Isaiah 36–37

Chapter 36

Sennacherib Invades Judah

^1aNow in the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, ^bSennacherib king of Assyria came up against all the fortified cities of Judah and seized them.

²And the ^aking of Assyria sent Rabshakeh from Lachish to Jerusalem to King Hezekiah with a large army. And he stood by the ^bconduit of the upper pool on the highway of the ¹fuller’s field.

³Then ^aEliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ^bShebna the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came out to him.

⁴Then ^aRabshakeh said to them, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria, “What is this confidence that you ¹have?

⁵“I say, ‘Your counsel and strength for the war are only ¹empty words.’ Now on whom do you rely, that ^ayou have rebelled against me?

⁶“Behold, you rely on the ^astaff of this crushed reed, even on Egypt, on which if a man leans, it will go into his ¹hand and pierce it. ^bSo is Pharaoh king of Egypt to all who rely on him.

⁷“But if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not He ^awhose high places and whose altars Hezekiah has taken away and has said to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You shall worship before this altar’?

⁸“Now therefore, ¹come make a bargain with my master the king of Assyria, and I will give you two thousand horses, if you are able on your part to set riders on them.

⁹“How then can you ¹repulse one ²official of the least of my master’s servants and ^3arely on Egypt for chariots and for horsemen?

¹⁰“Have I now come up ¹without the Lord’s approval against this land to destroy it? ^aThe Lord said to me, ‘Go up against this land and destroy it.’ ” ’ ”

¹¹Then Eliakim and Shebna and Joah said to Rabshakeh, “Speak now to your servants in ^aAramaic, for we ¹understand it; and do not speak with us in ^2bJudean in the hearing of the people who are on the wall.”

¹²But Rabshakeh said, “Has my master sent me only to your master and to you to speak these words, and not to the men who sit on the wall, doomed to eat their own dung and drink their own urine with you?”

¹³Then Rabshakeh stood and ^acried with a loud voice in Judean and said, “Hear the words of the great king, the king of Assyria.

¹⁴“Thus says the king, ‘Do not let Hezekiah ^adeceive you, for he will not be able to deliver you;

¹⁵nor let Hezekiah make you ^atrust in the Lord, saying, “The Lord will surely deliver us, this city will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

¹⁶‘Do not listen to Hezekiah,’ for thus says the king of Assyria, ‘¹Make your peace with me and come out to me, and eat each of his ^avine and each of his fig tree and drink each of the ^bwaters of his own cistern,

¹⁷until I come and take you away to a land like your own land, a land of grain and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards.

¹⁸‘Beware that Hezekiah does not mislead you, saying, “^aThe Lord will deliver us.” Has any one of the gods of the nations delivered his land from the hand of the king of Assyria?

¹⁹‘Where are the gods of ^aHamath and Arpad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? And when have they ^bdelivered Samaria from my hand?

²⁰‘Who among all the ^agods of these lands have delivered their land from my hand, that the ^bLord would deliver Jerusalem from my hand?’ ”

²¹But they were silent and ^aanswered him not a word; for the king’s commandment was, “Do not answer him.”

²²Then ^aEliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and ^bShebna the scribe and Joah the son of Asaph, the recorder, came to Hezekiah with their clothes torn and told him the words of Rabshakeh.

Chapter 37

Hezekiah Seeks Isaiah’s Help

¹And ^awhen King Hezekiah heard it, he tore his clothes, covered himself with sackcloth and entered the house of the Lord.

²Then he sent ^aEliakim who was over the household with ^bShebna the scribe and the elders of the priests, covered with sackcloth, to ^cIsaiah the prophet, the son of Amoz.

³They said to him, “Thus says Hezekiah, ‘This day is a ^aday of distress, rebuke and rejection; for ^bchildren have come to birth, and there is no strength to ¹deliver.

⁴‘Perhaps the Lord your God will hear the words of Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to ^areproach the living God, and will rebuke the words which the Lord your God has heard. Therefore, offer a prayer for ^bthe remnant that is left.’ ”

⁵So the servants of King Hezekiah came to Isaiah.

⁶Isaiah said to them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the Lord, “^aDo not be afraid because of the words that you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me.

⁷“Behold, I will put a spirit in him so that he will ^ahear a rumor and ^breturn to his own land. And I will make him fall by the sword in his own land.” ’ ”

⁸Then Rabshakeh returned and found the king of Assyria fighting against ^aLibnah, for he had heard that ¹the king had left ^bLachish.

⁹When he ^aheard them say concerning Tirhakah king of ^1bCush, “He has come out to fight against you,” and when he heard it he sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying,

¹⁰“Thus you shall say to Hezekiah king of ¹Judah, ‘^aDo not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem will not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.”

¹¹‘^aBehold, you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the lands, destroying them completely. So will you be ¹spared?

¹²‘Did the gods of ¹those nations which my fathers have destroyed deliver them, even ^aGozan and ^bHaran and Rezeph and the sons of Eden who were in Telassar?

¹³‘Where is the king of Hamath, the king of Arpad, the king of the city of Sepharvaim, and of Hena and Ivvah?’ ”

Hezekiah’s Prayer in the Temple

¹⁴Then Hezekiah took the ¹letter from the hand of the messengers and read it, and he went up to the house of the Lord and ²spread it out before the Lord.

¹⁵Hezekiah prayed to the Lord saying,

¹⁶“O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, ^awho is enthroned above the cherubim, You are the ^bGod, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. ^cYou have made heaven and earth.

¹⁷“^aIncline Your ear, O Lord, and hear; open Your eyes, O Lord, and see; and ^blisten to all the words of Sennacherib, who sent them to ^creproach the living God.

¹⁸“Truly, O Lord, the ^akings of Assyria have devastated all the countries and their lands,

¹⁹and have cast their gods into the fire, for they were not gods but the ^awork of men’s hands, wood and stone. So they have ^bdestroyed them.

²⁰“Now, O Lord our God, ^adeliver us from his hand that ^ball the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, Lord, ¹are God.”

God Answers through Isaiah

²¹Then ^aIsaiah the son of Amoz sent word to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have prayed to Me about Sennacherib king of Assyria,

²²this is the word that the Lord has spoken against him:

“She has despised you and mocked you,

The ^avirgin ^bdaughter of Zion;

She has ^cshaken her head behind you,

The daughter of Jerusalem!

²³“Whom have you ^areproached and blasphemed?

And against whom have you raised your voice

And ¹haughtily ^blifted up your eyes?

Against the ^cHoly One of Israel!

²⁴“Through your servants you have reproached the Lord,

And you have said, ‘With my many chariots I came up to the heights of the mountains,

To the remotest parts of ^aLebanon;

And I cut down its tall ^bcedars and its choice cypresses.

And I will go to its ¹highest peak, its thickest ^cforest.

²⁵‘I dug wells and drank waters,

And ^awith the sole of my feet I dried up

All the rivers of ¹Egypt.’

²⁶“^aHave you not heard?

Long ago I did it,

From ancient times I ^bplanned it.

Now ^cI have brought it to pass,

That ^dyou should turn fortified cities into ^eruinous heaps.

²⁷“Therefore their inhabitants were short of strength,

They were dismayed and put to shame;

They were as the ^avegetation of the field and as the green herb,

As ^bgrass on the housetops ¹is scorched before it is grown up.

²⁸“But I ^aknow your sitting down

And your going out and your coming in

And your raging against Me.

²⁹“Because of your raging against Me

And because your ^1aarrogance has come up to My ears,

Therefore I will put My ^bhook in your nose

And My ^cbridle in your lips,

And I will turn you back ^dby the way which you came.

³⁰“Then this shall be the sign for you: ¹you will eat this year what ^agrows of itself, in the second year what springs from the same, and in the third year sow, reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

³¹“The ^asurviving ^bremnant of the house of Judah will again ^ctake root downward and bear fruit upward.

³²“For out of Jerusalem will go forth a ^aremnant and out of Mount Zion ¹survivors. The ^bzeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this.” ’

³³“Therefore, thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, ‘He will not come to this city or shoot an arrow there; and he will not come before it with a shield, or throw up a ^asiege ramp against it.

³⁴‘^aBy the way that he came, by the same he will return, and he will not come to this city,’ declares the Lord.

³⁵‘For I will ^adefend this city to save it ^bfor My own sake and for My servant David’s sake.’ ”

Assyrians Destroyed

³⁶Then the ^aangel of the Lord went out and struck 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians; and when ¹men arose early in the morning, behold, all of these were ²dead.

³⁷So Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and ¹returned home and lived at ^aNineveh.

³⁸It came about as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons killed him with the sword; and they escaped into the land of ^aArarat. And ^bEsarhaddon his son became king in his place.