Scripture Daily

Context No. 49 of 4322 · Isaiah

Context · Reflection

Isaiah 37:14-20: in context

14Hezekiah received the letter from the hand of the messengers and read it. Then Hezekiah went up to the LORD’s house, and spread it before the LORD. 15Hezekiah prayed to the LORD, saying, 16“LORD of Armies, the God of Israel, who is enthroned among the cherubim, you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. 17Turn your ear, LORD, and hear. Open your eyes, LORD, and behold. Hear all of the words of Sennacherib, who has sent to defy the living God. 18Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have destroyed all the countries and their land, 19and 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. 20Now therefore, LORD our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you are the LORD, even you only.”

In 701 BC the Assyrian king Sennacherib swept through Judah, took its fortified towns, and demanded Jerusalem's surrender. His envoy shouted taunts at the city wall in Hebrew so the ordinary people could hear, and then sent a letter to King Hezekiah listing every nation whose gods had failed to save it. This passage is what Hezekiah does with the letter.

He carries it up to the temple and spreads it out before God. It is a physical act, a document opened flat on the floor of the sanctuary, and then a prayer that concedes most of the enemy's case. It is true, Hezekiah says, the Assyrians have destroyed those nations and burned their gods, because those were no gods, just wood and stone made by human hands. Then the request, and its reason: save us, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you alone are God.

Sennacherib's own account survives, cut into clay prisms now in London, Chicago, and Jerusalem. He boasts of shutting Hezekiah up in his royal city like a bird in a cage. He lists his plunder in detail. He never says he took Jerusalem. When someone hands me an accurate list of my weaknesses, can I concede the true parts and still not accept their conclusion?

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