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Context No. 1047 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 37:21-25: in context

21Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “The LORD, the God of Israel says, ‘Because you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22this is the word which the LORD 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. 23Whom 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. 24By your servants, 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. I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees. I will enter into its farthest height, the forest of its fruitful field. 25I have dug and drunk water, and with the sole of my feet I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt.”

Hezekiah has spread the Assyrian king's threatening letter before God and prayed, and now Isaiah brings God's answer, aimed straight at Sennacherib. Because you have prayed to me, God says to Hezekiah, here is my word against Assyria: the virgin daughter of Zion despises you and shakes her head at you as you flee. Then the piercing question: whom have you mocked and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes? Against the Holy One of Israel. God quotes Sennacherib's own boasting back to him, his bragging that with his many chariots he has climbed the highest mountains, cut down the tallest cedars, dried up rivers with the soles of his feet.

The turning point is God's exposure of who Sennacherib was actually defying. The Assyrian thought he was crushing one more small kingdom, mocking one more local god, and God says: whom have you blasphemed? It was me, the Holy One of Israel. Sennacherib's arrogant boasts, I have cut down the cedars, I have dried up the rivers, sound like a man who thinks he answers to no one, and God has been listening the whole time. The proud speeches of the arrogant do not vanish into the air; they are heard in heaven and remembered. And there is a quiet dignity restored to the frightened people of God here. Hezekiah felt small and cornered, but God tells him that Zion, the daughter he loves, actually despises the invader and shakes her head at him, because from God's vantage the terrifying empire is the one about to be humiliated. The bully who seemed unanswerable was, all along, blaspheming the one being he could not defeat. God hears the boasts of the arrogant, and he answers them.

When arrogant power seems unanswerable and I feel small before it, do I remember that its boasts are heard in heaven, and that it may be defying the very God who will answer?

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