2 Kings 19:20-28: a reflection

20Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “The LORD, the God of Israel, says ‘You have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, and I have heard you. 21This is the word that 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. 22Whom 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! 23By your messengers, 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, and I will cut down its tall cedars and its choice cypress trees; and I will enter into his farthest lodging place, the forest of his fruitful field. 24I have dug and drunk strange waters, and I will dry up all the rivers of Egypt with the sole of my feet.” 25Haven’t you heard how I have done it long ago, and formed it of ancient times? Now I have brought it to pass, that it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities into ruinous heaps. 26Therefore their inhabitants had little power. They were dismayed and confounded. They were like the grass of the field and like the green herb, like the grass on the housetops and like grain blasted before it has grown up. 27But I know your sitting down, your going out, your coming in, and your raging against me. 28Because of your raging against me, and because your arrogance has 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.’

Sennacherib, the Assyrian king, has been boasting, mocking the God of Israel, sure that his vast armies can conquer anything: With my many chariots I have gone up to the heights; I have dried up rivers with the sole of my foot. He has defied the living God. And through Isaiah, God answers, and the answer cuts the boasting down to size: Do you not know, he says, that I ordained this long ago? Sennacherib's very rise, the conquests he was so proud of, had been under God's hand all along. And now, God says, because you have raged against me, I will put my hook in your nose and my bridle in your lips, and turn you back the way you came.

Notice how thoroughly God deflates the arrogant king. Sennacherib imagined himself the author of his own greatness, unstoppable, answerable to no one. God reveals the truth: even Sennacherib's rise had been ordained by God; the king was never as autonomous as he thought. And his defiance had not gone unnoticed: I know your raging against me, God says. Far from being a threat to God, this boasting king was on God's leash, to be turned back with a hook and a bridle like a led animal.

There is deep comfort here about the arrogant forces that seem to threaten God's people and defy God himself. The proud, boasting, seemingly unstoppable forces of any age are not as autonomous or as threatening as they imagine. God ordains even their rise, hears their raging, and holds them on a leash, able to turn them back whenever he chooses. When arrogant force seems to defy God and threaten his people, do not be dismayed. The boasting king is on God's leash. God knows his raging, and can put a hook in his nose and turn him back the way he came.

Lord, the arrogant Sennacherib boasted and defied you, and you revealed that even his rise was under your hand, that you knew his raging and would turn him back with a hook in his nose. When arrogant force seems to defy you and threaten your people, keep me from being dismayed. Remind me that the proud, boasting forces of any age are on your leash, never as autonomous or threatening as they imagine. You ordain even their rise and can turn them back at will. I rest in your sovereignty over the proud.