Isaiah predicts Jerusalem’s deliverance
19
📚And it came about, when King Hezekiah heard it, that he tore his clothes and covered himself with sackcloth and went into the house of the LORD. 2 📚And 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. 3 📚And they said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah: ‘This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and blasphemy; for the children have come to the point of birth and there is no strength to deliver them 📖. 4 📚It may be the LORD your God will hear all the words of 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 shall you 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 📚Look, I will put a spirit in him, and he will hear a report and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.’ ”
8 📚So Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria warring against Libnah, for he had heard that he had departed from Lachish.
9 📚And when the king heard a report about Tirhakah king of Ethiopia, “Look, he has come out to fight against you”, he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,
19:9 Verse 7.⚜
10 📚“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 delivered into the hands of the king of Assyria.’ 11 📚Look, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, utterly destroying them. And will you be delivered? 12 📚Have the gods of the nations delivered those which my fathers destroyed, Gozan, and Haran and Rezeph, and the children of Eden who were in Thelasar? 13 📚Where is the king of Hamath and the king of Arpad and the king of the city of Sepharvaim, of Hena and Ivah?”
Hezekiah’s prayer
14 📚And Hezekiah received the letter from the hands of the messengers and read it, and Hezekiah went up into the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD. 15 📚And Hezekiah prayed before the LORD and said, “O LORD God of Israel, who dwells between the cherubim 📖, you are God of all the kingdoms of the earth, you alone 📖. You have made heaven and earth. 16 📚LORD, incline your ear, and hear. LORD, open your eyes and see, and hear the words Sennacherib has sent him to reproach 📖 the living God.
17 📚“It is true, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed the nations and their lands, 18 📚and have thrown their gods into the fire. For they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands, wood and stone. Therefore they have destroyed them. 19 📚Now therefore, O LORD our God, I beg you, save us out of his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD God, you only”.
Isaiah sends another message to Hezekiah
20 📚Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, ‘I have heard 📖 what you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria.’ 21 📚This is the word that the LORD has spoken concerning him: ‘The virgin daughter 📖 of Zion despises you, and laughs you to scorn. The daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head at you. 22 📚Whom have you reproached 📖 and blasphemed? And against whom have you raised your voice, and lifted up your eyes on high? Against the Holy One of Israel 📖.
23 📚Through your messengers you have reproached the Lord, and have said, “With my many chariots I have come up to the height of the mountains, to the sides of Lebanon, and I cut down its tall cedar trees and its choice fir trees, and I entered its most distant lodgings, and its finest forest. 24 📚I have dug and drunk foreign water, and with the soles of my feet I have dried up all the rivers of besieged places”.
19:23-24 Here is the pride and arrogance so common in worldly rulers and so hateful to God – Prov 3:34; 6:16-17; Isa 2:10-18. Concerning the pride of Assyria see Isa 10:12.⚜
25 📚‘The LORD says, Did you not hear long ago how I have done it, and in ancient times that I have formed this plan? Now I have carried it out 📖, so that you would be for turning fortified cities into heaps of ruins. 26 📚Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and disgraced. They were like the grass of the field, and like the green plant, like the grass on the housetops, and like grain blasted before it has grown up.
27 📚But I know your dwelling place, and your going out and your coming in, and your rage against me. 28 📚Because your rage against me and your arrogance have come up into my ears, I will put my hook in your nose, and my bridle in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the road by which you came.’
19:28 2 Kings 19:33, 36; Ezek 19:9; 29:4; 38:4. God can do just as He pleases with any nation or army on earth (Dan 4:34-35).⚜
29 📚“And this will be a sign to you, Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows by itself, and in the second year what springs from it, and in the third year sow and reap and plant vineyards and eat its fruits.
19:29 Evidently the Assyrians had taken the harvest from the fields of Judah or destroyed it. The promise to Hezekiah is that in the third year both the Assyrians and the effects of their invasion would be gone.⚜
30 📚And the remnant 📖 of the house of Judah that has escaped will once again take root downward, and bear fruit upward. 31 📚For out of Jerusalem a remnant will go out, and those who escape will go out of Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD 📖 of hosts will do this. 32 📚“Therefore thus says the LORD concerning the king of Assyria: ‘He will not come into this city, or shoot an arrow there, or come before it with shield, or throw up an embankment against it. 33 📚He will return by the way that he came, and will 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 📖.’ ”
19:32-34 God Himself, in His zeal for His people, would defend Jerusalem. This is what preserved the city, not Hezekiah’s acts of 2 Kings 18:13-15.⚜
The destruction of Sennacherib’s army
35 📚And it came about that night, that the angel of the LORD 📖 went out and struck down a hundred and eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. And when the people arose early in the morning, there were all the dead bodies! 36 📚So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed 📖. He set out and returned, and lived at Nineveh 📖.
37 📚And it happened that as he was worshipping in the house of Nisroch his god, his sons 📖 Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword, and escaped into the land of Armenia. And his son Esarhaddon reigned in his place.