Isaiah 37

Isaiah 37:1

2. God’s Destruction of Assyria (Chap. 37)37:1-4 When King Hezekiah hears what the Rabshakeh has said, he is plunged into gloom. After going to the temple, he sends a deputation to Isaiah saying, “Children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth.” As J. A. Alexander points out, this metaphor is “expressive of extreme pain, imminent danger, critical emergency, utter weakness, and entire dependence on the aid of others.” In timidity that surpasses faith, Hezekiah suggests that maybe Jehovah has heard the mocking words of the Rabshakeh, and will rebuke him. 37:5-7 The LORD then assures the king through Isaiah that there is no reason to fear the king of Assyria. The Lord will send a spirit (perhaps of apprehension) upon Sennacherib so that, hearing a rumor, he will return to his own land and be killed there. 37:8-13 When the Rabshakeh leaves Jerusalem to rejoin Sennacherib, he finds that the latter has redirected his fighting from Lachish to Libnah, ten miles to the northwest. Another part of the army, of course, is besieging Jerusalem. Then, frustrated by a rumor that Tirhakah, an Ethiopian ruling in Egypt, has set out to attack him, Sennacherib sends messengers to Hezekiah with a blasphemous letter similar to the diatribe that Rabshakeh had delivered. He cites the folly of trusting in Jehovah by recounting the historic victories of the kings of Assyria. 37:14-20 Hezekiah has the good sense to take the letter to the temple and spread it before the Lord. In a short but moving prayer that demonstrates the king’s great faith, he asks God to save Judah from the king of Assyria so “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD, You alone.“37:21-29 Jehovah answers through Isaiah in a poem that first pictures Jerusalem as a virgin, taunting Sennacherib as he goes down to defeat. Then Jehovah takes the Assyrian to task for mocking the LORD Himself and for bragging as if he had already conquered Judah and Egypt. God tells Sennacherib that he is only a pawn in Jehovah’s hand, doing what He planned long ago. The same Lord who knows everything about this wicked king will lead him back to Assyria like an animal with a hook in its nose. 37:30-32 Then turning to Hezekiah, the Lord assures him that though food supplies will be limited this year and the next because of the Assyrian incursion, crops will return to normal in the third year. The people who have holed up in Jerusalem in preparation for a siege will emerge and resume normal life. Jehovah’s zeal for His people will guarantee it. 37:33-35 The LORD assures Hezekiah that the king of Assyria will not enter Jerusalem or get near enough to attack it. God will defend the city and send back the invader the way that he came. 37:36 And so it happened. The angel of the LORD killed one hundred and eighty-five thousand Assyrian soldiers during the night. One of the great poems in the English language, written in 1815, dramatizes this event. Since many readers do not have access to an extensive library, we make no apology for reproducing it in full: THE DESTRUCTION OF SENNACHERIB The Assyrian came down like the wolf on the fold, And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold; And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea, When the blue wave rolls nightly on deep Galilee. Like the leaves of the forest when Summer is green, That host with their banners at sunset were seen: Like the leaves of the forest when Autumn hath blown, That host on the morrow lay withered and strown. For the Angel of Death spread his wings on the blast, And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed; And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill, And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still! And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide, But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride; And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf, And cold as the spray of the rock-beating surf. And there lay the rider distorted and pale, With the dew on his brow, and the rust on his mail: And the tents were all silentthe banners aloneThe lances unliftedthe trumpet unblown. And the widows of Ashur are loud in their wail, And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal; And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword, Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord! George Gordon, Lord Byron (17881824) 37:37, 38 Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, only to be slain by his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer in his idol temple.