Isaiah 36:1–37:20

The Lord Rescues Judah from the Assyrians—2 Kings 18:13–19:19

¹In Hezekiah’s fourteenth year as king, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. ²Then the king of Assyria sent his field commander with a large army from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem. He stood at the channel for the Upper Pool on the road to Laundryman’s Field. 

³Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace and was the son of Hilkiah, Shebna the scribe, and Joah, who was the royal historian and the son of Asaph, went out to the field commander. ⁴The field commander said to them, “Tell Hezekiah, ‘This is what the great king, the king of Assyria, says: What makes you so confident? ⁵You give useless advice about getting ready for war. Whom, then, do you trust for support in your rebellion against me? ⁶Look! When you trust Egypt, you’re trusting a broken stick for a staff. If you lean on it, it stabs your hand and goes through it. This is what Pharaoh (the king of Egypt) is like for everyone who trusts him. ⁷Suppose you tell me, “We’re trusting the Lord our God.” He’s the god whose places of worship and altars Hezekiah got rid of. Hezekiah told Judah and Jerusalem, “Worship at this altar.” ’ 

⁸“Now, make a deal with my master, the king of Assyria. I’ll give you 2,000 horses if you can put riders on them. ⁹How can you defeat my master’s lowest-ranking officers when you trust Egypt for chariots and horses? 

¹⁰“Have I come to destroy this country without the Lord on my side? The Lord said to me, ‘Attack this country, and destroy it.’ ” 

¹¹Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the field commander, “Speak to us in Aramaic, since we understand it. Don’t speak to us in the Judean language as long as there are people on the wall listening.” 

¹²But the field commander asked, “Did my master send me to tell these things only to you and your master? Didn’t he send me to the men sitting on the wall who will have to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine with you?” 

¹³Then the field commander stood and shouted loudly in the Judean language, “Listen to the great king, the king of Assyria. ¹⁴This is what the king says: Don’t let Hezekiah deceive you. He can’t rescue you. ¹⁵Don’t let Hezekiah get you to trust the Lord by saying, ‘The Lord will certainly rescue us, and this city will not be put under the control of the king of Assyria.’ ¹⁶Don’t listen to Hezekiah, because this is what the king of Assyria says: Make peace with me! Come out, and give yourselves up to me! Everyone will eat from his own grapevine and fig tree and drink from his own cistern. ¹⁷Then I will come and take you away to a country like your own. It’s a country with grain and new wine, a country with bread and vineyards. ¹⁸Don’t let Hezekiah mislead you by saying to you, ‘The Lord will rescue us.’ Did any of the gods of the nations rescue their countries from the king of Assyria? ¹⁹Where are the gods of Hamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Did they rescue Samaria from my control? ²⁰Did the gods of these countries rescue them from my control? Could the Lord then rescue Jerusalem from my control?” 

²¹They were silent and didn’t say anything to him because the king commanded them not to answer him. 

²²Then Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace and was son of Hilkiah, Shebna the scribe, and Joah, who was the royal historian and the son of Asaph, went to Hezekiah with their clothes torn in grief. They told him the message from the field commander. 

37TH CHAPTER

¹When King Hezekiah heard the message, he tore his clothes in grief, covered himself with sackcloth, and went into the Lord’s temple. ²Then he sent Eliakim, who was in charge of the palace, Shebna the scribe, and the leaders of the priests, clothed in sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah, son of Amoz. 

³They said to him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day filled with misery, punishment, and disgrace. We are like a woman who is about to give birth but doesn’t have the strength to do it. ⁴The Lord your God may have heard the words of the field commander. His master, the king of Assyria, sent him to defy the living God. The Lord your God may punish him because of the message that the Lord your God heard. Pray for the few people who are left.” 

⁵So King Hezekiah’s men went to Isaiah. ⁶Isaiah answered them, “Say this to your master, ‘This is what the Lord says: Don’t be afraid of the message that you heard when the Assyrian king’s assistants slandered me. ⁷I’m going to put a spirit in him so that he will hear a rumor and return to his own country. I’ll have him assassinated in his own country.’ ” 

⁸The field commander returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah. He had heard that the king left Lachish. ⁹Now, Sennacherib heard that King Tirhakah of Sudan was coming to fight him. 

When he heard this, he again sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰“Tell King Hezekiah of Judah, ‘Don’t let the god whom you trust deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be put under the control of the king of Assyria. ¹¹You heard what the kings of Assyria did to all countries, how they totally destroyed them. Will you be rescued? ¹²Did the gods of the nations which my ancestors destroyed rescue Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, and the people of Eden who were in Telassar? ¹³Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, and the king of the cities of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’ ” 

¹⁴Hezekiah took the letter from the messengers, read it, and went to the Lord’s temple. He spread it out in front of the Lord ¹⁵and prayed to the Lord, ¹⁶“Lord of Armies, God of Israel, you are enthroned over the angels.^aYou alone are God of the kingdoms of the world. You made heaven and earth. ¹⁷Turn your ear toward me, Lord, and listen. Open your eyes, Lord, and see. Listen to the entire message that Sennacherib sent to defy the living God. ¹⁸It is true, Lord, that the kings of Assyria have leveled every country.^b19They have thrown the gods from these countries into fires because these gods aren’t real gods. They’re only wooden and stone statues made by human hands. So the Assyrians have destroyed them. ²⁰Now, Lord our God, rescue us from Assyria’s control so that all the kingdoms on earth will know that you alone are the Lord.”