2. K. 19:8-13.** The Rabshakeh returned from his bootless expedition to his master, leaving, as we suppose, his army before Jerusalem. He found Sennacherib not at Lachish, but at Libnah, to which he had retreated probably on hearing of the advance of Tirhakah, the king of Ethiopia. As we have seen, Sennacherib gained indeed the victory of Altaku. But it was a virtual defeat, which, with the failure to gain possession of Jerusalem, determined the final retreat of Sennacherib from Palestine. His circumstances must have made him most anxious to obtain the surrender of the Judean capital. Accordingly, a second summons was despatched to demand it—probably before the battle of Altaku, although after the approach of the Ethiopian army. This second summons was embodied in a letter addressed to Hezekiah, and was in terms similar to those previously used, although it naturally contained no longer any reference to Egypt, and was also perhaps more directly challenging to the God of Israel. A. E.

Sennacherib seems to have been induced to write to Hezekiah by the fact that he could not march against him at once. A forward movement on the part of Tirhakah was reported to him (verse 9), and he thought it necessary to meet, or at least watch it. He sends a letter, therefore, as more weighty and impressive than a mere message. He warns Hezekiah against being himself deceived by Jehovah (verse 10), and he expands his inductive argument in proof of the irresistible might of Assyria, by an enumeration of four more recent conquests (verse 12). Otherwise, he does little but repeat what Rabshakeh had already urged. Hammond.

9. Tirhakah was one of the most powerful monarchs of ancient times. According to Manetho, he was the last king of the twentyfifth Egyptian dynasty, which was an Ethiopian house. He ruled not only Upper Egypt (Thebais), but also Ethiopia. His name appears in hieroglyphic-phonetic characters in one of the temples of Egypt. This rumor of his approach (predicted in verse 7) startled Sennacherib. His first effort was to urge Hezekiah to surrender. He must have assumed that Hezekiah had not heard the news from Egypt. H. C.

The history of Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, receives illustration both from the monuments of Egypt and from those of Assyria. The monuments of Egypt place before us a king whom they call Tehrak, or Taharuka, at exactly the time when the Tirhakah of Scripture alarms Sennacherib. This monarch appears in the Egyptian records, first of all, as a hostile king of Ethiopia, whose power is unacknowledged in Egypt. Later he is found to have established his dominion over the lower country, and to be lord of the two Egypts, no less than of the Ethiopian highland. The point of time whereof the narrative of Isaiah belongs seems to be just when one of these two conditions was merging into the other. It does not appear that the two great rivals, Tirhakah and Sennacherib, ever came into contact. The miraculous destruction of the Assyrian host paralyzed the aggressor, and forced him to return hastily to his own land before his troops came into collision with those of his powerful antagonist. But that antagonist profited by his withdrawal. All the extant records show that Sennacherib’s great failure was followed by the retirement of Assyria from the position of an assailant of Egypt; and that, as that country was too weak to stand alone, Ethiopia, in the absence of Assyria, obtained an undisputed supremacy. Hence the great name which Tirhakah obtained among the Greeks and Romans. The Assyrian records show us that the eminence of Tirhakah was maintained for nearly thirty years, and that it was only forfeited after a severe struggle with the Assyrians under Esarhaddon, the son of Sennacherib, who reduced all Egypt under his authority, and forced Tirhakah to retire upon Meroe, his capital. Egypt then passed under Assyria for a space of some two or three years (B.C. 671-669), during which period there was “a pathway out of Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian came into Egypt, and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians served with the Assyrians” (Isa. 19: 23). Esarhaddon vaingloriously styled himself during these years “King of Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Meroe, and Ethiopia.” But even then the spirit of the great Ethiopian was not crushed. Tirhakah bided his time, and in B.C. 669, learning that the Assyrian monarch had fallen ill and partially abdicated his throne, he once more issued from his Ethiopian fastnesses, and burst upon the Nile valley with overwhelming force. Expelling the governors whom Esarhaddon had set up in the various towns, he established his court at Memphis, and reigned undisturbed for two (or perhaps three) years, Assyria making no effort against him. At length, however, in B.C. 667 (or 666), Sardanapalus (Assurbanipal), having succeeded his father, Esarhaddon, took in hand the recovery of Egypt, and in the course of a couple of years succeeded in re-establishing the Assyrian suzerainty. Tirhakah was once more compelled to fall back upon his native dominions, B.C. 665 (or 664); and his death happening about the same time, the Assyrian power was soon firmly established in Egypt, Ethiopian ascendancy was repressed, and henceforth no “king of Cush” was ever able to subject Egypt or even seriously trouble it. G. R.

Hezekiah received the letter of the king of Assyria, and “went into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord.” The prayer, which is given, is one of exceeding sublimity, simplicity, and directness. It recognizes the God dwelling between the cherubim as the only God of the kingdoms of earth, and the maker of heaven and earth. It beseeches Jehovah to hear the reproachful words of the Assyrian king. It appeals to God’s own honor, puts the trust of himself and his people for deliverance alone in Jehovah; and asks that His interposition in saving Judah may be so signal, “that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only.” The chronicler alone (verse 20) states that Isaiah, too, “prayed and cried to heaven.” B.

Do by thy slander as Hezekiah did by the railing lines of Rabshakeh. Spread them before the Lord, and leave thy quarrel in the just hands of that great Arbiter of heaven and earth, who will be sure in His good time to revenge thy wrong and to clear thine innocence, and will requite thee good for their causeless curses. Abp. Tillotson.

Having heartened himself and pleaded with God by all these names, Hezekiah comes to his petition. It is but the putting into words of the symbol of spreading the letter before God. He asks God to behold and to hear the defiant words. Prayer tells God what it knows that He knows already, for it relieves the burdened heart to tell Him. It asks Him to see and hear what it knows that He does see and hear. But the prayer is not for mere observance followed by no Divine act, but for taking knowledge as the precursor of the appropriate help. Of such seeing and hearing believing prayer is the appointed condition. “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of before ye ask Him;” but that is not a reason for silence, but for supplication. Hezekiah rightly regarded Sennacherib’s words as meant to reproach the living God, for the point of the letter was to dissuade from trust in Him, as no more powerful than the petty deities of already conquered cities. The prayer, therefore, pleads that God would take care of His own honor, and, by delivering Jerusalem, show His sole sovereignty. It is a high and wonderful level for faith to reach, when it regards personal deliverance mainly in its aspect as vindicating God and warranting faith. It was noble that this man should have no word to say about self but “save us, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art God alone.” Like him, we may each feel that our defence is more God’s affair than ours, in proportion as we feel we are His rather than our own. That siege of Jerusalem was indeed as a duel between faith and unbelief, on the one hand, and between Jehovah and the gods who were “no gods” on the other. Sennacherib’s letter was a defiant challenge to Jehovah to do His best for this people, and when faith repeated in prayer the insolence of unbelief only one result was possible. It came. A. M.

Liberty of access to the throne of grace and liberty of speech there are the unspeakable privilege of the Lord’s people at all times, especially in times of distress and danger. Hezekiah took Sennacherib’s letter and spread it before the Lord, not designing to make any complaints against him but those grounded upon his own handwriting. Let the thing speak itself, here it is in black and white. Open thine eyes, O Lord, and see. God allows His praying people to be humbly free with Him, to utter all their words before Him, to spread the letter, whether of a friend or an enemy, before Him, and leave the contents, the concern of it, with Him. The great and fundamental principles of our religion, applied by faith and improved in prayer, will be of sovereign use to us in our particular exigencies and distresses, whatever they are; to them, therefore, we must have recourse, and abide by them; so Hezekiah did here. He encouraged himself with this, that the God of Israel is the Lord of hosts, of all hosts; of the hosts of Israel, to animate them; of the hosts of their enemies, to dispirit and restrain them; that he is God alone, and there is none that can stand in competition with Him; that He is the God of all the kingdoms of the earth and disposes of them all as He pleases, for He made heaven and earth; and therefore both can do anything and does everything. H.

That all the kingdoms of the earth may know. If the mighty army of the great Assyrian king were successfully defied by a petty monarch like Hezekiah, it could not but draw the attention of the surrounding nations, who would be forced to confess that the escape was owing to the protecting hand of Jehovah, and would thus be taught, in spite of themselves, that He, and He alone, was the true God. The sentiment is exactly parallel to that uttered by David on occasion of the great confederacy against him (Ps. 83; 2 Sam. 10:6-16): “Let them be confounded and troubled forever: yea, let them be put to shame and perish; that men may know that Thou, whose name alone is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth.” Thus Hezekiah, the true follower of David, rises in his distress to the same height of self-abnegation, desiring the Divine help, not for his own sake, not even for the sake of his people, but for the glory of God—that His honor may be vindicated among surrounding nations. B. C.

Faith instinctively turns to God when anything goes wrong, because it has been accustomed to turn to Him when all was right, according to the world’s estimate of right and wrong. Whither should the burdened heart betake itself but to Him who daily bears our burdens? The impulse to tell God all troubles is as truly a mark of the faithful soul as the impulse to tell everything to the beloved is the life breath of love. Our faith is of little power to bless unless it impels us to take God into confidence in regard to everything which troubles us. If the letter is not grave enough to be spread before Him, it is too small to annoy us. If we truly live in fellowship with God, we shall find ourselves in His house, with the cause of our trouble in our hands, before we have time to think. Instinct acts more quickly than reason, and, if our faith be vital, it will not need to be argued into speaking to God of all that weighs upon us. A. M.

The whole trouble must be spread before

Him; God loves minuteness; there is no spreading without minuteness. To speak out loud a sorrow or a care even to a thing inanimate is a help to definiteness, to clearness of thought, to manfulness, to duty; how much more so when we confide in God. J. Vaughan.—Nothing that dulls me, nothing that makes a danger, or a difficulty, or a trial, or a temptation, but should be at once spread out before the Lord. Test your lives, your thoughts, your affairs, your purposes, by this—“Will they stand carriage before the Lord?” If not, the sooner you get rid of them the better. And then, “Be anxious for naught, but in everything by prayer and supplication and thanksgiving make your requests known unto God.” A. M.

God is the Hearer of prayer. As in the case of Daniel (9 : 20), while Hezekiah was still speaking, an answer was sent to him through Isaiah the prophet. Thus also answers to prayer were sent in the cases of Paul (Acts 9 : 10–18) and Cornelius (Acts 10 : 1–8). Isaiah was the one person whose faith had remained unshaken through all this crisis. But it is not merely Isaiah’s confidence which speaks in this composition. He brought to the king a direct “word of God.” His oracle is one of surpassing beauty, grand and sustained in style, and expressing the greatest truths. J. O.—Hezekiah spread the letter before God with a solemn prayer to Him to prove the difference between Jehovah, the only God, and the “no gods” whom the Assyrian had justly reproached; and the answer was given by the mouth of Isaiah in a sublime prophecy of the destruction of the Assyrian and the future glory of the remnant of Judah. P. S.

First of all, Hezekiah is assured that his prayer has been “heard.” God has “bowed down His ear” to it (verse 16)—has taken it into His consideration, and has sent a reply. Then the reply follows, in fourteen verses arranged in four strophes or stanzas. The first (verses 21–24) and second (verses 25–28) are addressed to Sennacherib, and breathe a tone of scorn and contempt. The third (verses 29–31) is addressed to Hezekiah, and is encouraging and consolatory. The fourth (verses 32–34) is an assurance to all whom it may concern, that Jerusalem is safe, that Sennacherib will not take it, that he will not even commence its siege. Hammond.

22. The Holy One of Israel.** This is a favorite phrase with Isaiah, in whose prophecies it is found twenty-seven times, while it occurs five times only in the rest of Scripture (Ps. 71 : 22 ; 78 : 41 ; 89 : 18 ; Jer. 50 : 29 ; 51 : 5). Its occurrence here is a strong proof—one among many—of the genuineness of the present passage, which is not the composition of the writer of Kings, but an actual prophecy delivered at this time by Isaiah, bearing all the characteristic marks of that prophet’s fervent and highly poetic style.

23. And hast said.** Isaiah clothes in words the thoughts of Sennacherib’s heart—the real thoughts that were present there when he wrote or dictated his letter, and which underlay the letter itself. These thoughts are thoughts of the extremest self-confidence. Sennacherib believes that by his own power and might he can trample down all opposition, overcome all obstacles, and conquer whatever countries he pleases. B. C.

25. Hast thou not heard long ago how I have done it?** The strain suddenly changes—the person of the speaker is altered. It is no longer Sennacherib who reveals the thoughts of his own heart, but Jehovah who addresses the proud monarch. “Hast thou not heard, how from long ago I have acted thus? Hast thou never been taught that revolutions, conquests, the rise and fall of nations, are God’s doing, decreed by Him long, long ago—ay, from the creation of the world? Art thou not aware that this is so, either from tradition or by listening to the voice of reason within thine own heart?” It is implied that such knowledge ought to be in the possession of every man. Now have I brought it to pass, that thou shouldst be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. The idea was very familiar to Isaiah and his contemporaries. Years before, when Assyria first became threatening, Isaiah, speaking in the person of Jehovah, had exclaimed, “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets” (Isa. 10 : 5, 6). But the heathen kings whom God made His instruments to chasten sinful nations imagined that they conquered and destroyed and laid waste by their own strength (see Isa. 10 : 7–14). Hammond.

28. Put my hook in thy nose, and my bridle in thy lips.** The imagery is most striking. Captive kings were actually so treated by the Assyrians themselves. A hook or split-ring was thrust through the cartilage of the nose, or the fleshy part of the under lip, with a rope or thong attached to it, and in this guise they were led into the monarch’s presence, to receive their final sentence at his hands. In the sculptures of Sargon at Khorsabad we see three prisoners brought before him in this fashion, one of whom he seems to be about to kill with a spear. Hammond.—Forbearance is not forgiveness, and patient long-suffering is not oblivion. The same great lesson runs through the whole course of human history, from the rout of Chedorlaomer to the Moscow campaign. No leviathan is so powerful but the King of nations can put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips at the most fitting season. Birks.

29. And this shall be a sign unto thee.** The prophet now once more addresses Hezekiah, and gives him a “sign” or token, whereby he and his may be assured that Sennacherib is indeed bridled, and will not trouble Judea any more. His people, whose land has been devastated by the march of the Assyrian army, shall find enough to eat during the remainder of the current year from the grain which has sown itself; in the ensuing (probably sabbatical) year they shall also be nourished sufficiently by the same means; in the third year, when they resume their agricultural labors, they shall be undisturbed in them, and reap their fruits in peace. This promise could not, of course, be a sign of the immediate relief of the city from the threatened attack, which relief took place before the promise began to be fulfilled (see verse 35); but it was a sign of what was of far greater importance—viz., the continued freedom of the land from attack during the whole of the remainder of Sennacherib’s reign, a space of seventeen years. B. C.

We cannot fail to recognize the internal connection between this and the former utterance in Isa. 7 in regard to the Syro-Israelitish invasion in the time of Ahaz. Once more we have “a sign” of the certainty of promised deliverance in an event as yet future. The absolute deliverance of Judah from the invasion of Assyria is guaranteed by this sign, that in the present year, when the ordinary operations of sowing had been interrupted, they would have sufficient for their support in that which sprang from the grains that had accidentally fallen out of the corn reaped at the former harvest. Similarly, as regarded the next year’s harvest, for which it was impossible to make preparation, partly from the presence of the Assyrian army and partly from the depopulation of the country, there would be sufficiency from the corn which sprang of itself (either on the old stems or from what dropped from unreaped ears). Lastly, in the third year, the ordinary agricultural operations would be resumed, because the Assyrian host would be gone without retaining occupation of the land, and because such as were left of the population would have returned to their homes from Jerusalem and the other fenced cities where they had sought refuge. Thus “the sign” lay in the promised certainty of their support through the Divine blessing on the land which Assyria boasted to have laid waste (verses 23, 24). Thus the provision for their present wants, and that for the agricultural year on which they had already entered, would in those two years be a constant sign that the relation between Jehovah and Sennacherib was what had been told, and that they had not to fear any return of the enemy. And so would this prophetic “sign”—“natural” by the special blessing of God, but “supernatural” when viewed by itself—be alike for comfort and the strengthening of faith, but also for the constant exercise of it. A. E.

32,33. Hezekiah receives four clear promises, each one more comforting than the last. 1. Sennacherib shall not “enter into the city”—i.e., it shall not be taken. 2. He shall not “shoot an arrow there”—i.e., he shall not order the assault. 3. He shall not “come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it”—i.e., there shall not even be the commencement of a siege. And 4. “By the way that he came, by the same shall he return”—i.e., he shall not even approach the city, but shall return to Assyria by the same route by which he came, through the low country of the Shephelah, thus avoiding not only Jerusalem, but even Judea. B. C.

32. Nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shields, nor cast a bank against it.** We have here an exact picture of an ancient siege, such as is portrayed on the sculptures of Nineveh, in the picture of the siege of Lachish. The final means of capture was the mound raised against the wall of the beleaguered place. But for the erection of this the archers were indispensable. While the slaves and laborers of the army were heaping materials for the mound, the archers were continuously employed in shooting at every defender who appeared on the ramparts, galling them with their arrows, and thus protecting their workmen, or drawing off the attention of the enemy. The archers, as we see from the Assyrian sculptures, were protected by the shieldman. The shield was a strong wooden frame, as high as a man, covered with leather, resting on the ground, and held by its bearer in front of the archer, who under its protection was not only safe, but was able to take deliberate aim. The mound was made of any materials that came to hand, with a gradual slope upward, till it almost reached the wall, and was not much inferior to it in height. When completed, battering-rams were piled from it against the upper part of the wall and the battlements, until a breach was effected. The mound was employed even to the later times of the Roman Empire. Tristram.

34. The two reasons assigned for defending the city were His “own sake”—the honor and glory of His name, now fully implicated by the blasphemies and boasts of the Assyrian king; and the promises He had made to David respecting his royal seed. (See 2 Sam. 7: 12.) This promise looks not only to his pious successors, like Hezekiah, but pre-eminently to his greater Son, the promised Messiah. For the sake of all the interests embosomed in this royal seed and this future kingdom, God would surely protect Jerusalem against this proud, blasphemous foe. H. C.

God intended all along to teach the Jews that the earth and heaven belonged to Him and obeyed Him. He taught them and the proud king of Assyria once and for all that He was indeed the Lord, Lord of all nations and King of kings, and also Lord of the earth and all that therein is. Those who really trust in Him shall never be confounded. Those who trust in themselves are trying their paltry strength against the God who made heaven and earth, and will surely find out their own weakness, just when they fancy themselves most successful. If man dare not fight on the Lord’s side against sin and evil, the Lord’s earth will fight for Him. Earthquakes and burning mountains will do His work. C. Kingsley.

Never, it has been justly remarked, had a prophet predicted more boldly, never was a prediction more brilliantly fulfilled. The blow which fell upon Sennacherib’s army in time to save the Jewish State was a coincidence which no political forecast could have anticipated, no estimate of probabilities calculated. Yet Isaiah’s foreknowledge of it was of long standing, certain, and precise. Not once, but repeatedly, even before Sennacherib’s army had appeared on the north of Palestine, and while all seemed calm on the political horizon, he had announced, not merely the distress in which before long Jeru-

Jersalem would find herself, but the unexpected and startling interposition by which she would be released from it. Driver.

35-37. The destruction of the Assyrian host, and subsequent assassination of Sennacherib. On the same night came upon the great army of Sennacherib, far distant from Jerusalem, a supernatural slaughter. One hundred and eighty-four thousand Assyrians were in some way destroyed by Divine power. Of the agency of the destruction we know nothing; the fact and the author only are given in the narrative. The number of the slain and the greatness of the disaster compelled the king of Assyria to return from his campaign against Egypt. Through the remainder of Hezekiah’s reign, no further attempt was made against Judah by Sennacherib. Seventeen years after this miraculous overthrow of so large a portion of his army, the king was slain by two of his sons while he was worshipping in his temple. B.

35. Here in fewest words is the grand, sublime event which vindicated the dishonored name of Jehovah; brought down just retribution on the haughty, impious Assyrian; plucked God’s praying people from the open jaws of ruin, and gave a glorious testimony to the faithfulness, the power and the presence of Israel’s God. It became a night to be ever remembered of the Lord’s ancient people; a fountain of religious impulse; a theme of fresh and grateful praise for ages to the escaped of Israel. H. C.

When they arose early in the morning, behold, etc. These words form the only trustworthy data that we possess for determining to any extent the manner of the destruction now wrought. They imply that there was no disturbance during the night, no alarm, no knowledge on the part of the living that their comrades were dying all around them by thousands. Hence we may at once put aside several of the conjectures of commentators—as those of a nocturnal attack by Tirhakah (Ussher, Preiss, Michaelis), of a terrible storm (Vitringa, Stanley), of the plague (Gesenius, Dathe, Maurer, Winer, etc.), of the simoom (Prideaux, Milman)—none of which would have left the survivors wholly unconscious of evil till morning came. On the whole, it would seem that all mere natural causes must be rejected, and God must be regarded as having slain the men in their sleep without causing disturbance, either by a peculiar pestilence called into being for the occasion, or by that “visitation” of which English law speaks. The most nearly parallel case is the destruction of the first-born, which (it may be observed) is also ascribed to a destroying angel (Ex. 12 : 23). B. C.

There is no need of departing from the strict sense of the words, or of disputing whether by the angel of the Lord we are to understand a storm, a hot wind, or a pestilential fever. The terms used can naturally signify nothing but a single instantaneous stroke of Divine vengeance. The parallel narrative in 2 Chron. 32 : 21, instead of numbering the slain, says that all the mighty men of valor, and the leaders, and the captains in the camp of the Assyrian were cut off. Where this terrific overthrow took place has been disputed and can never be determined, in the absence of all data, monumental or historical. Throughout the sacred narrative it seems to be intentionally left uncertain whether Jerusalem was besieged at all, whether Sennacherib in person ever came before it, whether his army was divided or united when the stroke befell them, and also what proportion of the host escaped. It is enough to know that one hundred and eighty five thousand men perished in a single night. A.—These unanswered questions do not invalidate the great facts of the narrative, nor in any wise abate from the moral force of the great lessons which it teaches. Perhaps it was the Lord’s special design to foreclose our critical and historical inquiries in order to shut us up the more closely to the consideration of these great moral lessons. Be this as it may, it behooves us to account these moral lessons the main thing, and to give them our chief and very earnest attention. H. C.

36. Dwelt at Nineveh.** The meaning seems to be, not that Sennacherib made no more expeditions at all, which would be untrue, for his annals show us that he warred in Armenia, Babylonia, Susiana, and Cilicia, during his later years; but that he confined himself to his own part of Asia, and did not invade Palestine or threaten Jerusalem any more. Nineveh appears here unmistakably as the Assyrian capital.

37. And it came to pass.** The death of Sennacherib, which took place many years afterward (n.c. 680), is related here, as, from the Divine point of view, the sequel to his Syrian expeditions. The arrogant blasphemer is punished doubly—first, by the destruction of his host, and then by death at the hands of his sons. B. C.—He was murdered in the temple of Nisroch by two of his sons, Adrammelech and Sharezer, who fled into Armenia, and was succeeded by another son, Esarhaddon, one of the most powerful of the Assyrian monarchs. P. S.

2. Chron. 32 : 22, 23.** The fame of Hezekiah’s deliverance brought him congratulations and presents from all the surrounding nations; and the remainder of the days, which God’s special grace had added to his life, were spent in prosperity and wealth. Like Uzziah, he possessed numerous flocks and herds, in addition to the treasures that he collected at Jerusalem. When he died, he was honored with the chief place in the sepulchres of the kings (n.c. 698). The glorious promise of his reign was terribly eclipsed under his successor. P. S.

The contrast between the devout, God-fearing, God-trusting Hezekiah, and the proud, self-trusting, self-asserting Sennacherib is one of the most striking and instructive in Scripture. The two are set one over against the other in the most graphic way. Hammond.

Hezekiah “went unto the house of the Lord,” and found Him a very present help in trouble. Sennacherib was slain in the house of his god. The two pictures of the worshippers and their fates are symbolic of the meaning of the whole story. Sennacherib had dared Jehovah to try his strength against him and his deities. The challenge was accepted, and that bloody corpse before the idol that could not help preaches a ghastly sermon on the text, “They that make them are like unto them; so is every one that trusteth in them. O Israel, trust thou in the Lord: He is their help and their shield.” A. M.

Yet other thoughts come to us—how the worldly policy of even a Hezekiah in forming alliances against Assyria was rebuked, and he learned in the school of affliction and humiliation to turn from all such help to God, and then obtained mercy; and how from the first Isaiah stood forth faithful in his warnings, and calm and unshaken in his confidence, the true prophet and representative of the Lord. And yet beyond these lessons, which are to all times, comes to the Church and to every member of it the conviction that He who supernaturally, although by what we call natural means, once swept away the host of Egypt and again laid dead the proud warriors of Assyria, also watches with ever-mindful care over the meanest of His creatures, so that not a sparrow can fall to the ground without His knowledge, nor yet any harm befall His people, nor earthly might overthrow His cause. For He of old is the living and the true God. A. E.

Parties in Judah during Reigns of Ahaz and Hezekiah.

The Egyptian party was numerous in Jerusalem. Opposed to the Egyptian was the Assyrian party, which advocated submission to the all-powerful empire of Assyria. A party, which we may call national, was headed by Isaiah. It drew its policy and its existence from the words of Divine counsel which the prophet uttered, and the message he was commissioned to deliver. Its watchword was “quietness and rest;” “in returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be your strength.” It was a policy of non-intervention, that was opposed to an alliance with Assyria or Egypt; Judah had gained nothing but evil from intermeddling with the politics of its heathen neighbors, its religion and morality had been corrupted, and calamity after calamity had fallen on the nation. God had marked it out as “a peculiar people,” and its safety lay in the national recognition of the fact. It was He who had permitted the Assyrian to be the rod of His anger, and had allowed him to chastise and chasten the sins of His people; but the chastisement was not to be utter destruction, and a bound had been set beyond which the violence of the invader was not to go. A remnant was yet to escape from Zion, and the Assyrian should be beaten down “which smote with a rod.” Isaiah preached for long to deaf ears. Ahaz turned for help to the Assyrian, Hezekiah to the Egyptian. King and people alike could not believe that the Lord would interfere on behalf of His city, and overthrow the foe in the very moment of his success. Hezekiah might accept the rebuke of the prophet for his pride of heart in showing the ambassadors of Babylon the treasures of his house, but he did not forsake the policy he was following, and cease to plot with Egypt and Babylonia against the Assyrian king. It needed the campaign of Sennacherib and the signal deliverance of Jerusalem from the victorious enemy to convince Hezekiah that Egypt should indeed “help in vain,” and that the true policy of himself and his country was that which had so long been pressed upon them by Isaiah. If he and his people would trust in the Lord, and abstain from all intrigues with foreign powers, they might rest in peace and safety, for the Lord Himself would defend them in the hour of need. And though with the death of Hezekiah evil days came again upon Judah—days which, we may gather, Isaiah was privileged never to see—the effect of the prophet’s policy continued to be felt. The house of David and the national existence of the people over whom it ruled were preserved until a new king arose in Assyria and inaugurated new principles of government. The Temple and kingdom of Jerusalem were saved till the time was ripe for the chosen people to pass through the fiery ordeal of the Babylonish exile. Sayce.

Differing Policies of Isaiah and Jeremiah Explained and Justified.

The position occupied by Isaiah was necessitated by the age to which he belonged. The message he communicated was in accordance with the conditions of his time. Hence arises the striking contrast between the policy of which he was the mouthpiece, and that which Jeremiah was called upon to urge. While Isaiah advocated resistance to the invader, in confident security that God would defend His Temple and city, Jeremiah declared that no buildings made with hands could save the people, and that submission to the Chaldean was their only hope of safety. Isaiah, in other words, was the prophet of national independence, Jeremiah of national subjection. But between the time of Isaiah and that of Jeremiah a total change had come over the face of the Eastern world. Nebuchadnezzar was a more dangerous enemy than Sennacherib; Egypt had risen afresh from its ashes, and was prepared to reassert its ancient rule over Palestine, and Judah itself had sunk into the deepest degradation and decay. Its princes were idolatrous and corrupt, and Nebuchadnezzar himself was a more reverent observer of the moral law than they. The measure of Judah’s iniquities was full; the period of God’s long-suffering had drawn to a close, and there was no king on the throne like Hezekiah to follow loyally the teachings of the prophet, no minister like Eliakim to carry them out. The Lord would fight no longer for His city and the earthly throne of David; His people were to be disciplined by suffering, and to be taught that the Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands, but requires truth and uprightness, not correctness of ritual or stately shrines.

The policy, then, which Isaiah was empowered to press upon his countrymen, the promises he was commissioned to hold out, were adapted to other circumstances and other needs than those which confronted Jeremiah. The object and end of both prophets was the same, but the means for effecting the end were necessarily different. Jeremiah lived when the old national independence, with its Oriental court and foreign alliances, had ceased to be possible or desirable; Isaiah’s lot was cast in a happier age, when the safe-keeping of Jerusalem was needful to the Divine education of the people of the Lord. He had the privilege of leading the national struggle against foreign oppression and heathen arrogance, of promising success to his countrymen in their supreme hour of peril, and of seeing that promise fulfilled. The hosts of the Assyrian, which none had yet been able to resist, were shattered against the walls of Jerusalem, and Isaiah’s had been the voice of the herald which announced the doom of the enemies of Israel. Sayoe.