Isaiah 37

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.