Chapter xxxvi.—The opening of this chapter takes us back to the days of Ahaz, when, in the same spot, “ the conduit of the upper pool, in the highway of the fuller’s field ” (vii. 3, with xxxvi. 2), Isaiah and his son Shear-Jashub had gone forth by God’s commandment to calm Ahaz concerning the invasion of Rezin and Pekah, and instruct him concerning the final advent of Immanuel and the “return of a remnant.” This would be, perhaps, about twenty years before Hezekiah’s fourteenth year ; and now the prophet was an old man.
And now " Rabshakeh ” (the name is an Assyrian title), with his host, stood on this historic spot, and Eliakim, Shebna and Joah, went forth to negotiate. What dealings Isaiah had had with Eliakim and Shebna, and their allegorical significance concerning Christ and the future, we have already seen, when speaking of Isa. xxii., and " the burden of the valley of vision.” Eliakim was to be exalted and Shebna deposed as Isaiah by the Spirit had decreed. But both were as yet in their respective offices, dealing with Sennacherib’s captain.
Rabshakeh ridicules Egypt as an ally for Hezekiah. and goes on to challenge Yahweh by comparison with the gods he had overÂthrown. What might almost be called a prophetic summary of this challenge had been given by the prophet long before (Ch. x. 5-11), and now the very words were uttered by the Assyrian before the walls of Jerusalem. Rabshakeh's endeavour also to turn the populace against the king by representing his reforms as a destruction of the national religion, was an especially cruel and crafty bit of serpent wisdom. But it came to nought.
Eliakim, Shebna and Joah returned mourning to Hezekiah, and he in turn went mourning into the temple, sending them with the elders to the aged prophet, with the request that he would " lift up his prayer for the remnant that was left.” Isaiah did so ; and the answer of God was quick and comforting : —“ Be not afraid of the words that thou hast heard, wherewith the servants of the King of Assyria have blasphemed ME. Behold, I will send a blast upon him, and he shall hear a rumour, and return to his own land ; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land.”
Not a word of an agreement was made with Rabshakeh, who returned and found his master warring against Libnah, having broken up his camp at Lachish, and being moreover distressed by the rumour of the advance of the King of Ethiopia. Drawn off thus from Jerusalem, and mortified by the resistance of the city, he sent a letter to Hezekiah repeating his blasphemous challenge against God and the King.
Chapter xxxvii.—On receiving this letter, Hezekiah went into the temple and spread it before the Lord and prayed in these brief but pregnant terms :—
“ O Lord of Hosts, God of Israel, inhabiting the cherubim, thou art the God (ha Elohim), thou alone of all the kingdoms of the earth, thou hast made heaven and earth. Incline thine ear, 0 Lord, and hear ; open thine eyes, O Lord, and see, and hear all the words of Sennacherib, which hath sent to reproach the living God. Of a truth, Lord, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all the nations and their countries, and 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. Now thereÂfore O Lord our God, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that thou art the Lord, even thou only.’’
The closing words of this prayer are but the reflex of God’s own words spoken in connection with the overthrow of an earlier tyrant—Pharaoh, in the days of the Exodus from Egypt : “ I will multiply my signs . . . and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord ” (Ex. vi. 3-5). This principle runs through all the “ signs.” (Compare Ex .vii. 17 ; viii. 10, 19, 22 ; ix. 13-16, 29, etc.). Hezekiah’s prayer is thus conceived in the spirit of knowledge and faith. He had respect to the law of Moses and the records of the mighty deliverance of the Exodus.
With such enlightened faith God is well pleased, and hence another and this time more ample answer was given by the mouth of Isaiah. It is recorded in ch. xxxvii. 21-35. The virgin daughter of Zion is represented as despising and laughing at Sennacherib ; and it is declared that his power to destroy was expressly given by the Lord God of Israel, whom now he despised. Therefore God would put a hook in his nose and a bridle in his lips, and lead him captive far from Jerusalem, the “ remnant ” of which should at last again “ take root downward and bear fruit upward.” And God would defend Jerusalem for His own sake, and for David’s sake.
The allusion to the hook in the nose is illustrated from Assyrian sculptures of captives thus dishonoured. The fulfilment of the prophecy is notorious. An angel destroyed the Assyrian army in a night, and Sennacherib returned to Nineveh, where his own sons slew him in the presence of his god. Rationalising critics exhaust their ingenuity in the attempt to explain the military disaster on natural principles. ; but it is a failure. A candid confession of unbelief and refraining from meddling, would be infinitely more dignified and respectable than perverting the record of a miracle into that of an “ old wives fable.
Comments