Isaiah 37: 1 – 38
You Talking To Me?
And so it was, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of the LORD. 2 Then he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz. 3 And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble and rebuke and blasphemy; for the children have come to birth, but there is no strength to bring them forth. 4 It may be that the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up your prayer for the remnant that is left.’” 5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah. 6 And Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. 7 Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.” 8 Then the Rabshakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he heard that he had departed from Lachish. 9 And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to make war with you.” So when he heard it, he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, 10 “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” 11 Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered? 12 Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran and Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? 13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’” 14 And Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers, and read it; and Hezekiah went up to the house of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD. 15 Then Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying: 16 “O LORD of hosts, God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17 Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 18 Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their lands, 19 and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands—wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. 20 Now therefore, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD, You alone.” 21 Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word which the LORD has spoken concerning him: “The virgin, the daughter of Zion, has despised you, laughed you to scorn; The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head behind your back! 23 “Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel. 24 By your servants you have reproached the Lord, and said, ‘By the multitude of my chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the limits of Lebanon; I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; I will enter its farthest height, to its fruitful forest. 25 I have dug and drunk water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the brooks of defense.’ 26 “Did you not hear long ago how I made it, from ancient times that I formed it? Now I have brought it to pass, that you should be
For crushing fortified cities into heaps of ruins. 27 Therefore their inhabitants had little power; They were dismayed and confounded; They were as the grass of the field and the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and grain blighted before it is grown. 28 “But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me. 29 Because your rage against Me and your tumult have come up to My ears, therefore I will put My hook in your nose And My bridle in your lips, and I will turn you back By the way which you came.”’ 30 “This shall be a sign to you: You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, And the second year what springs from the same; Also in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 31 And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 32 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and those who escape from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. 33 “Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor build a siege mound against it. 34 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; And he shall not come into this city,’ Says the LORD. 35 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’” 36 Then the angel of the LORD went out, and killed in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty-five thousand; and when people arose early in the morning, there were the corpses—all dead. 37 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. 38 Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword; and they escaped into the land of Ararat. Then Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.
You never know how you pick up certain habits or verbiage when you grow up in a certain area and never travel to other destinations. When you do go somewhere else some people comment about these little differences. For example, in Philly we have a way of greeting people. We say, ‘Hey, how U doin.’ Now we really do not care how you are doing, this is the way we just say ‘hello’ If you were in Philly and somebody greeted you by this way, your response is ‘How, you doin.’
Sometimes things might get a little testy when someone makes a comment that is not readily accepted. If this happens you might get a response back, ‘U talking to me?’ The best response is ‘Yes’, not ‘No, I’m talking to the wall’ or ‘who else would I be talking too stupid?’ These remarks usually end up in a confrontation.
Today we are going to look at a king too big for his britches. He doesn’t know who he is talking to. He defiantly is addressing God Almighty, El Shaddai. We will see that he will find out soap and water would have been preferable to his irreverence instead of what will happen to him.
When all else fails perhaps it is time to look to Jehovah Yahweh. After having attempted to appease Assyria, who was bent on attacking Israel, Hezekiah reacted to the words of the Rabshakeh by praying to Yahweh, and turning to Isaiah for guidance, a fact which indicated Isaiah’s prestigious position. On this Isaiah assured him that he need not be afraid because God would deal with the matter. This was followed by a further demand from Assyria, which Hezekiah also laid before God. Isaiah then came to him with the assurance of what God was going to do. The result was that the Assyrian army was destroyed and the king of Assyria, having failed to capture Jerusalem, returned to his own land, where he was later slain.
‘And it came about that when king Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the house of Yahweh.’
The result of King Hezekiah’s receiving of the message was that he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth, which were signs of mourning and repentance, and went to the Temple to seek God. In spite of his failures he was a godly king, and humbly sought God over Jerusalem’s difficulty. We note that he is now dignified by being called king. It is no longer the Rabshakeh who is speaking.
‘And he sent Eliakim, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and the elders of the priests, to Isaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.’
Hezekiah next sent an official deputation from the Temple to Isaiah. This included his two chief ministers and the leading men among the priests, ‘the elders of the priests’. So both secular and religious leadership were being involved. It became, therefore, an appeal from the whole nation to God through Isaiah. This brings out how Isaiah was now viewed, as an exceptional prophet who had special influence with God. The fact that he does not summon Isaiah into his presence possibly indicates the sense of humility that he feels. He recognizes his present unworthiness.
‘And they said to him, Thus says Hezekiah, “This day is a day of trouble, and of reproof, and of blasphemy. The children have come to birth and there is not strength to bring them out.” ’
Please note that ‘king’ is dropped again. The words are from Hezekiah’s mouth and he is sending as a suppliant to the representative of the great King Yahweh, not as a lord and master. He is feeling humbled. Hezekiah’s message begins by bringing out the position. It is a day of trouble and distress. It is a day in which God has reproved His people. It is a day when God’s name has been horribly blasphemed by the king of Assyria, or alternately it is a day of disgrace.
So the emphasis is on the fact that this is a day of great distress, although a day of admittedly deserved distress, and a day when they are all disgraced. And he admitted that they did not know what to do. They had brought this trouble on themselves and they did not know how to cope with it.
Here is a great truth that we all need to remember. It is often only when we admit that we have come to the end of our own strength that God steps in. Why O why do we do this and wait until we have tried every avenue except pouring out our hopes and concerns on the One Who ultimately is our benefactor.
“It may be that Yahweh your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which Yahweh your God has heard. For this reason lift up your prayers for the remnant who are left.’
Take note here the words ‘Yahweh your God’, repeated twice , not ‘Yahweh our God’. It suggests a feeling of unworthiness, and recognition of Isaiah’s special place before God. The reference to the living God, however, does demonstrate a certain level of faith. He knows that Yahweh can do something, if He will.
‘For the remnant who are left.’ Only a small remnant of Judah was left. Sennacherib in his annals claimed to have taken into captivity ‘two hundred thousand, one hundred and fifty’ of the people of Judah together with great spoil.
‘So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah, and Isaiah said to them, “Thus shall you say to your master. Thus says Yahweh, Do not be afraid of the words that you have heard, with which the young men of the king of Assyria have blasphemed me. Behold, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear a rumour, and will return to his own land, and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’
We note firstly that the narrative now calls him king again. It is an official narrative, and Isaiah sends him a reply from Yahweh in stately style. He gives King Hezekiah the respect that is his due. He has no need to pray because he knows that Yahweh is about to act. There is a time when prayer becomes unbelief. They are to tell King Hezekiah that he is not to be afraid because God intends to rid him of Sennacherib by means of a rumor which will cause him to return to his own land, where he will be murdered. No time limits are given. He is not saying that it will all happen immediately, only that he will not interfere with Hezekiah again. The facts are within God’s timing.
This does not contradict what follows. This is an assurance to Hezekiah, weak in faith. God knew that to promise a wonder would be too much for Hezekiah’s faith, while a rumor would probably appear to him as an acceptable possibility. And it is indeed quite probable that one reason why Sennacherib did return home was because of ‘a rumor’, either of a further Egyptian force being gathered, or of dissension at home, or both.
For God did not at this stage wish to publicize the great wonder that He intended to do. When it happened He wanted it to have its full impact. It was to be a wondrous and unexpected sign to His people and to the king with a hope of producing repentance and faith, and was to be a judgment on Assyria for their behavior and attitude. It was not just to be seen as a means of relieving the city. Whereas here He is speaking of relieving the city in response to Hezekiah’s request so as to ease Hezekiah’s mind.
Look at the first charge of blasphemy which El Roi – Our Strong God Who Sees All – has listed. He had heard what had been said, and was passing judgment on it. The king of Assyria was a blasphemer who had brought on his own head what was about to happen.
In the verses there are some unique statements that are made;
. ‘A spirit in him’. A message of doom that would cause him to act swiftly.
. ‘And I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’ To fall by the sword in his own land indicated treachery. This occurred around twenty years later when he was assassinated in 682 BC.
.. ‘Young men.’ A description dismissive of these great men. To Him they are of little account. They are ‘youngsters’. They are but boys compared with the Rock of ages.
‘So the Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.’
Meanwhile the Rabshakeh had returned to the king of Assyria, finding him at Libnah. Whether this meant that Lachish had been subdued, or whether that siege continued while the one at Libnah was also going on we are not told. It is probably Isaiah’s way of indicating the surrender of Lachish. No doubt the siege at Jerusalem also continued. The Assyrian annals suggest that the siege was not pressed heavily but was more in the nature of an encirclement of the city, ensuring no movement out or in. The positive pressure would come later when more troops were available once the other cities had been subdued. They knew that Jerusalem would be the most difficult to take, and were trying to slowly starve them out.
‘And he heard say concerning Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, “He has come out to fight against you.” ’
Whatever their stated views about the Egyptians the Assyrians knew that they were a real threat, and that they would need to rally their siege forces in order to meet their army. Thus he determined to try to end the siege at Jerusalem as quickly as possible, and sent messengers there with that end in view.
‘And when he heard it he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah, king of Judah, saying ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.’ ” ’
We note immediately the change of tone. Now he is addressed as King Hezekiah, and rather than him it is said to be Yahweh Who is at fault, seeking to deceive the king. Nor is there any mention of Egypt. That threat is now too real and he does not want Hezekiah, if he knows about it, to have it brought to his attention.
“Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by destroying them utterly. And will you be delivered? Have the gods of the nations delivered those whom my fathers have destroyed, Gozan and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Telassar? Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivvah?”
The old argument is once more produced, and it was a solid one. All that was claimed was true. All these cities and places had at one time or another been conquered by the mighty Assyrian army.
‘And Hezekiah received the message from the hand of the messengers and read it, and Hezekiah went up to the house of Yahweh and spread it before Yahweh.’
Good move Hezekiah. Hezekiah was slowly learning what he must do. No longer did he call for ambassadors from other countries but took the message and spread it before God in the house of Yahweh. It was a direct appeal to Yahweh by the intercessory priest, who represented his people before God, pleading for his city. The idea was that Yahweh Himself would then see it and know what had been said.
‘And Hezekiah prayed to Yahweh, saying, “O Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Bend your ear, O Yahweh, and hear, open your eyes, O Yahweh, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib which he has sent to reproach the living God. Of a truth, Yahweh, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the countries and their land, 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. Now therefore, O Yahweh our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are Yahweh, even you alone.” ’
And now we see a nice sincere prayer from his heart. He describes Yahweh as dwelling between the cherubim. In the Holiest of all, the inner chamber in the Temple, was the Ark of the Covenant, over which was the mercy seat, the throne of Yahweh. And to each side of the mercy seat was a cherub. Yahweh was Lord over Heaven and earth.
He declares his faith that Yahweh is the only God and over all the kingdoms of the world, He is the Creator and maker of all things. Then he appeals to Him to listen to what he has to say. Let Him consider how His name has been blasphemed and what reproach is being brought upon it.
Here is another key point that I want you to write down. If our prayers had more concern for God’s glory and less for our own desires they would be more effective.
He admitted that the king of Assyria was to some extent right. They had indeed lain waste to many countries and humiliated many gods. But that was the key point. Those gods had been made of wood and stone and therefore could be destroyed. They were simply man-made. Hezekiah revealed the truth that there is only One True, Real, and Living God – Yahweh Elohe Yisrael – The Lord God of Israel. He prays that Yahweh will reveal this difference and show His great power by intervening as He has promised, demonstrating to the whole world Who He is and what He can do.
Here we see the great truth significant in a revival. The whole prayer emphasizes that the teaching of Isaiah has not been lost on him, and that his mind is now clear on these central truths of the uniqueness of Yahweh, the folly of idolatry, and the transcendent power of Yahweh.
‘Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says Yahweh the God of Israel, In lieu of the fact that you have prayed to me against Sennacherib, king of Assyria, this is the word which Yahweh has spoken concerning him. ‘The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head after you.’ ” ’
God’s reply to him came through Isaiah. It is Isaiah who is in control of things not Hezekiah. God has heard Hezekiah’s prayer, and, because he has put his trust in Him, tells him what His word against Sennacherib is. ‘Yahweh has spoken.’ And being the word of Yahweh it is not only spoken but will be powerfully effective.
Our Great Adoni Yahweh’s message is in derisory tones. Our Lord says that Sennacherib is like a great and important suitor who is scorned by the young woman, Jerusalem. She has rejected his offer with laughter because she despises him. She shakes her head at him as he departs, the forlorn and rejected suitor. Such is Jerusalem’s reply to the Great King. He is dismissed as an unsuitable suitor, to walk away with head bowed.
“Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel. By your servants you have reproached the Lord (i.e. the One Who is truly 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. And I will cut down its tall cedars, and its choice fir trees, and I will enter into his furthest height, the forest of his fruitful field. I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.’ ”
Now the more serious charge is to be dealt with. By his actions and words he has brought into disrepute the Unique One, the Holy One of Israel, the Sovereign Lord Who is over all things, and challenged His omnipotence. His words have been a reproach against His very Name and therefore sheer blasphemy. The picture is vivid. He has raised both his voice and his eyes in arrogant defiance. ‘On high’ stresses the crime. He had to lift up his eyes because he was challenging the One Who is on high.
The statement ‘Raised your voice and lifted up your eyes on high.’ may be of one who was seeking to imitate God. He had boasted about what he was going to do with his power and might. All will be humbled before him. He would show the world what he was.
Our Great and Holy Yahweh’s reply to Sennacherib is to point out what He has accomplished in the past. He wants it to be clear that Assyria is not the only one that can cite prior victories, and that indeed Assyria is only the new sensation ‘the new kids on the block.’
‘Have you not heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it about that you should be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps. That is why their inhabitants were of little power, they were dismayed and confounded. They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and as a field before it is grown.’
Qedosh Yisreal – The Holy One of Israel - points out to Sennacherib that he ought rather to recognize that he himself is but a recent phenomenon. Let him therefore now consider what Yahweh has done. Who was it Who formed the world in the first place? It was He, Yahweh, who set up the world and shaped it, and Who is Lord of fruit and water. And Sennacherib should recognize that it is only because it is within Yahweh’s plans that he has even been permitted to make ruins out of unfenced cities. That is the real reason why the peoples have been so easy to deal with. It is because Yahweh has brought it about. Bringing cities into a condition of ruin has already been shown to be part of God’s final purposes, therefore, Sennacherib is thus but helping on God’s process.
The statement ‘They were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the housetops and as a field before it is grown’, means that they were temporary and passing, soon withered and struggled to survive.
‘But I know your sitting down, and your going out, and your coming in, and your raging against me.’
Please note the fourfold description. Our Attiq Yomin – The Ancient of Days - wants him to know that He knows everything about him. He may try to hide his movements and his plans from men, but he cannot hide them from God. He knows all that he does. He knows when he sits down, He knows when he goes out, He knows when he comes in, and He is privy to every word he speaks. And He is especially aware of his diatribes against Himself. ‘All things are open to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do.’
‘Because of your raging against me, and because your insolence has come up to my ears, therefore I will 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.’
Jehovah Gmolah – The Lord God of Recompense - wants him to know that He has noted his words and his insolence and will therefore deal with him for what he is, a recalcitrant. The picture language expresses the reality of what is happening. He may think that he is going back to Assyria of his own volition, but it is actually because God is ‘dragging’ him there. The hook in the nose was, as monuments reveal, Assyria’s regular bestial way of controlling prisoners, and the bridle was especially for guiding and holding back the horses of which he was so proud. So, as Sennacherib’s master, Yahweh will drag him along towards his homeland, in the same way as many prisoners have been dragged, and, as Sennacherib’s rider, He will pull on the reins and direct him back to where he came from. Yahweh would accept Sennacherib’s offer of horses to ride on so contemptuously made. He will use the king himself as a horse to ride on. Sennacherib’s contemptuous offer has rebounded on him.
Now, at this point Isaiah turns his thoughts back to what Hezekiah really wants to know. What is about to happen to Jerusalem?
‘And this shall be the sign to you, you will eat this year what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that, and in the third year, sow, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit.’
The sign that what he has described will come on Sennacherib is given by a promise of what is to occur in the future. While for the next year or so they will have to survive on crops that grow of themselves, they have Yahweh’s promise that by ‘the third year’ they will once again be eating cultivated crops and grapes. The sign is found in the promise. The fact that Yahweh could promise crops within three years was a satisfactory sign that His words could be depended on.
The words reveal the practicalities of the situation. What is gathered by the population once the Assyrians have left, ‘what grows of itself’ will be sparse. It would be required for survival. For no sowing had taken place since their arrival, and the Assyrians will have made use of much that was there. By the second year enough would grow to enable some to be set aside for sowing. Thus the fuller harvest awaited the third year. The vines would take a little longer to bring under control, but would be sufficient to produce some sort of crop within the period, for some vines would have survived the ordeal. It would be a case of restoring them to fruitfulness.
‘And the remnant who are escaped of the house of Judah will again take root downwards and bear fruit upwards, for out of Jerusalem will go forth a remnant, and out of Mount Zion they who will escape. The zeal of Yahweh of hosts will perform this.’
Then the remnant who remains will flourish. The mention of Mount Zion stresses that this will be Yahweh’s deliverance. It is reminding us that it was because Mount Zion was His earthly dwelling place, and was in Jerusalem, that Jerusalem will be delivered. Through His power they will have escaped destruction, and will be able to rebuild their shattered lives. We must remember that Jerusalem would not only have its own population but would be packed full with refugees. They will again be able to take root (find security) and bear fruit (enjoy blessing and prosperity).
‘Therefore thus says Yahweh concerning the king of Assyria, “He will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor will he come before it with a shield, nor cast a mount against it. By the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he will not come to this city,” says Yahweh.’
The besieged city would expect that one day Sennacherib himself would come to supervise the final taking of the city. He would want to be in on the final action, and like kings often liked to do, he would want to fire a symbolic arrow there. But here Yahweh promises that he will not even approach it, never mind arriving and shooting a token arrow, and bearing a shield and supervising the building of a siege mount.
Please note again the fourfold description, “he will not come to this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor will he come before it with a shield, nor cast a mount against it.’
For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake, and for the sake of David my servant.”
Boy did our Lord love David. The defense of the city is not for its own sake but because of His past promises, and because of His future intentions. And especially because of His promises to the Davidic house. His future intentions include within them a crucial place for the line of David, as Isaiah has already made clear, especially in chapters 6-11, even though it will not apply to the current house of David. It is not without significance that David is here called ‘my servant’. This is preparing for Isaiah’s coming revelation concerning God’s Servant, and linking Him back to the coming David.
Now having made His ‘boasts’ our Holy Father Yahweh now fulfils them, so much so that within one night the army of Assyria is decimated, and not by a human hand.
And the angel of Yahweh went out and smote in the camp of the Assyrians one hundred and eighty five thousand, and when men arose in the morning they were all dead corpses.’
In response to our Mighty Yahweh’s words the vast army of Assyria was decimated by the Angel of Yahweh, that is, by Yahweh Himself acting through His ‘angel’,
‘So Sennacherib, king of Assyria, departed, and went, and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh.’
I just watched recently the most recent movie version of ‘The Alamo’. As I am reading about Sennacherib, it almost resembles everything the Mexican General Santa Anna had done and what happened to him. If you haven’t seen the movie now that we have studied this chapter of Isaiah watch it to see if you agree.
The overall result of his loss of men was that Sennacherib returned to Nineveh with his army. Note the fourfold verbs ‘departed, and went, and returned, and dwelt’, indicating something doubly witnessed and therefore certain. Hezekiah and Jerusalem were able to return to normal life.
‘And it came about that as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, smote him with the sword, and they escaped into the land of Ararat. And Esarhaddon his son reigned instead of him.’
Finally we learn of the assassination of Sennacherib, as God had declared. This took place through members of his own family.
The Babylonian Chronicle confirms this by telling us that ‘his son killed Sennacherib, king of Assyria, during a rebellion.’ The Nineveh Prism of Esarhaddon says, ‘my brothers raved and did everything that was not good against both gods and men and plotted evil, even drawing the sword within Nineveh against divine authority. They butted against each other like young goats in order to exercise the kingship.’ The Rassam cylinder of Ashurbanipal says ‘I smashed the rest of the people alive by the very figures of the protective deities between which they had smashed Sennacherib, my own grandfather.’
