2 Kings 19: 1 – 37
When all looks hopeless - pray
19 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 all 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, “Look, he has come out to make war with you.” So, he again 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 before the LORD, and said: “O LORD 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. 16 Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. 17 Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18 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. 19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone.” 20 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, I have heard.’ 21 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! 22 ‘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. 23 By your messengers 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 the extremity of its borders, to its fruitful forest. 24 I have dug and drunk strange water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the brooks of defense.” 25 ‘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. 26 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. 27 ‘But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me. 28 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. 29 ‘This shall be a sign to you: ‘You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same; Also, in the third-year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them. 30 And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31 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.’ 32 “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. 33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; And he shall not come into this city,’ says the LORD. 34 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ 35 And it came to pass on a certain night that 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. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh. 37 Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple 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.
Let’s be honest. In this life there are things that we have a really hard time understanding why our Holy God allows to come against us. I do not need to list for you what these are because if you have not experienced the pain of some type of emotional, spiritual, or physical overwhelming condition then you will not thoroughly understand.
For a moment I want you to be a Pastor and give this scripture in response to someone who is suffering. In the book of Romans 5:3-5, Paul says that we can rejoice in our sufferings because we are a people of hope: “Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us”.
Do you think giving this advice to someone deeply in the pain of suffering is going to say to you, thank you? No, it does not work. Believe me, I have tried it. Even though it is true some scripture is inappropriate to be just thrown out at someone. We need to have the Lord’s wisdom in what scripture to use for each situation.
I would allow a person to first be flooded with prayer for peace and strength. I then would make sure the person knows of the love and support from his or her brothers or sisters that are praying for them. When a person is finding his or her support from our Precious Holy Spirit I would wait for Him to Personally introduce these important truths at His Perfect timing.
So, if you are asked a direct question ‘How can we have hope when everything looks hopeless?’ You answer is, ‘In the midst of suffering, we can rejoice because these challenges cause us to:
1. Rely on God’s presence
Rejoicing in suffering does not mean celebrating when bad news comes. But, it does mean that we can believe that God is doing a redemptive work. This word “redemptive” means that God does not waste a hurt or disappointment. He Is using them to shape and build us into the image of Jesus, which is his highest passion.
When we go through suffering, we often pray and seek God more intensely than at other times. My greatest times of growth have been when I’ve reached the end of my resources and all I have left Is Jesus. God uses suffering to make us rely on his presence.
In Psalm 23:4, David writes that he does not fear because God Is with him. He relies on God’s presence, and it brings him strength and comfort. Remember that for there to be a shadow, there must be a light. I don’t know what your “valley of the shadow of death” is, but I do know who the Light is that is walking with you in that valley.
In another Psalm, David reveals that one of the reasons for his joy is that he is forgiven: “Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven whose sins are covered (Psalm 31:1). We can’t determine God’s love for us based on good or bad circumstances. We determine his love based on the cross and what he did for us on it.
2. Rely on God’s provision
In 2 Corinthians 12:7, Paul reveals that he has suffered from a “thorn in the flesh.” God was so concerned about Paul not becoming proud he allowed this to happen to him to prevent him from becoming conceited.
In our current situations, God Is saying to us that his grace is enough, and even when we feel weak, he is making us stronger than we have ever been. His grace is not an abstract idea. It is the person of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit. The hell you are going through may be the very circumstance God uses to take you to a whole new level.
3. Rely on God’s power
“Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).
What is your weakness? Maybe it is a son or a daughter that hasn’t quite turned out the way you thought he or she would. A job situation that has gone awry. A medical diagnosis that has scared you. Maybe, like Paul, it is also insulting, hardships, or persecutions. Whatever it is, Paul says he will boast in those things because when we are weak, the power of Christ rests on us.
The greater the enemy comes at you; the greater Jesus Is in you.
Maybe you hear voices telling you to just quit, give up, and let it go. Don’t stop. When you are weak, then He Is strong. Remember the greater the attack against you, the greater Christ Is in you, but you must rely on His presence, His provision and His power.
Today we are going to come across a king who is hopeless. As a tiny nation he is faced with an attack from a mighty army from Assyria. He knows he has no chance of fighting them. So, he does something we all need to do -pray. The king of Judah Hezekiah brings his problem to the Holy One Who Is quite capable of handling any situation.
19 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.
When king Hezekiah heard what had been said by the spokesmen of the king of Assyria he also tore his clothes in anguish, and he covered himself with sackcloth, a sign of humility and fasting, and went into the house of YHWH.
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.
In his anguish King Hezekiah sent a message to Isaiah via his representatives, asking what possibility there might be, that YHWH would have heard what was said and might react against it.
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.
In his message to Isaiah Hezekiah likens the situation of the anguished nation to that of a woman having great difficulties in bringing forth a child that was overdue, something that all would understand. She was continuing to suffer the anguish of her labor, but she was so weak after what she had already suffered that the child just would not be born. Many would see such a situation as an indication that YHWH was rebuking her, and that in some way she was in disgrace. She herself would certainly feel the disgrace of it.
His point was that in the same way Judah was undergoing its own ‘labor pains’. It was in anguish, it was in great trouble, it was aware that it was under the judgment of YHWH, it was aware of its own disgrace. But it was too weak to produce anything. (It is when God’s judgments are in the earth that the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness - Isaiah 26.9).
4 It may be that the LORD your God will hear all 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.’
Now all of us would say, ‘If Yahweh might have heard? Of course, He heard. He knows all things that are going on in the earth.’ When stress and suffering hits you the truth of the matter is that you do not think clearly.
Hezekiah was basically calling for YHWH to hear what had been said, to defend His own honor, and to rebuke the king of Assyria in his turn. And he called on Isaiah to raise up his prayer of behalf of the remnant of the people left in Judah. There is a sad reminder here of the devastation that Judah had already suffered. But if there was anyone whose prayer YHWH would hear, it was Isaiah. Many times, when things go against us we fell that God Is punishing us for something we must have done to anger Him. We feel that is does no good for ourselves to ask Him any favors because He probably is mad at us and will not answer our prayers anyway. So, if there is someone whom God does favor we go to that person and ask them to ask God for us.
5 So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.
Here was represented all the might and authority of the kingdom, and its appeal was to Isaiah the prophet of YHWH. The kingdom could now do nothing. It had fought until it was on its knees. He was their last hope.
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.”
Isaiah’s reply was straightforward and unequivocal. They were to tell their master that YHWH had spoken, and he then pronounced the reply in prophetic mode. Isaiah’s reply was that YHWH had heard the king of Assyria’s blasphemy, and was about to react accordingly. Just as the king of Assyria has personally confronted YHWH and had claimed to have Him on his side, so would YHWH respond personally by putting a spirit within him and causing him to hear tidings which would persuade him to return to his own land.
The king of Assyria had claimed personal contact with YHWH, so he would be suitably personally affected by it. Isaiah was emphasizing that it was not the king of Assyria who controlled YHWH, but YHWH who controlled the movements of the king of Assyria. He would be helpless in the hands of YHWH. Finally, YHWH would 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.
Meanwhile as the representatives of King Hezekiah were approaching Isaiah, the Rabshakeh was making his way to his master to report temporary failure. Jerusalem had refused to surrender. But the king was no longer warring at Lachish. ‘He was departed from Lachish’. Those were ominous words. For it meant that Lachish, the second in importance of all the cities of Judah, had fallen, and the rape of Lachish had taken place.
And now the focus had turned on Libnah, possibly to the north of Lachish. That was the next city on which they would concentrate. And it was thus there that the Rabshakeh found his master.
9 And the king heard concerning Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Look, he has come out to make war with you.” So, he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
This threat of an army, of a yet unknown size, naturally alarmed the king of Assyria and made him recognize that he would be advised to obtain the surrender of Jerusalem (and of course Libnah and the other cities of Judah remaining to be taken) prior to facing up to the new opponents. Thus, he altered his tactics. Instead of appealing directly to the people of Jerusalem and degrading ‘Hezekiah’ to undermine his authority, he now sought to approach king Hezekiah directly, treating him with honor, and using as his argument the unfailing ability of kings of Assyria to defeat whom they would.
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.”
This time the king of Assyria called on Hezekiah not to let ‘his God’ deceive him into thinking that He could deliver Jerusalem out of the Assyrians hand.
11 Look! You have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands by utterly destroying them; and shall you be delivered?
He would undoubtedly have heard what the kings of Assyria had done to ‘all lands’ in the past. None of them had been able to resist him and such of them as had not submitted had been destroyed because of their failure to submit. That being so how could king Hezekiah hope to be an exception? How could he expect that he alone would 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?
Then he listed nations which his fathers had destroyed and pointed out that their gods had been unable to deliver them from the kings of Assyria. All these victories would have been well known to politically aware Judaeans. And that being so how could they hope that YHWH would be able to do anything different?
13 Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah?’
The king of Assyria wanted to let King Hezekiah himself consider what had happened to their kings and learn a lesson from it. Where now was the king of Hamath (to the north of Damascus. Sennacherib’s hope was to break Hezekiah’s spirit.
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.
Hezekiah’s response was to receive the letter from the hand of the messengers, read it and then go to the Temple of YHWH and spread it out before YHWH.
There is a reminder for us all here that when we receive a difficult communication, the next thing to do after reading it is to spread it out before God in our prayers.
It is almost impossible for us to appreciate the tension which Hezekiah must have been experiencing at this time. Outside the city walls were the enemy. Inside were what remained of his people. It was to be his decision as to what to do next. And he did not know what to do. His prayer was simple and to the point.
Having reached the end of his resources Hezekiah had recognized that his only hope lay in God, and his approach was not based on his own need, nor of the need of his people, but on the basis that Sennacherib had insulted YHWH and that YHWH should vindicate His Name for His own glory. His concern was for the honor and Name of YHWH. That should be at the root of all prayer.
15 Then Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said: “O LORD 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.
Hezekiah first contemplates Who YHWH Is. (It is always wise to consider exactly Who God is before we pray). And he considered Him as the One Who sits between the Cherubim, of which the Ark with its Cherubim was the symbol. But this was not to limit Him to the Temple, for both the Psalms and Isaiah (6.1-7) make clear that YHWH was sitting between and borne by the real Cherubim. Thus He was the God of Heaven. But He was also the only God of all the kingdoms of the earth. For He was the sole Creator of heaven and earth. And it was as the only God that he now approached Him.
16 Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God.
Then he called on YHWH to specifically hear and see what Sennacherib had written, words which were in clear defiance of the living God, in the same way as Goliath’s had been in the time of David. It was clear that Sennacherib had deliberately gone out of his way to defy and insult YHWH the living God. So, Hezekiah’s dependence was on the fact that YHWH was the only God, and that He was the living God, active and aware in man’s affairs, and able to intervene at will.
17 Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, 18 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.
Hezekiah admitted that Sennacherib’s words were right. It was true that all these other nations had been laid waste, and that their gods had been burned. But that was because they were no-gods. They were simply the work of men’s hands and made of wood and stone. That was why they could be destroyed. And that was why they had been destroyed.
19 Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone.”
Having laid the foundation of his prayer Hezekiah now entered his plea, and that was that YHWH, the God of Judah (‘our God’), would save Judah out of Sennacherib’s hand so that all the kingdoms of the world might recognize His uniqueness as the only God.
20 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, I have heard.’
Because of Hezekiah’s plea Isaiah sent to him an assurance of YHWH’s response. Because he has humbled himself and prayed wholeheartedly to God, God has heard him.
21 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!
He assured Hezekiah that YHWH’s ‘word’ had now gone forth and would accomplish His will. When YHWH spoke His word, it was the guarantee that action would result (Isaiah 55.11). In these contexts, the ‘word’ of God can almost be paralleled with the idea of the ‘Spirit’ of God as indicating God in action. This would later be personified in our Lord Jesus Christ Who was God’s Logos supreme (John 1.1-4).
The picture is a vivid one. Sennacherib, through the Rabshakeh, had been ranting at Jerusalem, and seeing her as like a virgin daughter waiting to be raped, but this was now a picture of what the ‘virgin daughter’s’ response would be, mockery at his folly in thinking that he could set himself up against the God of Israel. The ‘virgin daughter of Zion’ (pure and unspoiled and reserved for YHWH) despised him and ‘laughed him to scorn’ (Psalm 2.4 where it is YHWH Himself who laughs at the folly of the enemies of His Anointed). She shook her head ‘after him’, in other words once he was running away. This was probably in incredulity at his folly, and derisive wonderment at the fact that he had dared to defy the living God.
22 ‘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.
YHWH now drew Sennacherib’s attention to what he had done. He had defied and blasphemed and lifted his haughty eyes against none other than ‘the Holy One of Israel’. Nothing could be more foolish than that.
23 By your messengers 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 the extremity of its borders, to its fruitful forest. 24 I have dug and drunk strange water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the brooks of defense.”
Sennacherib needed to recognize that YHWH was not to be seen as like all the other ‘gods’ that he had had dealings with. Rather it is YHWH Who Is Lord of all. Sennacherib had overlooked this fact and had defied Him with his puny chariots. He thought that because he had so many chariots he could do what he wanted. He would prove to be mistaken.
He had taken over the very heart of Lebanon (its innermost parts). He is using ‘Lebanon’ (which is a flexible description, like Gilead) in its widest sense as taking in a large part of the land that he has conquered in the south. And the pride of Lebanon was its tall cedars and splendid fir trees. But these will be cut down, leaving it bereft. Practically speaking they would be used to make siege engines and siege towers, or exported for profit, but the idea is as much a picture of the loss that Lebanon would suffer for defying him. The cutting down of trees unnecessarily was usually frowned on (Deuteronomy 20.19-20). To do so despoiled the land, for they took many years to grow. But Assyria did it quite callously.
Nowhere would escape Sennacherib’s attention. He would enter their most distant and remote lodging places, and pierce the center of their most expansive forests, for which they were so famous. He would extract water from their unyielding ground, digging wells, and drinking from those wells in foreign lands, wells which were far from home, and which had previously belonged to others. In other words, he would make himself completely at home there, taking possession of everything both above and below ground.
The point is now made that Sennacherib may think that he has achieved what he has on his own, but the truth is that he has only achieved it because it was YHWH’s purpose. He needed to recognize that it was YHWH Who had taken him up and used him as His instrument, and that that was the only secret of his success.
25 ‘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.
YHWH asks Sennacherib whether he has in fact not heard that what is unveiling in history had been formed in the mind of YHWH from ancient times? What he needed to realize was that what he was thus doing was thus working out what YHWH had already planned, for now YHWH’s ancient will was being carried out. It was He, (and no one else), Who had purposed that Sennacherib should turn all the cities he has referred to (verse 12-13) into ruinous heaps. Thus, in doing so Sennacherib had simply been carrying out YHWH’s instructions.
26 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.
It was because YHWH was at work, and not because of Assyria’s might, that the inhabitant of those cities had been deficient in strength (literally ‘were short of hand’). That was why they were dismayed and confounded, and so easily and quickly withered like the grass and vegetation in the countryside in the hot summer sun once there was no rain. The grass that some grew on the flat roofs of their houses soon withered and died in the glaring sun if it was not constantly watered (compare Psalm 129.6), and it was the newest grain that was most vulnerable to the sun. Thus, they were an apt picture of weakness and vulnerability.
So, YHWH warns him that because he is aware of all his doings, and especially of his arrogance towards Him. In consequence He Himself will lead him like a humiliated captive back to where he came from.
27 ‘But I know your dwelling place, your going out and your coming in, and your rage against Me. 28 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.
What Sennacherib should realize is that YHWH was aware of everything he did, whether he sat down, or whether he went out or in, and especially of his expressed arrogance towards YHWH (literally ‘his careless ease’), and his raging against Him.
29 ‘This shall be a sign to you: ‘You shall eat this year such as grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from the same; Also, in the third-year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them.
The sign that was being given was His guaranteed promise. And that promise was that within three years their agricultural round would be back to normal. It was presumably too late for the first sowing which would have to await the following year, thus in the first part year (from then until the New Year) they would have to eat what naturally grew out of the ground, in the second year (in the latter part of which they would be able to begin their sowing) they would survive on what resulted naturally from what grew in the first year, but by the third year what they had themselves sowed in the middle of the second year would be growing and be able to be reaped and eaten.
30 And the remnant who have escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward, and bear fruit upward.
But their crops were not the only things that would become established. Those who remained of the house of Judah, those who had escaped the wrath of Sennacherib, would also themselves ‘take root downwards’. They would become firmly established, and that would include being established in His Law. And they would ‘bear fruit upwards’, offering to God what was pleasing to Him, not only in offerings and sacrifices, but also in the fruit of their lives (Isaiah 1.11-18).
31 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.’
For it was YHWH’ guarantee that a remnant would go forth out of Jerusalem, the remnant that now remained of all that Judah had been before the invasion. Out of Mount Zion would go those who had escaped the fearsome hand of Sennacherib. And this would be because YHWH had delivered them. They would be free and still living in their own land. And all this would be because YHWH was acting in His zealousness.
32 “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.
The promise was that deliverance would come so soon that the king of Assyria would not even come to the city, or shoot his arrow there, or pick up a shield, or order the building of a mound. Rather he would soon be scurrying back to Assyria by the way in which he had come, and this would be because YHWH was defending Jerusalem, for the sake of His own glory, and for the sake of His servant David who had chosen it, to whom He had made such great promises.
33 By the way that he came, by the same shall he return; And he shall not come into this city,’ says the LORD.
Instead of gaining victory he would shortly be returning home from Libnah. He would never even approach Jerusalem. It would not only be the end of his operations against Jerusalem and Judah, it would also be the end of all his current operations outside Assyria. This could only indicate real trouble at home which necessitated his presence. It would also turn out to be because he would need to re-establish his army.
34 ‘For I will defend this city, to save it for My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’
The reason for it would be because YHWH was defending Jerusalem for His own sake and for His servant David’s sake, who had chosen Jerusalem and dedicated it to YHWH, Who accepted it and had also thereby chosen it. God had not forgotten His promises to David and would stand by them at all costs.
What happened now was totally unexpected, and deliberately so. YHWH wanted to make an instant and great impression on His people of what He could do on their behalf. The fact that there was no forewarning indicates both the genuineness of the previous prophecies and of the event itself.
35 And it came to pass on a certain night that 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. 36 So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and went away, returned home, and remained at Nineveh.
The consequence of this was that Sennacherib immediately ‘departed and went and returned’ to Nineveh where he took up his dwelling for some time, no doubt while he sorted out affairs at home.
37 Now it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the temple 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.
While this assassination undoubtedly occurred twenty years later (in 681 BC) it was an evidence not only of the long arm of YHWH but also of His control of history. ‘The mills of God grind slowly, but they grind exceeding small’. The point is that YHWH had not fully finished with Sennacherib at Libnah. Having drawn him by his nose to Nineveh he finally (indirectly) allowed for his assassination. It was poetic justice. What Sennacherib had sought to do to Jerusalem was done to him.
