Adult Class
December 2006-May 2007
Isaiah
Lesson 16: God Spares Jerusalem—For The Moment
From chapters of poetic prophecy, Isaiah turns to record some prose history for us. Isaiah 36-39 repeats virtually every word of 2 Kings 18:13-20:19 as the events of the deliverance of Jerusalem are recorded. Assyria has been an oppressive presence, drawing nearer and becoming more and more threatening since the invitation by Ahaz to involve itself with near eastern politics. Now, the would-be ally drops all pretense and invades Judah with the aim of conquering it. Sennacherib failed to take God seriously, however, and his aims and strategy are dashed against Mount Zion.
Isaiah 36—Invasion and conquest
Earlier payments of tribute failed to turn Assyria away from its designs on world domination. Sennacherib invaded Judah and reduced its fortified cities one by one. The Assyrians were masters of siege warfare, able to conquer powerful cities by tactics of tunneling, starving, or building ramps up to the walls whereby they could overwhelm the defenders. The record of their victories is astonishing and horrifying. Upon conquering a city, the Assyrians would typically murder the majority of the survivors in shockingly brutal ways as a warning to neighbors.
One of the walled cities of Judah was Lachish, a city about 30 miles southwest of Jerusalem. It was a very old walled city and was fortified by Rehoboam some 250 years before Isaiah. The Assyrians laid siege to it by building a ramp over 200 feet wide that spanned a valley southwest of the city. The top of the ramp was compacted stones mortared together to provide a very stable base. The conquest of Lachish was celebrated by Sennacherib in stone reliefs carved as decoration for his palace at Nineveh. Those carvings are visible in the British Museum.
Upon reducing Lachish, a substantial part of the Assyrian army turned its attention to Jerusalem. Arriving at the city walls, the commander offered terms for the city’s surrender and he called out the message in Hebrew, so that all the defenders could hear the terms. He very correctly pointed out that no city to that point had been able to resist Assyria, that Hezekiah could not hope to outman the army, and that Egypt was a vain hope for Judah. He demonstrated knowledge of Hezekiah’s reforms (removing idol shrines) and the name of the Living God (Yahweh). He then appealed to the defenders and at that point insulted God by comparing Him with the useless idols of other lands.
The representatives of the king took the message to Hezekiah while the defenders remained silent in obedience to the king.
Isaiah 37—God answers Hezekiah’s prayer
Hezekiah accepted the Assyrian demands and immediately went into mourning. He sent officials to Isaiah to beg him to pray for the survivors, while Hezekiah approached God in the Temple. It is clear from this that Hezekiah recognized that Isaiah was a prophet of God.
God sent a message through Isaiah to Hezekiah to reassure him that the Assyrians would certainly not overrun Jerusalem. Instead, the Assyrian king would voluntarily withdraw and return home—where he would be killed. In fact, due to an earlier “treaty,” the Egyptian king advanced with an army as if he would come to the rescue of Jerusalem. The Assyrian force turned to meet this pretended threat and urged Hezekiah and his people not to consider themselves delivered. They had every intention of coming back to finish the business of conquering Judah. Again, they insulted God as if He were just the same as the civic idols of other cities.
Hezekiah spread out the letter before God in the Temple and acknowledged that no other god was able to deliver those cities from Assyria. Then he called upon God to glorify Himself as the only Living God, so that the fame of the Lord might go out to all nations.
Isaiah returned with a second message of deliverance for Jerusalem. God promised that the people of Jerusalem would be able to glean the remnants of the fields for their food that year, and eat from the volunteer crops the following year. In the third year they would begin farming again. And there would be no warfare from Assyria. Isaiah tells us that in one night 185,000 Assyrian soldiers died and Assyria was forced to withdraw. Josephus mentioned a plague of mice, which has made many speculate about an outbreak of plague among the invaders—something that was a consistent danger. Regardless, Sennacherib’s record of his Judean campaign has been discovered where he boasts of taking “46 walled cities of Judah” and, in regard to Jerusalem, “the king, Hezekiah, I shut up like a bird in a cage.” He was assassinated by his sons in Nineveh.
Isaiah 38—Hezekiah’s life is spared
The king became ill, and God sent a message that he would not recover but would die. Hezekiah “wept bitterly” and God relented, sending Isaiah back with a message of deliverance. God granted him 15 more years of life and proved His intention with a miraculous sign by making the shadow on the stairway go backward 10 steps. A special poultice was applied and Hezekiah’s health was restored.
On the surface, this might seem like positive story of God’s intervention and love for a righteous king. However, there is a darker side to this story. During Hezekiah’s 15 extended years, he had a son, Manasseh. This son began to reign at the age of 12 after Hezekiah’s death. Manasseh was the worst king of Judah, reigning 55 years in brutality, violence, idolatry and corruption. A brief repentance late in life was too little, too late and he paved the way for the headlong plunge to destruction by the kingdom of Judah. All in all, it seems to us that it would have been better for Hezekiah to have died without inflicting Manasseh upon the nation. However, God has His purposes, and we can’t always tell what they are.
Isaiah 39—The shadow of Babylon
At this time, Babylon was a servant of Assyria. The envoys probably were sent to prepare for a rebellion against Assyria. They would be eager to know exactly how the city of Jerusalem managed to escape destruction by Sennacherib and whether the Jews would be open to the idea of joining Babylon in a rebellion against Assyria. Doubtless, the envoys were stunned by the smallness of the kingdom and the relatively rustic nature of its “treasures.” Isaiah revealed to Hezekiah that one day the Babylonians would accomplish what Assyria failed to do. But the king dismissed the idea as unimportant to his own lifetime. The threat of Babylon might be far away, but it was very real.