Deeper Commentary

Isaiah 37:1 It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into Yahweh’s house- Instead of devising human schemes of salvation, he does as we should, turning to God's house, His presence, and His people. Although we are left wondering, especially after reading Isaiah's criticisms of Hezekiah, whether he turned to God as a last resort rather than a first resort. Because by strengthening the walls and building the water tunnel in his own strength, trusting in Egypt... he appears only to be turning to God now all that had apparently failed. He could have prayed anywhere, but he felt that God's presence was there in particular. Judah's leadership had torn their clothes but not dressed in sackcloth (Is. 36:22). Sackcloth was a sign of repentance, as witnessed by the response of Nineveh. Nineveh had repented the generation before; and it seems Hezekiah is now seeking to imitate their repentance. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria; if their repentance had been permanent, they would not have invaded Judah. Hezekiah was seeking to imitate Nineveh but make it permanent, although after the crisis passed, it seems his repentance likewise didn't hold. God knew all this from the start, and yet still so respected the repentance of Hezekiah and Nineveh in their extremity that He still changed His threatened judgment of them. Hezekiah was aware that he had sinned by trying to buy off the Assyrians with the gold of the temple, representing faith sacrificed to human expedient; and Judah had definitely trusted in Egypt for help rather than God. His words of :3 are a recognition that the invasion was a Divine rebuke and rejection of him. But a man may be rejected by God in this life, having a foretaste of condemnation ahead of time; but still change the verdict. Hence Peter went out from the Lord's presence and wept and gnashed his teeth, the very language of the rejected; but changed the verdict. This is the intensity of our situation, as Paul in Romans emphasizes; we stand condemned, and yet in this life we can change the verdict, by God's grace.

This repentance by Hezekiah may be what is in view in 2 Chron. 32:26 "Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart". He repented at the time of the Assyrian invasion, but after that was resolved and he had been healed, 2 Kings and Is. 39 leave us to understand that he slipped away from personal faith.

Is. 28:14,17-19: "hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem... the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place... when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it. From the time that it goeth forth it shall take you: for morning by morning shall it pass over, by day and by night: and it shall be a vexation only to understand the report". This is the same idea in Hezekiah's lament that he would die by morning. His terminal illness, which was delayed by grace, represented Judah's judgment. Elsewhere the Assyrian invasion is likened to flood waters which swallowed all Judah, and left Jerusalem alone with head above water, about to be drowned. It was God's intention that Jerusalem also would fall. It didn't by grace alone, and the power of Isaiah's intercession. There is the possibility in Is. 28:22,23,26 that repentance could change the outcome: "Now therefore be ye not mockers, lest your bands be made strong: for I have heard from the Lord GOD of hosts a consumption, even determined upon the whole earth [land, including Jerusalem]. Give ye ear, and hear my voice; hearken, and hear my speech... For his God doth instruct him to discretion, and doth teach him". There was some repentance, shown by Hezekiah and the leadership wearing sackcloth. This and Isaiah's prayers changed the outcome.

It was in the context of the Assyrian invasion that Is. 29:13 had described the state of Judah: "this people draw near me with their mouth, and with their lips do honour me, but have removed their heart far from me". Is. 31:8,9 are clear that Judah were worshipping udols right up to the Assyrian defeat: "In that day every man shall cast away his idols of silver, and his idols of gold, which your own hands have made unto you for a sin. Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited". Hezekiah's repentance, as well as the peoples', was therefore required because the great reforming zeal of 2 Chron. 30 had been on the cusp of emotion and had not bee permanent. That was why the Assyrian invasion came.

Isaiah 37:2 He sent Eliakim who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz- See on Is. 36:3. Humanly speaking, sending your right hand men to a prophet was not the way out of the situation. But he realized as should we, that the only ultimate recourse is to God's word. The covering of the leadership with sackcloth as noted on :1 was a sign of repentance, again imitating how the leadership of Nineveh repented in sackcloth and achieved a change of the Divinely promised judgment.

Seeing Isaiah had been so critical of Hezekiah in his prophecies, we wonder whether this sending of messages to Isaiah reflects some stress or distance in their relationship. For three years Isaiah had walked naked and barefoot to plead either Judah not to trust the Egyptians and other Gentile powers. His prophecies of doom against the surrounding nations were in the context of appealing to Judah not to trust in them. But Hezekiah and the Jerusalem leadership did just that. This too would explain Hezekiah's reticence in going directly to Isaiah.

Isaiah 37:3 They said to him, Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and of rejection- As noted on :1, Hezekiah understood he had sinned, hence his sackcloth and desperate repentance. Isaiah has repeatedly condemned Judah for trusting in Egypt for help from the Assyrians (Is. 20:5, 6; 30:1-4; 36:6,9). Those passages all say that if Judah did this, they would be rejected by God, as they were rejecting His help. And Hezekiah realizes that now those prophecies were going to come true. But the depth of his repentance meant that they didn't; just as the destruction of Nineveh in 40 days didn't happen, all because of human repentance. See on :1,4; Is. 22:5, which prophecy Hezekiah appears to allude to here.

Yet the grace of it all is that God knew that despite this cusp of intensity in repentance, Hezekiah would later slip away from it. But it's as if He so respects human faith and repentance that when it is displayed at specific moments, it as it were melts His heart and He responds. Even though He foreknows that intensity will not be retained.

The "trouble" that came upon them was the promised judgment for persistent sin. Thus the word is used often, e.g. Dt. 31:17,21. Hezekiah's reforms had only been on the surface. His covering with sackcloth in :1 was in repentance, and this is the referent in 2 Chron. 32:26 where we learn that because he and the people humbled themselves, the wrath upon Zion was deferred: "His heart was lifted up; therefore there was wrath on him, and on Judah and Jerusalem. Notwithstanding, Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart, both he and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of Yahweh didn’t come on them in the days of Hezekiah". I suggest this doesn't refer to any repentance by Hezekiah after the events of Is. 39. So here we have another example of the grace praised in Neh. 9:27- God by grace saved them from the "trouble" He brought upon them, when they cried to Him.

Likewise, the word "rebuke" leads to reflection on the fact that most occurrences of the word concern God's rebuke of His people, ultimately through judgment upon Zion. His wrath against Zion was coming to a climax, again indicating that Hezekiah's reforms had been very superficial. If the "rebuke" was not from God, who was it from? Likewise "of rejection" surely refers to Divine rejection of His people. The reforms of 2 Chron. 30 and zealous keeping of Passover were therefore done on the cusp of emotion and group psychology. For the language here speaks of God's wrath coming to a peak, and only being deferred by Hezekiah's repentance.

For the children have come to the birth, and there is no strength to bring forth- The birth of a remnant is spoken of in Isaiah in spiritual terms; "the children" here are "the remnant" of :4. The sense may be that Hezekiah sensed there had been some spiritual reformation, which he himself had done so much to bring about through his banishing of idolatry in Judah, but the final strength for the birth was lacking; they had indeed trusted in Egypt and in gold rather than in God, despite all the purging of idolatry. This was the tragedy which Hezekiah felt, as we do; that there was some genuine spirituality, but not enough. That may be the idea in Hos. 13:13 where the imagery is used again.

However as noted above, the wrath of God had been provoked throughout Hezekiah's reign, leading to His rebuke and rejection of His people. His reforms had therefore been hollow and shallow. But Hezekiah likes to see this as the spiritual new life of Judah having come to the point of birth- but he somehow holds God guilty for now being about to slay them, when he claims they are just about to be born. Hezekiah so often comes over as self justifying, especially in his claim to God that he has lived a sinless life and therefore the judgment of death upon is unreasonable. He likewise appears here to consider God's judgments upon Judah to be unreasonable.    

Is. 26:27,18 shows Isaiah's perspective: Judah had brought forth, but just wind. Her suffering had been in vain, because she had not repented: "Like as a woman with child, that draweth near the time of her delivery, is in pain, and crieth out in her pangs; so have we been in thy sight, O LORD. We have been with child, we have been in pain, we have as it were brought forth wind; we have not wrought any deliverance in the earth". Hezekiah however twisted this to saying that she was in labour, but God had not allowed her to bring forth because of the Assyrian invasion. 

Is. 66:9 can be read as an implicit criticism of the words of Hezekiah at the time of the Assyrian invasion, who lamented that the children had come to be born but there was no strength to bring them forth: "Shall I bring to the birth, and not cause to bring forth? says Yahweh: shall I who cause to bring forth shut the womb? says your God". God is saying that He will certainly bring forth the new nation of Zion out of their trauma at the hands of their invaders. He is not powerless, and therefore Hezekiah was wrong to imply this. Why the children were not brought forth at Hezekiah's time was because of the lack of spirituality in the daughter of Zion, rather than because of God's limited ability.

Isaiah 37:4 It may be Yahweh your God- This continues the connection with Nineveh's repentance (see on :1,3); in this case, to Jon. 3:9 "Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from His fierce anger, so that we might not perish?". However "your God" is a recognition by Hezekiah that Isaiah stood closer to God than he did. We note that Hezekiah tries to get Isaiah to pray to Isaiah's God, rather than praying himself. This is the way of religion. When he reveives the letter from Rabshakeh, he himself goes to the temple and prays. But when he was personally sick and terminally ill, he turns to the wall away from all others and on his oen bed himself prays to God. This is God's intention, to lead us away from religion, step by step, and to personal engagement with Him.  

Will hear the words of Rabshakeh- "Hear" is used at times to mean 'hear and respond to', as God in that sense 'hears' all things and there is no need to ask Him to hear anything.

Whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to defy the living God- This is not just Hezekiah trying to get God to see the situation from the viewpoint of His own glory; rather was there a real and actual spiritual dimension to the invasion. The idea of 'defying' Israel's God is stressed so much (Is. 37:4,17,23,24); although Isaiah concludes by using this word about what Judah had effectively done to their own God (Is. 65:7). Sennacherib really did despise Yahweh and wanted to impose his gods upon Judah, and this will be the dominant feature of the latter day Assyrian invasion of the land. Radical Islam would appear the obvious latter day equivalent.

And will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard- "Rebuke" here is a legal word, used of legal reasoning against an accuser in court (as in Is. 1:18; 11:3,4; 29:21; Mic. 6:2). Hezekiah had a strong sense of the court of Heaven; and so the answer is expressed in terms of an Angel 'coming out' from that court room and articulating the agreed judgment (:36). This is a huge comfort; that all situations on earth are reflected in Heaven, and judged there.

Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left’- The remnant would refer not only to the fact that Jerusalem alone remained, but to the righteous remnant within the city who were now repentant. The desire to get others to pray for issues is found throughout the Bible. But we should not draw the implication that God is as it were hard of hearing and only responds if enough of us offer enough prayers. But on the other hand, the combined prayerful requests of many of God's children are not unnoticed by God.

In response to Isaiah’s prayer, an Angel ‘went forth’ on earth and slew 185,000 Assyrians (2 Kings 19:35). Hezekiah was aware of the court of Heaven responding to his prayer; for he had commented that God would there “reprove the words” of Rabshakeh (2 Kings 19:4). The Hebrew for “reprove” is a legal term, meaning to convict, judge, plead etc. Hezekiah knew that the court of Heaven was considering Rabshakeh’s words, and his prayer was a plea for those words to be convicted in Heaven’s court, and an answer sent out. And this is what happened. Later, we read of Hezekiah asking that same court to “remember” his good life- again using a word capable of having legal overtones, of considering witness. And God replied by saying that He had “heard” that prayer- the same Hebrew word is translated ‘to make a proclamation’, as if He had considered Hezekiah’s ‘plea’ and would respond (2 Kings 20:3,5).

Isaiah's prayer was an amazing intercession. Is. 22:4,5 suggests Isaiah had been shown that there was to be no escape from the day of trouble coming upon Judah. Just as Hezekiah their representative was to die. But Isaiah intercedes and changed or delayed the judgment, just as happened for Hezekiah's terminal illness: "Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people. For it is a day of trouble, and of treading down, and of perplexity by the Lord GOD of hosts in the valley of vision, breaking down the walls, and of crying to the mountains". Is. 22 goes on to show that they had refused the call to repent and so judgment had to come. We note Isaiah's criticism of Hezekiah's fortification work: "Ye made also a ditch between the two walls for the water of the old pool: but ye have not looked unto the maker thereof, neither had respect unto him that fashioned it long ago. And in that day did the Lord GOD of hosts call to weeping, and to mourning, and to baldness, and to girding with sackcloth: and behold joy and gladness, slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine: let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die. And it was revealed in mine ears by the LORD of hosts, Surely this iniquity shall not be purged from you till ye die, saith the Lord GOD of hosts".

Isaiah 37:5 So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah- The servants of king Hezekiah are contrasted with those of the king of Assyria (:6). The situation is set up as a conflict between two kings, and in the last days the scenario will be the same- King Jesus in Jerusalem facing off against the latter day Antichrist, "the king of the north", the rosh of Ez. 38, the man of sin of 2 Thess. 2, the little horn speaking great things of Dan. 7.

Isaiah 37:6 Isaiah said to them, Tell your master, ‘Thus says Yahweh, Don’t be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me- We too can fear words, forgetting that the only ultimate reality in all things is God. "Servants" here translates a word which is almost colloquial, the idea being "lackeys". Just as the risen Lord referred to the disciples as "guys, fellas" (see on Jn. 21:5), so His Father is able to relate to people on their language level too.

 "Don't be afraid of the words..." connects with "Perhaps [the Hebrew may mean "surely"] Yahweh will hear the words of Rabshakeh" (:4). The idea is that we should not be put in fear by words, because Yahweh has heard those words. "Yahweh will [also] hear" is the response to "the words you have heard".

Isaiah 37:7 Behold, I will put a spirit in him- Sennacherib retreated because God “put a spirit in him”. The AV has: “I will send a blast / spirit upon him”. Was it not that the Angel who later destroyed his army came upon him and put a spirit / disposition of mind within him that made him want to retreat? We see how God can directly affect the human spirit / mind. He can give a holy spirit, or an evil spirit. The Old Testament sets us up to understand that God can work directly on the human spirit, and then the New Testament says that He can give us a holy spirit, working again directly on the human mind and perception.

The connection with God putting a lying spirit in Ahab's prophets (1 Kings 22:20-23) could lead us to think this "news" was in fact a false rumour. For it was this kind of thing that led to Israel's enemies fleeing at various times. Thus 2 Thess. 2:11 says that  "God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie".

 

And he will hear news, and will return to his own land. I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land’- The "news" could have been of the destruction of Rabshakeh's army; or of the approach of Tirhakah, or some other threat to his empire. The situation points ahead to how the latter day "king of the north" will likewise hear "news" (s.w. Dan. 11:44 "tidings"). The Lord 'caused' Sennacherib to fall by the sword in that He put a spirit of jealousy in his sons, resulting in the murder of :38.

Isaiah 37:8 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish- Sennacherib was aiming for Egypt and was attacking the fortresses on the route there; and Libnah was just south of Lachish, which he had destroyed. This is the scene we have in Dan. 11, where the "king of the north" attacks "the king of the south", Egypt, ransacking Palestine along the way, but then had to return to his own land after hearing the "tidings" of Dan. 11:44. The historical invasions of Israel and Judah therefore follow a pattern; and this will be repeated in the final latter day invasion which all the previous invasions point forward to. The image of Dan. 2 stands complete in the last days, and all the beasts of Dan. 7 are incorporated into the mega beast of the last days. This is to say that the final destructive entity oppressing Israel in the last days will combine features of all her historical oppressors, including the Assyrians. We note too the difference between Rabshakeh and Sennacherib, and wonder how far this points forward to the "false prophet" of Revelation who appears to be an agent of the beast.

Isaiah 37:9 He heard news concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, He has come out to fight against you. When he heard it he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying- Tirhakah was the dominant king in Egypt at the time. We wonder if the much criticized efforts of Judah to get "Egypt" to help them were actually directed towards Tirhakah. But we wonder why therefore God still used this person to play a part in His plan to destroy Sennacherib. Or it could be that Tirhakah was the one who had destroyed the Egyptians upon whom Judah had hoped [rather than upon their God], and so it was appropriate that he and not Egypt played a part in the Divine plan to destroy "the king of the north". 

Isaiah 37:10 Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, ‘Don’t let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem won’t be given into the hand of the king of Assyria- The king recognizes that Hezekiah does indeed trust in God, and that Yahweh was indeed his God. This may have comforted him, as we noted on :4 that Hezekiah speaks of God as Isaiah's God rather than his God.

Isaiah 37:11 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly. Shall you be delivered?- This is the classic challenge to faith; no other god achieved anything, therefore, the one true God can't either. But the point is that the gods of this world didn't achieve anything precisely because they are not God. The 'utter destruction' of conquered lands by Assyria is historically well attested. But the word has the sense of 'sanctified' in a religious sense; like the latter day "king of the north", the invader thought that they were serving their God by destroying people, and the barbarity of the destruction was a sign of how far they had devoted people and lands to their God. Jihadist Islam exactly fits this scenario.

Isaiah 37:12 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar?- These were the very cities to which the Assyrians had deported the ten tribe Kingdom of Israel (2 Kings 17:6; 18:11). The implication is that Judah would be taken there likewise.

The historical Assyria ‘destroyed utterly’ the nations around Israel (:11; 2 Kings 19:11); but the Hebrew word used specifically means to consecrate or dedicate. It has a distinctly religious sense. And this is precisely the idea of jihad- taking land in a holy war in order to dedicate that land to Allah. In practice, the Assyrians did this by ‘destroying’ or ‘drying up’ these lands. Charab¸ ‘to dry up’, is used about their scorched earth policies (2 Kings 19:17), and Assyria threatened to ‘dry up’ Judah (2 Chron. 32:11), just as he boasted “with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places” (2 Kings 19:24); and the metaphor continues with the idea of Assyria being like a river gushing forth over the land they had dried up (Is. 8:7). This is why God’s answer to the Assyrian threat to Judah is expressed in terms of His reminding Judah that it is He who has ultimate power to dry up rivers and nations (Is. 44:27; 50:2; 51:10- every time, the same Hebrew word charab is used).

Isaiah 37:13 Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivvah?’- The kings of these cities are paralleled with their gods (:12). The parallel Is. 36:19 asks "Where are the gods" of these same cities. Truly we become like that which we worship; football fans become like their idols, in spirit. And if we worship the one true God of Israel, Yahweh, then we will become like Him.

Is. 10:9-11 speaks specifically of Rabshakeh's taunts: "Is not Calno as Carchemish? is not Hamath as Arpad? is not Samaria as Damascus? As my hand hath found the kingdoms of the idols, and whose graven images did excel them of Jerusalem and of Samaria; shall I not, as I have done unto Samaria and her idols, so do to Jerusalem and her idols?". It is clear that Hezekiah's reforms and the idol smashing of 2 Chron. 30, 14 years earlier, were all of a surface level. The Jerusalem under siege by Assyria in Hezekiah's time was full of idols. And Is. 2 lamented that the land of Judah was "full of idols".

Isaiah 37:14 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to Yahweh’s house, and spread it before Yahweh-  Hezekiah responded to the threats of Assyria by sending to Isaiah, and up to :12 we have the story of the response to that. But he also himself prayed to God, and we are now reading about that here. Hezekiah read the letter- out loud, the Hebrew definitely means, even suggesting he cried it out. This parallels his spreading it before Yahweh. It was his way of expressing transparency before God, demonstrating his trust that God really saw and heard all that he was seeing and hearing. "Spread" translates the same Hebrew word used about spreading abroad the hands in prayer (Ex. 9:29,33 etc.). It was as if the letter was the prayer. Our situation is read by God as our prayer. There are times especially in serious illness when we are too weak or mentally unclear to be able to verbalize prayer; or where the situation is so complex that we do not know what to pray for in terms of our desired outcome. And some are simply better at verbalizing than others. But the essence is our faith that God sees the situation and will respond. It was in this sense that Hezekiah spread the letter before Yahweh, as we might place an unpleasant hospital diagnosis on the kitchen table and attempt to pray, but what we are doing is bringing the situation before God and asking for His wise and powerful response.

Isaiah 37:15 Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying- As noted on :14, the situation itself was the prayer; but Hezekiah, like us, does his best to articulate things in words.

I discuss on :15 how "before Yahweh" refers to the temple (:13). Hezekiah prayed in the temple because he thought this was how God would best 'hear' him and 'see' the problem. But he was later shown that in fact God hears sincere prayer from the heart wherever it is offered, even outside the temple. 1 Kings 8:37 envisaged Israel when sick or besieged praying to God and being heard because of the physical temple: "If their enemy besieges them in their cities; whatever plague, whatever sickness there is; whatever prayer and supplication is made by any man, or by all Your people Israel, who shall each know the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house: then hear in heaven". Hezekiah was both besieged and sick. But he was to be taught that Solomon's envisioning of the physical temple as a kind of talisman was incorrect. Even after he is healed he immediately wants to go to the temple: "Hezekiah also had said, What is the sign that I will go up to the house of Yahweh?" (Is. 38:22). He couldn't as it were live without that temple.

The outcome of Hezekiah's loss of faith and wrong attitude to the temple was that Judah would be destroyed by Babylon, along with the temple, and go into captivity. I suggest this is one reason for this material being put into the historical interlude of Is. 36-39. The good deeds of Hezekiah in his earlier life are not dwelt upon in that interlude. The material is used at that point because Is. 40-66 is relevant to the exiles in Babylon. The anti Babylon polemic in Is. 40-45 follows straight on from the explanation in Is. 39 as to why they are suffering under Babylon. The Hezekiah material is in order to remind them why they were in exile. It was because of Hezekiah's wrong attitude to the temple and self satisfied, partial faith. Despite earlier having been of strong faith. This was exactly the position of Judah in exile. He serves as a warning to them, and an explanation as to why the temple was in ruins and they were in exile. This is surely why Isaiah alone records Hezekiah's song of praise in Is. 38:9-20; because it is full of phrases relevant to the later exiles. Thus he says that he feels as if his life is a shepherd's tent that is being taken down (Is. 38:12). But the restored Zion will be a shepherd's tent that will not be taken down (Is. 33:20). Hezekiah in sickness was therefore Zion in destruction and exile. His sin was theirs; although there is also an element to which he, like the Lord, carried their sin. Zion too is likened to a chronically sick man. And Hezekiah's judgment of death was deferred, not removed. As with Zion's. Zion likewise pleaded "Do not take me away, O God, in the midst of my days" (Ps. 102:25) in the very words of Hezekiah in Is. 38:10. "You restore me", after confession of sin (Is. 38:16), is of course the obvious connection with the restored Zion. If they did this, then like Hezekiah they would feel as in Is. 33:24 "The inhabitant won’t say, I am sick because the people who dwell therein will be forgiven their iniquity". The connection between Hezekiah and the people is made clear in 1 Kings 20:6: "I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria".

 

Isaiah 37:16 Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim- Hezekiah has just "spread" the letter before Yahweh (:14), using the same word for how the cherubim 'stretched forth their wings' (Ex. 25:20; 1 Kings 8:7 etc.). He knows that God is in Heaven with the cherubim as it were around Him, and also in the Most Holy place of the temple where Hezekiah was. And he imagined that letter as being with God, spread out as the cherubic wings were spread out. Those wings were spread out over the mercy seat, the cover over the ark, which was sprinkled with the blood of atonement each year. This is a profound insight into prayer. Our situations are not unnoticed. They are placed as it were upon the blood of the Lord Jesus, in the very presence of God, with the cherubim overshadowing them, peering down into them. And we can understand the cherubim in this context as representing God's Angelic might. And appropriately enough, an Angel was sent to bring about the great deliverance sought. There over our kitchen table with the troubling letter placed upon it, as with Hezekiah, there are the cherubim and the presence of Almighty God Himself.

You are the God, even You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth; You have made heaven and earth- Reflection upon God's power in creation should inspire our faith too; the God who could do that has made all men and their kingdoms, and is unlimited in what He can do for us. To let 'science' diminish our faith in God as creator is to remove such inspiration from us. Hezekiah states that God alone is the God of all kings or kingdoms of the earth; and yet we have just learnt that those kings were identified with their idols and were no more. Perhaps Hezekiah was using the present tense as God does, speaking of the reality of the final Messianic Kingdom as being so sure of ultimately coming about.

The appeal to God as creator was still an appeal to grace alone. Is. 26:17 had said that they were beyond the mercy even of their creator: "Therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favour".
  

Isaiah 37:17 Turn Your ear Yahweh and hear; open Your eyes Yahweh and behold; hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God- This is not to say that God is deaf and blind usually. Seeing and hearing are being used with the sense 'See, hear and respond'. God sees and hears but doesn't respond immediately, usually; He waits until judgment day. Hezekiah is asking for an immediate response in the here and now, for the essence of judgment day to come now, just as we noted on :16 that he was in expectation of the Messianic Kingdom being established.

The appeal for God to open His eyes alludes to Solomon's prayer, that God's eyes would be open towards the temple (1 Kings 8:29,52). The statement in :14 that Hezekiah prayed "before Yahweh" could suggest he went into the temple to pray. He thus betrays a 'religious' view of the temple, as if God was obligated to hear him because he was praying in the temple, or at least, because of the temple's very existence. Perhaps this is why his prayer not to die was responded to with the comment that God had indeed seen, and once healed, Hezekiah after three days would go to the temple [to praise God for His grace]. Hezekiah therefore prayed that prayer not in the temple, but on his deathbed at home, facing the bedroom wall. He was thus being taught that God opens His eyes to sincere prayer- not simply because of the religious value of the temple. I take this to be God showing that He was not particularly in agreement with Solomon's 'religious' idea that the temple of itself would obligate God to hear prayer. And that is surely why the final judgment upon Hezekiah was that the Babylonians would come and sack Jerusalem, which included destroying the temple. 

 

 

Isaiah 37:18 Truly Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land- "Destroyed" is again the word for sanctifying and devoting in a religious sense. The king of Assyria, like his latter day equivalent, was deeply religious, and saw the cruel destruction of other lands and peoples as part of his service to God, and a sign that his god was triumphant over their gods and belief systems. This exactly fits the spirit of jihadist Islam, which I suggest is the latter day equivalent.

Isaiah 37:19 And have cast their gods into the fire; for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone; therefore they have destroyed them- Here we have an example of the Bible using language from the viewpoint of men on earth. They thought their gods were indeed "gods", but they were "no gods". Likewise the language of demons is used in the New Testament, but this doesn't mean demons exist or have power in reality.

Passages like Is. 37:19 almost define God by reason of His being uncreate. Whatever is created, is not God. And it follows that if we think that we have truly created anything, or that we are anything that God didn’t create, then we are in fact playing God. Understanding God as creator, in its true, deep and thought-through sense, leads to an understanding of grace. That all we have, are, were, shall ever be, is purely His gift. Likewise, to take for ourselves what is God’s is to play God. Materialism and selfishness are in this sense playing God

Isaiah 37:20 Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are Yahweh, even You only-

This alludes to the statement just made in: "You are the God, even You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth". Hezekiah is asking that his faith and understanding of God would be accepted by all peoples. Hezekiah wants people to understand and perceive what is potentially true for them. And this is really the function of all evangelism.

Hezekiah's confident assurance to the people that the Assyrians were an arm of flesh compared to Yahweh (2 Chron. 32:7,8) is hard to square with his own apparent lack of faith at this time. He stripped the temple of its gold [faith], made alliances with Egypt, and fortified the city in his own strength- which Isaiah strongly criticized in Is. 22.  One solution is to recognize that faith and unbelief can co-exist in a "believer", and yet when speaking to others, we may give a stronger exhortation to faith than we personally believe ourselves.

 

The day when all earth's kingdoms shall know Yahweh is the Kingdom age, as Isaiah points out elsewhere with the same Hebrew phrase (Is. 12:5; 49:26; 61:9). Hezekiah envisaged salvation from the "king of the north" as leading directly to the establishment of the Kingdom; and that is the scenario in Dan. 11:40-12:3. Perhaps it was potentially possible; but Judah's general lack of repentance and Hezekiah's apostacy meant it was deferred in fulfilment. The desire for salvation was therefore not simply for the sake of personal safety, but for the wider glory of God in the earth. 

There will come a day when all the world realizes that God is one (Is. 37:20 Heb.)- in that they will realize that He alone is God and all else is pure vanity. Because God alone is holy, only He will be worshipped then (Rev. 15:4). "The Lord alone shall be exalted in that day" (Is. 2:11,17).

Isaiah 37:21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria- Answers to prayer don't often come through bolts of revelation; in this case it was through another believer, Isaiah. And we note the power of one man's prayer- because of this prayer, God's word of :22 was uttered. See on Mk. 2:5.

The implication could be that it was Isaiah's prayer and not Hezekiah's which was answered.

Isaiah 37:22 This is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and ridiculed you. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you- The remnant within the closed city of Jerusalem, likened to a protected virgin who had not been 'opened', had hardly despised and ridiculed the Assyrians. They were terrified of them. But their faith was counted to them for more than it was; according to Ps. 2, it was God within Zion who despised and ridiculed the armies outside the walls. But His characteristics were counted to them. This is exactly the reasoning of Paul in Romans about imputed righteousness.

The idea may also be that the Assyrians had intended to enter and take Zion's virginity; but the prophetic perfect is used of how soon, the inhabitants of Zion would come out and shake their head in ridicule at the remaining Assyrians as they fled homewards. She had retained her virginity from them.

Hezekiah's perspective differed from God's. He saw the people as children whose birth was being unjustly stopped by God through not empowering the mother. Whereas Yahweh had lamented of His people at this time "I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against me" (Is. 1:2). That same chapter speaks of a time when the cities of Judah had all fallen to the invader, apart from Jerusalem. So the context is precisely that of the Sennacherib invasion. 

 

 

Isaiah 37:23 Whom have you defied and blasphemed? Against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel- Sennacherib was fully aware that he had done all these things against Yahweh; the motivation for his rage against Jerusalem was his particular hatred of Yahweh. And so it shall be in the latter day invasion, which will also be strongly motivated by religion. This verse is simply restating the truth about Sennacherib. It is addressed to him, so presumably Isaiah's duty was to get the message to him. We wonder why God would, as it were, bother. But there are many points of contact with Pharaoh. God even tried to bring him to repentance, and perhaps this address to Sennacherib was to likewise give even him a chance. This is great encouragement to us, to never consider anyone not even worth trying with.

Isaiah 37:24 By your servants have you defied the Lord and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the innermost parts of Lebanon- The intensive plurals here refer to the great mountain, of Zion. Sennacherib spoke in the present tense because he was certain he would achieve it. His intention was to desecrate the innermost parts of the cedar-of-Lebanon decorated temple.

I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice fir trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field- This could continue the allusion to the cedar-of-Lebanon covered temple. Or the whole verse may be simply as GNB: "You sent your servants to boast to me that with all your chariots you had conquered the highest mountains of Lebanon. You boasted that there you cut down the tallest cedars and the finest cypress trees, and that you reached the deepest parts of the forests". However, an obsession with destroying the temple would fit the theme of Sennacherib's rage against Yahweh and particular desire to destroy the temple and gain the temple mount. This would match the similar motivations of the latter day Assyrian.

Isaiah 37:25 I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt- Rabshakeh tried to cut off water from Jerusalem (hence Hezekiah's tunnel of 2 Kings 20:20). Sennacherib considered victory against Egypt as just as certain; although he was clearly fazed by Tirhakah's approach.  In fact the Assyrian army was to never set foot in Egypt at this time. Perhaps the idea is that despite this, the Assyrians had dug wells and found new water sources for their army. Isaiah had criticized Hezekiah for doing this rather than trusting in God. And it would seem that Hezekiah's efforts didn't succeed anyway.

Isaiah 37:26 Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it in ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to destroy fortified cities, turning them into ruinous heaps- This is the Divine response. Understanding predestination helps us see the frailty of all human strength and device; and Paul introduces it into his argument in Romans to likewise demonstrate that salvation is of grace and not by works. "Destroy" is literally to rush upon, and the word is used of how the rushing of the nations against God's people would be turned back (see on Is. 17:13).

Isaiah 37:27 Therefore their inhabitants had little power; they were dismayed and confounded, they were like the grass of the field and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops, and like a field before its crop has grown- Similar language is used in Is. 40:6 of how "all flesh" is like this. The reference is to the "all flesh" of the nations around Israel whom the Assyrians had conquered, who trusted in their own human strength.

Isaiah 37:28 But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against Me- This reflects David's awareness that God knows our every physical movement, standing or sitting. God knew Sennacherib's going out from his homeland and how he would return there. Sennacherib's rage was against Yahweh; he intended to utterly subvert the true faith; see on :29.

Isaiah 37:29 Because of your raging against Me- There was a specifically religious, spiritual aspect to the invasion; the idea was that the claims of this Yahweh were to be shown false. The motivation of the latter day Assyrian will be the same. Dan. 11:40 [see note there] envisages the "king of the north" likewise raging against the God of the fortress of Zion.

And because your arrogance has come up into My ears, therefore will I put My hook in your nose and My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back by the way by which you came- This is the language of the latter day invasion by Gog (Ez. 38:4), which has this Assyrian invasion as its prototype. The Gog confederacy, of 10 nations headed by a rosh, a charismatic leader, will likewise be unsuccessful.

The languuage of coming up to God's ears usually refers to the prayers of the righteous - in the Hezekiah context, "their voice was heard, and their prayer came up to His holy habitation, even to heaven" (2 Chron. 30:27). What came up to His ears was the blasphemy of His enemies. But perhaps the idea is that the situation of His people is read by Him as their prayer. Hezekiah spread the blasphemous letter "before Yahweh"and prayed over it. This reflected faith and trust that God did in fact see and hear what was written there, and here we have confirmation of that.

Isaiah 37:30 This shall be the sign to you. You will eat this year that which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs from the same; and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit- They were besieged in Jerusalem. This sign was a medium term sign, not the short term indication of salvation they perhaps wanted. The sign was that there was the potential for the house of Judah to bear fruit "upward", to God (:31); the fruit of repentance. But there are hints later in Isaiah that this sign was not believed; they did not respect the Jubilee year, they did sow instead of trusting that the land around Jerusalem would miraculously bring forth its own fruit. And this reflects how they did not bring forth the fruit of the Spirit "upward" to God but rather of their own strength (:31). See on :32. The language here seems to suggest that the events of the Assyrian invasion and deliverance happened around a year of Jubilee, which later in Isaiah is alluded to as a type of the time of the Lord's return and the Messianic Kingdom. It could have come then; but Is. 58 and other hints in later Isaiah are that the Jubilee year was not respected, they did plant instead of trusting in the Lord's provision, and so the Kingdom was precluded from coming then. The idea of planting vineyards and eating their fruit is used in Is. 65 of the Messianic Kingdom; it is kingdom language.

The verse has been translated: 'Ye did eat (the first year) such as groweth of itself, and in the second year that which springeth of the same, but in this third year sow ye'. This would mean that they were now in the third year of the Assyrian invasion. Perhaps there was a three and a half year domination of Judah by the Assyrians, just as there shall be in the last days.

Isaiah 37:31 The remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downward, and bear fruit upward- See on :30,32. Apart from Jerusalem, Judah had been overrun by the Assyrians, so this remnant who escaped could refer to the inhabitants of Jerusalem; or it could be that "the remnant" refers to the spiritually faithful minority.

Is. 4:2 had spoken of how this "remnant" (s.w.) would be the basis of a revived kingdom of God in Judah, based around a Messianic "Branch", "in that day"- the day of Is. 4:1, when Jerusalem would be overcome and left in ruins with hardly any men left. These "survivors" are those saved from the ruins of a desolated Jerusalem, those who "escaped" the Assyrian invasion (s.w. Is. 10:20); the same word is used in Joel 2:32; Obadiah 17, the "remnant" of Ez. 14:22 (s.w.). The destruction of Jerusalem was intended to elicit repentance and to lead seamlessly into a revived Zion and reestablished Kingdom of God in Israel, when again all things would be "glorious" (s.w. Is. 24:23; 35:2). But this didn't happen. Jerusalem was saved by grace, and yet Hezekiah failed to act as "Yahweh's branch", and Judah were impenitent, unmoved by their salvation by grace.

Isaiah 37:32 For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go forth, and survivors will escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of Yahweh of Armies will perform this’- This is the language of Obadiah about the final establishment of Messiah's Kingdom. As noted on :30, this could have happened then, if Judah had kept the year of Jubilee as intended and brought forth spiritual fruit "upward" to God.

Isaiah 37:33 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither will he come before it with shield, nor cast up a mound against it- This is in contrast to Sennacherib's first approach to Jerusalem, when according to his own inscriptions he did cast up a mound: 'Because Hezekiah, king of Judah, would not submit to my yoke, I came up against him, and by force of arms, and by the might of my power, I took 46 of his fenced cities, and of smaller towns scattered about I took a countless number. And I carried off as spoil 200,150 people. And Hezekiah himself I shut up in Jerusalem, his capital city, like a bird in a cage, building towers round the city to hem him in. Then upon this Hezekiah there fell the fear of the power of my arms, and he sent out to me the chiefs of Jerusalem, with 30 talents of gold and 800 talents of silver'. The fact not an arrow would be fired must be compared with how Is. 22:6 had predicted the presence of the archers of Elam around Jerusalem at the invasion, who would overthrow her. It was deferred until this same nation came with the Babylonians against Jerusalem at a later date (Jer. 49:35). Likewise Is. 22:7 foresaw the Assyrians 'coming before' the city; but this too was averted by the repentance and intercession of a minority. It is all a great lesson in the power of the repentance and intercession of a minority.

The promise that the Assyrians would not build forts against Jerusalem alludes to Is. 29:1-3: "Woe to Ariel, to Ariel, the city where David dwelt! add ye year to year; let them kill sacrifices. Yet I will distress Ariel, and there shall be heaviness and sorrow... And I will camp against thee round about, and will lay siege against thee with a mount, and I will raise forts against thee". This was averted or delayed by repentance and intercession. Is. 29:4 continues: "And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust". This is the language of Hezekiah's prayer when he was terminally ill,, again showing he represented Jerusalem.

Isaiah 37:34 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come to this city’, says Yahweh- This unsuccessful invasion is like that of Ez. 38 and Ps. 2; the nations surround Jerusalem but fail to capture it because of the Lord's presence there. Jerusalem will indeed fall in the last days and be desecrated, but the Lord will return and save Israel, establish Himself in Zion- and then there will be this unsuccessful invasion which He crushes.

Isaiah 37:35 ‘For I will defend this city to save it, for My own sake, and for My servant David’s sake’- The implication could be 'not for the sake of your righteousness, but by grace alone; for My sake, and because I respect the covenant of grace I gave David'. Perhaps this is why 2 Kings 20:6 reminds Hezekiah that his other prayer, for personal healing, is likewise because God is the God of David his ancestor: "Thus says Yahweh the God of David your father, I have heard your prayer. I have seen your tears. Behold, I will heal you". This was by grace, and not because of Hezekiah's allusions to praying towards the temple and thereby being saved, both nationally and personally.

Isaiah 37:36 The angel of Yahweh went out- He went out from the throne room of heaven, where the case had been as it were considered; see on :4. Isaiah 37 is shot through with allusions to the Angel cherubim destroying the Assyrian host. The Angel went out- perhaps referring to Him physically going forth out of the temple where He dwelt to slay the Assyrians outside the walls of Jerusalem. This phrase 'went out' is nearly always used about literal physical movement, which we have seen is what  Angels literally do. Thus in the Ezekiel visions of the cherubim, they and the lightnings "went forth", physically and literally, in performing God's work. "Let my sentence come forth from Thy presence (Angelic language); let Thine eyes (Angels) behold the things that are equal", seeing they are involved with the 'coming forth', according to the parallelism of this verse. Similarly Job's satan Angel "went forth" from the presence of the Lord (Job 1:12). And so it happened that there were Angels on earth, as it were. Zech. 2:3 also has an Angel going forth to answer the prayers concerning  restoring the fortunes of Jerusalem (see Zech. 5:5 too). Ps. 81:5 describes the Angel going out through the land of Egypt in order to "remove (Israel's) shoulder from the burden". Ps. 81 is 'Angelic', following Ps. 80, which is another such Psalm. Heb. 1:14 also offers support: the Angels are "sent forth" to minister to us- by answering prayers offered in the spirit of Hezekiah's prayer here?

And struck one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in the camp of the Assyrians. When men arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies- The bodies were spoiled by the Jerusalem Jews (Is. 33:4). The agent of destruction appears to have been fire and hail (Is. 29:6; 30:30), both of which may be used in the last days too.

We observe that this major event was never specifically prophesied by Isaiah in all the previous material we have in Isaiah. Hezekiah's illness and healing was intended to be programatic for Judah. Just as Hezekiah's death was determined but was delayed for 15 years by God's response to his prayer, so it could be that it was indeed God's intention to destroy Jerusalem at this point. But it was deferred, just as Hezekiah's death had been, because of the faith of a very few. We again see the openness of God.

Isaiah 37:37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, went away, returned to Nineveh, and stayed there- This was due to the "tidings" he received (:7), presumably of the destruction of his army outside the walls of Jerusalem. His murder by his sons is recorded in Assyrian inscriptions, but a a space of about 20 years after his withdrawal from Judah. We enquire why God waited so long, by human standards. Surely it was because He sought this man's repentance, as with Pharaoh.

Isaiah 37:38 It happened that as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons struck him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place- As noted on :7, this was caused by God putting a spirit / attitude of mind in these sons to do this. His Spirit, as today, confirmed the human spirit.

We note the contrast between the two kings. Both go into the house of their God but with different outcomes. Likewise the three delegated representatives of the king of Assyria, Tartan, Rabshakeh and Rabsaris, are paralleled with the three representatives of Hezekiah king of Judah, Shebna, Eliakim and Joah (2 Kings 18:18). The Angelic horses and chariots thus correspond to the much vaunted horses and chariots of Assyria. In this context we understand how Rabshakeh offers a fake Kingdom of God, alluding consciously to the descriptions of God's Kingdom in Mic. 4 and Isaiah.