When Hezekiah heard all this, he tore his clothes, and put on sackcloth, and went to the LORD’s house. He sent Eliakim, Shebna and the elders of the priests, also dressed in sackcloth, to Isaiah the prophet. They informed him of the incident and their helplessness and asked him to pray for the people (v1-5).
Sackcloth was a rough burlap-type material which was an expression of deep mourning, and repentance.
Hezekiah started well, he knew how desperate the situation was. He also knew that it was really his fault for failing to trust it all to the LORD and trusting in man and particularly in Egypt for help. He went to the LORD’s house and sought the LORD and sent his officers to the prophet to seek the LORD too. He knew that God was his only hope.
We, today, should commit ourselves and our situation to the Lord and seek His face. “Commit your way to the LORD, trust in him and He will act” (Psalm 37:5) (see also Proverbs 16:3)
He asked Isaiah, the man of God, to help with regard to his nation.
We need to pray for our nation; we are going from bad to worse. Daniel 9 indicates that we can pray for ourselves and our nation, confess our sin and plead for God’s forgiveness.
Isaiah received them and gave them a message for king Hezekiah (v6,7), “Thus says the LORD, “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumour and return to his own land; and I will curse him to fall by the sword in his own land.””
It was clear that the LORD had heard what the Rabshakeh had said and was offended. He was dismissive about the Rabshakeh and his colleagues and called them servants of the king of Assyria. The word ‘servants’ was derogatory to the point of meaning ‘slave boys’ or ‘errand boys.’
The LORD assured Hezekiah that He would deal with the king of Assyria with the rumour in v6,7. This was a personal judgment upon the Rabshakeh. He might have seemed strong and powerful, but he was nothing in God’s sight. Thus, he acted on the rumour, and it meant that the Assyrian army went back to their own land and were slaughtered by God without the intervention by any man. The rumour was that Tirhakah had invaded Assyria, so he returned home and during one night 185,000 were slain by the angel of the LORD (v35).
Isaiah told Hezekiah not to fear the words of the Rabshakeh, they were only words.
The Rabshakeh returned to his own land and found the king of Assyria fighting against Libnah. The king had heard the Tirhakah the king of Ethiopia was coming out to make war with Assyria, so he returned from Lachish to his home country.
Sennacherib, king of Assyria, sent another letter via the Rabshakeh to Hezekiah, trying to persuade him to surrender. This time he suggested that God is trying to deceive him (v10) and was powerless to help him before the king of Assyria. He boasted of all the other nations which had succumbed to Assyria (v11-13). When Hezekiah received the letter, he read it and went to the house of the LORD and spread it before the LORD (v14), and he prayed. In one way he didn’t need to spread the letter before the LORD because the LORD knew what was in the letter before Hezekiah did, but it showed his desire to place the matter before the LORD.
Hezekiah did what we should all do; he spread the letter before the LORD. We should present everything to God in prayer, as the hymn says, “…. Oh, what peace we often forfeit, oh what needless pain we bear all because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer.”
He prayed, “O LORD God of Israel, the One who dwells between the cherubim, You are God, You alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. You have made heaven and earth. Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see; and hear the words of Sennacherib, which he has sent to reproach the living God. Truly, LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste the nations and their lands, and have cast their gods into the fire; for they were not gods, but the work of men’s hands— wood and stone. Therefore they destroyed them. Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone.” (v14-19)
The New Testament reminds us that we should cast our care upon Him because He cares for us (1Peter 5:7).
He recognised who God was, “The LORD God, You alone.” “The God of the whole earth.” He stated that Sennacherib had blasphemed God and written words of reproach against The LORD God. He prayed that God would glorify himself ‘His Great Name’.
Hezekiah didn’t go to Isaiah this time, he went straight to the LORD. Sometimes it is not wrong to take things to a trusted friend, but it is always right to take it to God. We should ‘Let our requests be made known to Him’.
Even though he didn’t go to Isaiah, God sent Isaiah to Hezekiah with a message, an answer – “Thus says the LORD God of Israel, because you have prayed to Me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard.” God assured him that his prayer was heard (v20)
I wonder if we have missed anything by not praying to God. Let’s make sure we don’t.
Assyria had come to ravish ‘the daughter of Zion’, Jerusalem, and God would not allow it (v21). By attacking Jerusalem, Sennacherib was attacking God, ‘The Holy One of Israel.’ (v22) He was reproaching the LORD, not just Hezekiah and Judah. It would be encouraging to Hezekiah and his people, even if Sennacherib and the Rabshakeh had never heard the message. Sometimes God’s messages are just for our encouragement, and we have to leave the enemy to Him.
Whatever success Assyria had was not due to its own power and might. It was the LORD’s doing (v25,26). However much they boasted of what they had done to other nations. God reminded Hezekiah and his people of all that God had done for them, even back to crossing the Red Sea on their escape from Egypt even when pursued by Pharaoh and his army. Sennacherib was foolish to think he had great power; he was nothing compared to God (v22-28) (see also Isaiah 10:13-15). God, in effect through Isaiah said to the Rabshakeh, ‘Do you really know who you are dealing with, you are nothing compared to Me.’ Any power which Sennacherib had, was given to him by God, whether he realised it or not.
God refers to putting a hook in their nose, which was how the Assyrian soldiers cruelly marched their captives by stringing them all together. God said He would do the same to them.
God promised to prosper Judah (v29-31) even though they had not been able to sow seed when the enemy invaded (702BC) but they would have enough to preserve life on 701 and 700BC. “The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this” (v31). God said that He would not allow the king of Assyria to come into the city, shoot arrows, use a shield nor besiege it. God would see that the king would return to the city from which he had come, “For I will defend this city, to save it, for My own sake and for my servant David’s sake” (v32-34). There was a limit to what the king of Assyria could do, and God would not allow him to pass it. It was for His own honour (v34). He had promised to David and would keep His covenant. It was around 300 years since David received the covenant, but God would not break it.
Sometimes God’s promises are not always immediately carried out, sometimes they take time, God’s time which is always on time, but here, it was immediate (v35-37).
The Assyrian army was routed, not by Hezekiah, not by any human army, but by God. The night following God’s promise, 185,000 men were slaughtered by the angel of God. In Isaiah 31:8 the word of the LORD said, “Assyria will fall by no human sword; a sword, not of mortals, will devour them. They will flee before the sword, and their young men will be put to forced labor.”
The king of Assyria was in utter confusion. He boasted much about his own power but didn’t want to admit that he was in a quandary. He, therefore, returned home to Nineveh (v36) and as he was worshiping in the temple of his god, Nisroch, his own sons Adrammelech and Sharezer killed him by the sword, and then escaped to the land of Ararat, and his son Esarhaddon became king in his place (v36,37). One commentator wrote that God spared Sennacherib, not in mercy, to a more dreadful death at the hands of his own sons. It is estimated that twenty years passed between verses 36 and 37, and maybe he thought he had escaped the wrath of God, but that was not so. He had the shame of being killed by his own sons.
