God and enjoyed deliverance.
36:3-4: Eliakim,
Shebna, and Joah were all important officials in Hezekiah’s to hear this first
speech by Rabshakeh. The Rabshakeh told the Judean officials to give
Hezekiah—he did not call him a king—a message from “the great king,” a title
the Assyrian monarchs arrogantly claimed for themselves. He questioned
Hezekiah’s confidence that led him to rebel against Sennacherib. His message:
There is no deliverance in faith in your God.
36:5-6: The commander claimed that Hezekiah’s
strategy lacked wisdom and arms that it only amounted to empty words. Ironically,
it would be the “empty words” of a rumor that would defeat this king 37:7. Judah
should surrender because Egypt would not help her. He knew that some of the
Judean nobles had put their trust in Egypt and had sent ambassadors there to
make a treaty. But he also knew, better than those officials, that Egypt was
not only an unreliable ally but a dangerous one, an opinion Isaiah shared.
36:7: No deliverance would come from trusting
the Lord. The Lord would not help her. The Rabshakeh knew about Hezekiah’s
religious reforms in which he had removed many of the altars from the land. Evidently
the commander believed that removing altars would antagonize the Lord, but
Hezekiah was really purifying worship.
36:8-9: She did not have enough military manpower
to win. Judah was so inferior militarily that the commander felt safe offering
his enemy 2,000 horses. He believed that the Judeans did not have enough
cavalry soldiers to ride them. His offer was the equivalent of giving one’s
rival a long lead in a foot race.
36:10: Assyria had authority from the Lord to
attack Jerusalem. Perhaps the commander was referring to Isaiah’s prophecy that
God would send Assyria against His people. NB:
This speech challenged everything Isaiah had been preaching.
36:11-12: Hezekiah’s officials interrupted the
commander when they heard this last unsettling claim.
Aramaic was the common language of diplomacy. The Rabshakeh, however,
spoke to the kings’ officials in the common Hebrew that all the people of
Jerusalem understood. He explained that his message was for all the people not
just the politicians in Jerusalem. All
the people were, after all, doomed to the horrible conditions of siege warfare
wanting to shock and terrorize the people by using the most crude and
disgusting terms he could to picture siege warfare.
36:13-17: He appealed to them to listen to
Sennacherib’s message to them. Hezekiah could not deliver them, he boasted, nor
would trusting in the Lord work. The Rabshakeh promised that if the city
surrendered the people would enjoy peace and prosperity rather than war and
starvation. They would be deported but he pictured the land where they would go
as similar to their own but even better.
36:18-19: The commander was mistaken, however, in
comparing Israel’s God to the gods of the nations, specifically Aram (Syria).
Even Samaria had fallen to Assyria 21 years earlier; their gods, including the
Lord, did not deliver them. Of course, the Lord had handed over the Northern
Kingdom to Assyria because of her idolatry, but the commander viewed its demise
as a result of Assyrian supremacy.
36:20: Was the Lord able to deliver His people
when they simply trusted in Him, or was He no better than all the other gods of
the nations?
The response to the ultimatum 36:21—37:7
21-22: The people listening to this invitation
did not respond out loud because Hezekiah commanded them to remain silent. Hezekiah’s
officials then returned to their king, who had not dignified the occasion with
his presence, to report what had happened. They tore their clothes as a sign of
extreme distress over the present crisis.
37:1: Hezekiah’s response was
also extreme grief, but he went into the temple. He wanted to seek the Lord’s
wisdom and help in prayer. It is not clear how involved Hezekiah had been in
making the treaty with Egypt, but his personal repentance here set the pattern
for the nation.
37:2-4: Then the king
sent his highest officials and some of the leading priests, who were also in
mourning, to visit Isaiah. The leaders of Judah, speaking for their king,
acknowledged that he had come to the end of his rope. The Assyrian invasion of
Judah had been like labor pains for the king, but now the crisis had peaked and
there was no human strength left to expel the enemy. Hezekiah confessed that he
deserved the adversity that had overtaken him, which had signaled an end of
hope and resulted in great embarrassment. Yet he did not appeal for divine help
on the basis of his own needs but because of the Lord’s honor and the needs of
His people. The king appealed for Isaiah’s prayers on behalf of the remnant.
37:5-7: So the
officials came to Isaiah, and the prophet responded by sending them back to the
king with a message from the Lord. Hezekiah was not to fear the blasphemous
claims of Sennacherib’s underlings. The Lord promised to lead the king away
from Jerusalem and back to his own country where he would die by the sword. A
message placed in Sennacherib’s ear would be the sovereign Lord’s instrument.
The royal letter
received 37:8-13
37:8-9a: The Rabshakeh
returned to his master having learned that Hezekiah would not surrender. He
found him five miles closer to Jerusalem than Lachish, at Libnah, where he was
fighting the people of Judah. The message that Tirhakah, King of Ethiopia, was
coming to engage him in battle caused Sennacherib to decide to terminate
further campaigns in Palestine and return to his homeland temporarily. He
apparently was a military leader that Sennacherib did not want to engage at
this time.
37:9b-13: Sennachreib
warned Hezekiah, through messengers and a letter not to let messages from the
Lord deceive him into thinking that Jerusalem would survive. After all, all the
lands that the Assyrian kings had invaded had fallen to them, he claimed. None
of the powerful cities of the upper Euphrates received help to overcome Assyria
from their gods. Likewise the cities of Aram had not been able to resist
takeover.
The response to the letter 37:14-35
37:14-15: When Hezekiah
received Sennacherib’s letter, he took it with him into the temple and laid all
the enemy’s words before the Lord in prayer.
37:16-20 Hezekiah began his prayer: A pattern for
our prayers when in distress.
1. By acknowledging the Lord’s
uniqueness. He was not like the gods of the nations but the only true God,
who dwelt among His people, the creator who rules and determines everything.
2. Hezekiah asked the living God
to pay attention to the reproachful blasphemies of the Assyrian king. He
acknowledged the Assyrians’ superiority over the nations they had overrun, but
he ascribed this to the fact that those nations had only gods of wood and stone
to defend them.
3. Finally, he asked God to
deliver Jerusalem so the nations would know that He alone was God. In
short, he prayed for the glory of God.
SO WHAT?
This part of Hezekiah’s reign concerns his war with Assyria when under
siege in Jerusalem. What do we learn from his experience? When you or your family or your disciples or any believers are under attack
by ungodly people, forces, and situations they have created:
1. Build you/them up physically, making all possible changes to
strengthen them in mechanical ways. Eliminate chaos in their health, finances,
personal habits, relationships and disciplines. Hezekiah fortified Jerusalem
and had the army posted strategically.
2. At the same time you build yourself/them up, encourage them not to
depend on that strength but on God, fearing Him not the forces of evil as
Isaiah had counseled Hezekiah 37:6.
3. Lead yourself/them in taking the battle to Go din fervent prayer as
Hezekiah had done when confronted with the odds against him in 37:3: 14-20.
4. Your/their personal internal battles, like with bad health or
depression or worry can be more difficult then struggles against external
enemies as Hezekiah testifies through his prayer.
5. Bring yourself/them back to God as a priest, ready for service and
sacrifice as Hezekiah did when he went to the Temple to spread the letter out
before the Lord and removed the altars in the land.
6. Take your/their internal conflicts to God with sincerity of heart
since God often responded to a heavy heart in desperate need.
The prophet
first explained what God would do 21-29
37:21-22: The Lord
explained that it was Hezekiah’s trust in Him, expressed through his prayer
that led to his receiving information about what He would do. Hezekiah would
see the Lord’s hand at work more clearly because he had prayed.
37:23: Moreover
Assyria had spoken disparagingly of the Holy One of Israel. She had reproached,
blasphemed, spoken out against, and lifted her eyes proudly against Him. As the
person of God filled Hezekiah’s prayer so the person of God filled Isaiah’s
response.
37:24-25: Assyria’s sin
included her failure to recognize God’s hand in her fortunes. She proudly
thought that her own might was responsible for the victories she had gained and
that she controlled her own destiny. She considered herself omnipotent rather
than acknowledging that the Lord was.
37:26-27: Assyria had not
heard the truth. She lacked the divine revelation that helps people see the
realities of life. It was the Lord, not the Assyrians, who was responsible for
all of Assyria’s conquests. He not only planned them long ago, but He also
brought them to pass. That explains why she was able to subdue her enemies and
take over their territories. God is sovereign.
37:28-29: The Lord knew
everything about the Assyrians, including their raging against Himself. Because
they raged against Him and felt complacent about controlling their own destiny,
He would teach them who was sovereign. He would lead them away as they had led
prisoners they had taken captive in war, by putting hooks in their noses.
Isaiah gave the
king a sign that He would indeed do it 30-35
37:30: For two years
normal agriculture would be impossible around Jerusalem, but God would cause
the land to produce enough to sustain the inhabitants. Fruitfulness has always
been God’s blessing on those who trust Him. Then the third year, planting and
harvesting as usual would resume.
37:31-32: Additionally,
the surviving remnant of the people of Judah would increase in numbers and
become stronger, like the plants just mentioned. They would enjoy security and
prosperity. The Lord would preserve a people for Himself in Jerusalem and would
include the Davidic line of kings, as He had promised. His own zeal to remain
true to His word and to bless His people would perform this. It would not
depend on the faithfulness of His people.
37:33-35: The Lord
promised Hezekiah that Sennacherib would not even besiege Jerusalem nor would
he attack it, from close range or from farther away. He would, instead, return
to his own land the same way he came. On his prism, referred to earlier,
Sennacherib claimed to have shut Hezekiah up like a bird in a cage, but it was
really the Lord who protected Hezekiah. The Lord would defend Jerusalem and
preserve it, not so much for the sake of Hezekiah and as a reward for his
faith, but for the Lord’s own reputation and for David’s sake, to whom He had
promised an everlasting dynasty, which culminated in Messiah.
The Lord’s deliverance 37:36-38
37:36: The Lord
Himself slew 185,000 of the Assyrian soldiers in one night. Evidently this was
an act of the angel of the Lord similar to the slaying of the Egyptian
firstborn before the Exodus. The angel of the Lord may have been the preincarnate
Christ. Sennacherib had sent a messenger to intimidate Hezekiah’s people and,
ironically, the Lord responded by sending a messenger to destroy Sennacherib’s
army.
37:37: Sennachreib,
the great “king of Assyria” then returned to Assyria having lost a large part
of his army and having heard a rumor about the advancing Ethiopian ruler. He
lived in Nineveh for 20 years before his death, and he conducted other military
campaigns, but none in Palestine.
37:38: Ironically, it was while worshipping in the temple of his idol in Nineveh that God affected Sennacherib’s assassination, whereas it was while worshipping the true God in His temple in Jerusalem that God moved to spare Hezekiah’s life. Hezekiah went into the house of his God and got help, but Sennacherib went into the house of his god and got killed.