CHAPTER 19

(710 B.C.)

HEZEKIAH SEEKS HELP FROM GOD

¹And it came to pass, when king Hezekiah heard it, that he rent his clothes, and covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the House of the LORD. (The renting of the clothes referred to a total lack of dependence on ones own ability, or in Judahs strength. The word sackcloth refers to his humbling himself in the sight of God. The House of the Lord refers to the Temple, where God dwelt in the Holy of Holies, between the Mercy Seat and the Cherubim. The only help for Judah was God; likewise, the only help for us today is God. But how so far removed are we from total dependence on Him? As well, our petition must be clothed in humility, or God will not heed.)

²And he sent Eliakim, which 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. (This is the first mention of the Prophet Isaiah in the Bible. However, Hezekiah was the fourth king in whose reign Isaiah had prophesied [Isa. 1:1]. The Passages in the Book of Isaiah which refer to these events are 10:5-19; 14:24-27; 22:1-25; 36:1-37.)

³And they said unto him, Thus says Hezekiah, This day is a day of trouble, and of rebuke, and blasphemy: for the children are come to the birth, and there is not strength to bring forth (the idea is, within herself, Judah has no strength; they must look to the Lord!).

⁴It may be the LORD your God will hear all the words of Rab-shakeh, whom the king of Assyria his master has sent to reproach the Living God; and will reprove the words which the LORD your God has heard: wherefore lift up your prayer for the remnant who are left (it is the prayer of Hezekiah that God has heard the blasphemy of Rab-shakeh, would note it, and punish it).

ISAIAH FORETELLS ASSYRIAS DEFEAT

⁵So the servants of king Hezekiah came to Isaiah (regrettably, most of the modern Church is going to a humanistic psychologist!).

⁶And Isaiah said unto them, Thus shall you say to your master (to Hezekiah), Thus says the LORD, Be not afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me (the Lords word to His People is, Be not afraid!).

⁷Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and shall return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land (all of this would be fulfilled to the letter, but over time).

SENNACHERIBS MESSAGE TO HEZEKIAH

⁸So Rab-shakeh returned, and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah: for he had heard that he was departed from Lachish (Lachish had fallen).

⁹And when he heard say of Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, Behold, he is come out to fight against you: he sent messengers again unto Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰Thus shall you speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not your God in Whom you trust deceive you, saying, Jerusalem shall not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria (in other words, because Egypt is coming against me, who was then ruled by a Pharaoh of Ethiopian birth, dont think this will help you).

¹¹Behold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shall you be delivered?

¹²Have the gods of the nations delivered them which my fathers have destroyed; as Gozan, and Haran, and Rezeph, and the children of Eden which were in Thelasar?

¹³Where is the king of Hamath, and the king of Arpad, and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena, and Ivah? (We have defeated the gods of all these other nations, so dont think that your Jehovah will save you. As we defeated them, we will defeat Him likewise!)

THE PRAYER OF HEZEKIAH

¹⁴And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the House of the LORD, and spread it before the LORD (Sennacherib had made all of these above statements in a letter sent to Hezekiah; so, Hezekiah takes this letter to the Temple, and spreads it before the Lord).

¹⁵And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD, and said, O LORD God of Israel, which dwells between the Cherubims, You are the God, even You alone, of all the kingdoms of the Earth; You have made Heaven and Earth (in other words, all these gods of the other nations mentioned by Sennacherib do not, in fact, even exist; Jehovah is God Alone, and the Creator of all things; hence, Hezekiah begins his prayer).

¹⁶LORD, bow down Your Ear, and hear: open, LORD, Your Eyes, and see: and hear the words of Sennacherib, which has sent him (it, the letter) to reproach the Living God (the tirade by the heathen monarch is against God, which was rightly so!).

¹⁷Of a truth, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands,

¹⁸And have cast their gods into the fire: for they were no gods, but the work of mens hands, wood and stone: therefore they have destroyed them (all the heathen gods were mere figments of mens imagination; and, if there was any power connected with such, it was always from demon spirits).

¹⁹Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beseech You, save You us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the Earth may know that You are the LORD God, even You only (this was answered to the letter; after the great victory of Judah, then said they among the heathen, The LORD has done great things for them [Ps. 126:2]).

ISAIAHS PROPHECY OF DELIVERANCE

²⁰Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, Thus says the LORD God of Israel, That which you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria I have heard (while God certainly hears all things, still, the way the word heard is here used refers to the fact that the petition will be granted; it is heard in order to be answered).

²¹This is the Word that the LORD has spoken concerning him (concerning Sennacherib); The virgin the daughter of Zion has despised you, and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head at you (now, the Lord as well uses scorn, sarcasm, and contempt, as it regards the boasts of Sennacherib).

²²Whom have you reproached and blasphemed? and against Whom have you exalted your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? even against the Holy One of Israel (basically, the Lord is saying to Sennacherib, You are not now addressing yourself to the little fake deities of these other nations, but rather to the Creator of the Ages).

²³By your messengers you have reproached the LORD, and have said, With the multitude of my chariots I am come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and will cut down the tall cedar trees thereof, and the choice fir trees thereof: and I will enter into the lodgings of his borders, and into the forest of his Carmel (Sennacherib had not actually said these words attributed to him, but he had thought them; and God accounts mens deliberate thoughts as their utterances).

²⁴I have digged and drunk strange waters, and with the sole of my feet have I dried up all the rivers of besieged places (Jehovah continues to read the thoughts and claims of the heathen monarch).

²⁵Have you not heard long ago how I have done it, and of ancient times that I have formed it? now have I brought it to pass, that you should be to lay waste fenced cities into ruinous heaps (now the Lord, in this Verse, switches from parroting Sennacherib to making statements of Himself).

²⁶Therefore their inhabitants were of small power, they were dismayed and confounded; they were as the grass of the field, and as the green herb, as the grass on the house tops, and as corn blasted before it be grown up (mighty nations are raised up by God and torn down by God; in fact, these nations are but grass, which today is, and tomorrow is gone, all at the command of God).

²⁷But I know your abode, and your going out, and your coming in, and your rage against Me (human pride should stand abashed before such Absolute Knowledge).

²⁸Because your rage against Me and your tumult is come up into 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. (Sculptures show that the kings of Assyria and Babylon actually put rings or fishhooks through the flesh of the captives, mostly through the lips, then attaching a thong or slender rope and, thereby, leading them about, as with a bridle. Thus, God threatens Sennacherib with a punishment he had inflicted on others many times. The Lord did not do this literally, so it expresses figuratively the complete defeat and humiliation of Sennacherib, whenever he would be judged by Jehovah.)

²⁹And this shall be a sign unto you, You shall eat this year such things as grow of themselves, and in the second year that which springs of the same; and in the third year sow you, and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat the fruits thereof (this entire episode lasted for some two years, with the Children of Israel not planting crops because of the feared invasion; this tells Judah that they would be free from any siege, and could roam the fields to gather such food as grew of itself for the rest of this particular year and the next; after that, they would sow and reap again in a normal way).

³⁰And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall yet again take root downward, and bear fruit upward (be prosperous once again!).

³¹For out of Jerusalem shall go forth a remnant, and they that escape out of Mount Zion: the zeal of the LORD of Hosts shall do this (the meaning is that Gods zealous Love and Care for His People will effect their complete Restoration to prosperity and glory, difficult as it was at the time to imagine such a Restoration Pulpit).

³²Therefore 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 cast a bank against it (there shall be no siege).

³³By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, says the LORD (as he came, he will go, meaning there will be no victory for him).

³⁴For I will defend this city, to save it, for My own sake, and for My servant Davids sake (it was not because of any moral beauty in Hezekiah that God delivered Jerusalem, but for His Own sake, and for Davids sake the true David, the Lord Jesus Christ).

GODS VENGEANCE ON ASSYRIA

³⁵And it came to pass that night, that the Angel of the LORD went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand (185,000): and when they arose early in the morning (when the inhabitants of Jerusalem arose), behold, they (the Assyrians) were all dead corpses. (Only one Angel did this! Such is the Power of God. How it was done, we arent told!)

³⁶So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed, and went and returned, and dwelt at Nineveh (he came back to Nineveh without victory, which is the first time, it is believed, that such a thing happened; he was to find that Jehovah was not the same as these little tin-horned deities).

³⁷And it came to pass, 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 Armenia. And Esar-haddon his son reigned in his stead. (Sennacherib promised the throne to his youngest son, Esar-haddon, instead of to the eldest. In fact, thinking he had offended his god, because of his terrible defeat regarding Jerusalem, he had promised to sacrifice his two older sons to that divinity. These two young men, prompted by fear on the one hand, and by jealousy on the other, murdered their father in December of that year. But then they had to flee to another country to escape their younger brother, Esar-haddon.)