Isaiah 37 ASSYRIA JUDGED Hezekiah’s distress and humiliation for disregarding the warnings God gave through Isaiah, was real. He knew he was responsible for what was happening to Judah. He had chosen to turn to Egypt for help instead of relying in faith on the Lord. The only thing he could do was, in open and since humility, go into the house of the Lord and make it plain that his repentance was real. He made it plain to Isaiah whose warning he had previously ignored, that his penitence was real. He knew Judah was in a hopeless situation like a child wanting to be born but there was no strength to make it happen.
Helplessness is an awful condition to be in. There are times in which we have to face the fact that unless God intervenes, we have absolutely no hope. That hopelessness is often experienced when conviction of sin is real after one admits to their own guilt and comes in confession of sin to God. It is then reality sets in, and we know we are totally shut up to God. The only place we can go is into the presence of the Lord, not with half-hearted remorse, but with real honest confession of sin. In that condition, all we have left is the mercy of God. It is then the promises of the God of all grace become real to us.
Wisely Hezekiah openly confessed his helplessness to Isaiah, and appealed to him to intercede for the people with God. The Lord is near unto all that call upon Him with a pure heart, and it was obvious the contrition of Hezekiah was real. Isaiah knew that and was able to give assurance to Hezekiah that God was in control of the whole situation.
When we get our eyes off the Lord and turn to men to meet our need, we are doing the wrong thing and looking in the wrong place.
To challenge the power of God is a guarantee that anyone who makes such a challenge will be a loser. God’s first response was to arrange for the rumor that the Ethiopian army was on the way to fight against Assyria, would come to the Rabshakeh’s ears. Sennacherib’s response to that news was to lift the siege and return quickly to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria. In a defiant threatening message to Hezekiah, he said in a blasphemous way that he would be back to finish what he had started. As far as that man, he never came back to finish what he had started and he was assassinated by his own two sons a number of years later.
To defy God and/or treat His people as if they are of no account, is to invite divine retribution to come down on a person’s head. As far as Assyria was concerned, and the ignorance and arrogance of the leader; they had gone too far and God was going to treat them like a bull with a hook and ring in its nose. They would go where He said and do what He allowed whether they achieved their objectives or not. God didn’t stop when the king went back to Nineveh, but in some way the whole Assyrian army died in one night. Sennacherib returned to Nineveh without his army of 185,000 men.
Hezekiah had learned his lesson. He took the message from Sennacherib into the house of the Lord himself, and laid it out before God. He was so concerned and grieved at the insult to God that was in the message, that he went to God himself instead of seeking the mediation of the prophet. He was giving honor to the holy character and supreme authority of God, and testifying to the uselessness of gods and idols made by human hands, and of man himself apart from God. His testimony was plain: “Thou art the Lord, even Thou only.”
The basis of Hezekiah’s petition in this prayer, was not for his own desires and needs to be met, nor was it for the people over whom he reigned as king. He realized they deserved nothing from the Lord because of the way they had strayed into sin and turned away from God. Rather, his prayer was for God’s own glory and vindication over what the enemy had written in the message. It is a worthwhile exercise for the Lord’s people now, to read out loud Hezekiah’s prayer and think about all it contains regarding our knowledge and consciousness of the greatness of our God.
The response of the Lord came through Isaiah, and it was for both Hezekiah and Sennacherib from “The holy One of Israel.” The omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of God is evident in the reply he gave to be passed on by Isaiah. God is sovereign over every ruler of every country. God is sovereign over all of His creation. God is sovereign over His own people. He is sovereign over those who do not even believe in Him or that He exists, because nothing or no one exists without Him giving life. He has the key of life and death.
As far a Judah and their reprieve were concerned: they people would be able to go back to their land and a normal life for a period of time. They would rebuild their homes and reestablish their communities. That generation and much of the next one would live more normally, but they didn’t really learn much from that threat. Sadly, they would go back to following the ways of the world again. A lesson isn’t really learned unless there are lasting changes that are consistent with the plans and purposes of God. Those who are wise will take the time to review and consider the past events of history, and take deliberate steps to not do those things that are wrong, but commit to doing what is right and obviously the will of God.
The order of events in these four chapters does not seem to be in chronological order, at least as far as the position of the chapters. Things written in thirty-eight and thirty-nine likely happened before the Assyrian defeat in thirty-six and thirty-seven.