Deeper Commentary
2Ki 19:1 It happened, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his
clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of
Yahweh-
Instead of devising human schemes of salvation, he does as we should,
turning to God's house, His presence, and His people. 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.
2Ki 19:2 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-
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.
2Ki 19:3 They said to him, Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a day of
trouble, 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.
For the children have come to the point of birth, and there is no
strength to deliver them-
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.
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.
2Ki 19:4 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.
Will hear all 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’. So the servants of king Hezekiah
came to Isaiah-
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).
2Ki 19:5 Isaiah said to them, Thus you shall 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.
2Ki 19:6 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.
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 :39.
2Ki 19:7 So Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring
against Libnah; for he had heard that he had 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.
2Ki 19:8 When he heard it said of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he
has come out to fight against you, he sent messengers again 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".
2Ki 19:9 Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah saying, Don’t let
your God in whom you trust deceive you saying, Jerusalem will not 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.
2Ki 19:10 Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to
all lands, by destroying them utterly. Will 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.
2Ki 19:11 Have the gods of the nations delivered them, which my fathers
have destroyed, Gozan, Haran, Rezeph and the children of Eden that 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 (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).
2Ki 19:12 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the
city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah?-
The kings of these cities are paralleled with their gods (:11). 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.
2Ki 19:13 Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers,
and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh, and spread it
before Yahweh-
"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.
Rabshakeh confirmed the threatened destruction of Jerusalem with a
letter. Hezekiah took this “before the Lord”. His first response was not
to turn to Egypt; he’d learnt the wrongness of that. He went to the house
of the Lord. Whilst we are always in God’s presence, there is surely a
sense in which coming into His presence through prayer is drawing yet
closer to Him. And so it was with the special presence of YHWH in the
temple at that time. Hezekiah was aware that YHWH ‘dwells between the
cherubim” (2 Kings 19:15). Presumably standing before the ark, Hezekiah
“spread out” the letter (2 Kings 19:14). The Hebrew word translated
‘spread out’ is the same as that usually used about how the wings of the
cherubim were ‘spread out’ over the ark (Ex. 25:20; 37:9). It’s also the
word used in Solomon’s prophecy of how repentant people would spread out
their hands in the temple at the time of the punishment for their sins,
and receive forgiveness and help: “Whatever prayer, whatever plea is made
by any man or by all your people Israel, each knowing his own affliction
and his own sorrow and stretching out his hands in this house, then hear
from heaven your dwelling place and forgive” (2 Chron. 6:29,30). And
Hezekiah would also have been only too aware of Isaiah’s judgment against
Judah of a few years earlier: “When you spread out your hands, I will hide
my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen”
(Is. 1:15). But Hezekiah summoned his faith in God’s forgiveness, and
spread out his hands as he spread out the letter. He showed his deep
repentance, and his faith in forgiveness to such an extent that he was
bold enough to ask God for deliverance. Faith in forgiveness of our sins
is perhaps one of the hardest things to believe in- strangely enough,
seeing that God delights in forgiveness.
2Ki 19:14 Hezekiah prayed before Yahweh and said-
As noted on :13, the situation itself was the prayer; but Hezekiah,
like us, does his best to articulate things in words.
Yahweh, the God of
Israel, Who sits above the cherubim-
Hezekiah has just "spread" the letter before Yahweh
(:13), 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-
Believing that the cosmos was created and didn’t evolve from nothing
isn’t a painless academic decision which we take somewhere within our
brain cells. To believe God is the creator means that we believe that
nothing in the life of this planet or our own lives is therefore too hard
for Him to do.
2Ki 19:15 Incline Your ear, Yahweh, and hear. Open your eyes, Yahweh, and
see. Hear the words of Sennacherib, with which he 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.
Perhaps he even placed the letter upon the top of the ark, beneath the
spread out wings of the cherubim, upon the blood-sprinkled mercy seat or
atonement cover, symbolizing the future work of the Lord Jesus. He brought
the situation before the presence of God. He asks God to open His eyes and
see. I take this as a tacit recognition from Hezekiah that
God had turned away His eyes from Judah and Hezekiah personally because of
their sin. But Hezekiah believed in the promises of forgiveness, and asks
God to therefore respond to the awful situation they were in.
2Ki 19:16 Truly, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations
and their lands-
"Destroyed / laid waste" is 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.
Goliath's defiance of Israel is a major theme (s.w. 1 Sam. 17:10,25,26,36,45). David's victory over Goliath was inspirational to other Israelites, just as the Lord's triumph on the cross should be to us. The history of Goliath would have been inspirational when the Assyrians likewise defied the living God, and again this is a theme of the record (2 Kings 19:4,16,22,23; 2 Chron. 32:17 s.w.).
2Ki 19:17 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 this 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
2Ki 19:18 Now therefore, Yahweh our God, save us, I beg You, out of his
hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You, Yahweh, are
God alone-
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).
Hezekiah’s faith was also strengthened by having the right motives:
“Save us, please, from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may
know that you, O LORD, are God alone”. This is alluded to by the Lord in
His prayer just before His death: “That the world may know” (Jn. 17:23).
Hezekiah’s prayer for the Assyrian destruction was in fact so that the
Gentile nations around Judah would come to know Yahweh, to accept Him.
What finer motivation! This was no selfish shriek for help.
That God is one is a command, an imperative to action
(Mk. 12:28,29). It underlies the whole law and prophets (Mt. 22:40)- it's
that fundamental. If there were two Gods, Yahweh would only demand half
our energies. Nothing can be given to anything else; for there is nothing
else to give to. There's only one God. There can be no idolatry in our
lives, because there is only one God (2 Kings 19:18,19). Because "there is
none else, thou shalt keep therefore his statutes" (Dt. 4:39,40).
The Hebrew text of Dt. 6:4 suggests: "The Lord is our God, the Lord is
one", thereby linking Yahweh's unity with His being our God, the sole Lord
and unrivalled Master of His people. It also links the first principle of
the unity of God with that of the covenant to Abraham; for "I will be
their God" was one of the features of the covenant. The one God has only
one people; not all religious systems can lead to the one Hope of Israel.
2Ki 19:19 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah saying, Thus says
Yahweh, the God of Israel, ‘Whereas you have prayed to Me against
Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you-
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 :20 was
uttered. See on Mk. 2:5.
2Ki 19:20 This is the word that 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.
2Ki 19:21 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-
When and how was this mocking made? I suggest on Prov. 25:1 that a
number of the Proverbs in the later part of the book of Proverbs were
rewritten in the context of the Assyrian crisis at the time of Hezekiah.
We may have a clue in Prov. 26:6: "One who sends a message by the hand of
a fool is cutting off his own feet and drinking violence".
Rabshakeh, the servant of the king of Assyria, is presented as a
"fool" (see on Prov. 26:4), and by using him, the king of Assyria was
cutting off his own feet. This and other of Hezekiah's Proverbs (see on
Prov. 25:1) which mock messengers would then be the reference of 2 Kings
19:21, where we read that the daughter of Zion had mocked at and despised
the Assyrians and their messengers. There is no other recorded fulfilment
of this. Defeat by Assyria looked certain, and so to mock them at the time
when they would [humanly speaking] soon be seeking their grace- was a true
act of faith. See on :32.
That would’ve required an extraordinary level of faith to do that.
Hezekiah wasn’t just hoping for the best, using prayer as a last resort, a
kind of back up insurance policy after doing all he could. This was the
prayer and faith of utter confidence, believing that things that are not
are in fact, and being so sure they will come about that this faith
actually affects our feelings. Hezekiah felt confident, superior to the
Assyrians, all the feelings that come from knowing that one is in a far
stronger position. This is a challenge in our self-assessment. To what
extent does our confidence in faith affect our emotions and feelings?
2Ki 19:22 By your messengers you have 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.
And I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees; and
I will enter into His deepest dwelling place, the forest of His 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.
2Ki 19:23 I have dug and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my
feet will I 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.
2Ki 19:24 Haven’t you heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of
ancient times? Now have I brought it to pass, that it should be yours to
lay waste fortified cities 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).
2Ki 19:25 Therefore their inhabitants were of small 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 grain blasted
before it has grown up-
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.
2Ki 19:26 But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and 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 :27.
2Ki 19:27 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.
2Ki 19:28 This shall be the sign to you: You shall eat this year that
which grows of itself, and in the second year that which springs of the
same; and in the third year sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat
its 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 (:29); 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 (:29). See on :30. 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.
2Ki 19:29 The remnant that has escaped of the house of Judah shall again
take root downward, and bear fruit upward-
See on :28,30. 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.
2Ki 19:30 For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and out of
Mount Zion those who shall escape. The zeal of Yahweh will perform this’-
This is the language of Obadiah about the final establishment of
Messiah's Kingdom. As noted on :28, this could have happened then, if
Judah had kept the year of Jubilee as intended and brought forth spiritual
fruit "upward" to God.
2Ki 19:31 Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He
shall not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, neither shall 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.
2Ki 19:32 By the way that he came, by the same shall he 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.
As discussed on :21, the Proverbs of Hezekiah are relevant to this situation. At this point, Prov. 26:8 "As one who binds a stone in a sling, so is he who gives honour to a fool". I suggested on Prov. 26:4,6 that the particular fool in view is Rabshakeh, who had been honoured by the king of Assyria. But because of God's anger with this "fool", the military technology of Assyria would be confounded. Not a stone would be hurled at Jerusalem- exactly as stated here.
2Ki 19:33 ‘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'.
2Ki 19:34 It happened that night, that 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 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.
2Ki 19:35 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned,
and lived at Nineveh-
This was due to the "tidings" he received (:8), presumably of the
destruction of his army outside the walls of Jerusalem.
2Ki 19:36 It happened, as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his
god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him with the sword; and they
escaped into the land of Ararat. Esar Haddon his son reigned in his place-
As noted on Is. 38:7, 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. He was killed as he was worshipping, about 20 years
later; worshipping a god who had spectacularly failed him. We see here the
terrible power of religion in blinding men to spiritual reality. He was
given a chance to repent; just as was Pharaoh. God was extremely patient
with him.
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