Isaiah 37

Today’s Passage: Isaiah 37

The Assyrian threat that filled the last chapter now presses in hard, and we watch to see what a king of Judah will do with it. Hezekiah does not answer the boasting of Assyria with boasting of his own. He tears his clothes, puts on sackcloth, and walks straight into the house of the LORD, and he sends his officials to the prophet Isaiah, who meets their fear with a word from God: do not be afraid. When a threatening letter arrives, sneering at Judah’s God as though He were no different from the carved idols of the fallen nations, Hezekiah takes that letter up to the temple and spreads it open before the LORD, and prays one of the great prayers of Scripture. He asks God to look, to listen, and to save, and his deepest reason is not merely rescue but that every kingdom on earth might know that the LORD alone is God. Isaiah brings back God’s answer, a rebuke of the proud Assyrian and a promise of deliverance, and that very night the whole crisis is undone by the hand of God, so that the mighty Sennacherib withdraws in shame and is later cut down in his own land.

As you read, hold this: When God’s people spread their fears before Him and long above all for His glory to be known, He rises to defend His name and rescue them, for no proud power can stand against the living God.

Isaiah 37:1–4 (BSB)

¹ On hearing this report, King Hezekiah tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and entered the house of the LORD. ² And he sent Eliakim the palace administrator, Shebna the scribe, and the leading priests, all wearing sackcloth, to the prophet Isaiah son of Amoz ³ to tell him, “This is what Hezekiah says: Today is a day of distress, rebuke, and disgrace; for children have come to the point of birth, but there is no strength to deliver them. ⁴ Perhaps the LORD your God will hear the words of the Rabshakeh, whom his master the king of Assyria has sent to defy the living God, and He will rebuke him for the words that the LORD your God has heard. Therefore lift up a prayer for the remnant that still survives.”

See at once what kind of king this is. The report of the Assyrian’s boasting reaches him, and Hezekiah does not gather his advisers to plot or send frantic messages of surrender. He tears his clothes in grief, puts on the rough sackcloth of the mourner, and goes into the house of the LORD. That is the first and best instinct of a believing heart: when the trouble is too big to carry, carry it into God’s presence. His words to Isaiah are honest and raw. He compares the day to a birth gone terribly wrong, children come to the very point of being born, but no strength left to deliver them, a picture of a people utterly spent, at the end of their own power. And yet, notice the one word that carries all his hope. The Assyrian has dared to defy the living God, and Hezekiah is quietly certain that the living God will not let such defiance pass. So he asks the prophet to pray for the remnant that still survives.

Isaiah 37:5–7 (BSB)

⁵ So the servants of King Hezekiah went to Isaiah, ⁶ who replied, “Tell your master that this is what the LORD says: ‘Do not be afraid of the words 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 hear a rumor and return to his own land, where I will cause him to fall by the sword.’”

Into all that fear God speaks the tenderest and steadiest of words: do not be afraid. It is the word He gives His people again and again through the Scriptures, and here it comes with a firm reason attached. The words that so terrify Judah are, God says, words with which the Assyrians have blasphemed Me. Do you feel the weight of that? The insult was aimed at Jerusalem, but God takes it as aimed at Himself, and He will answer it Himself. He tells Isaiah exactly what He will do: put a spirit in the great king so that a mere rumor will send him hurrying home, where in the end he will fall by the sword. The empire that seemed unstoppable will be turned back by nothing more than a whisper, because the God who holds the hearts of kings can move them like water wherever He pleases.

Isaiah 37:8–13 (BSB)

⁸ When the Rabshakeh heard that the king of Assyria had left Lachish, he withdrew and found the king fighting against Libnah. ⁹ Now Sennacherib had been warned about Tirhakah king of Cush: “He has set out to fight against you.” On hearing this, Sennacherib sent messengers to Hezekiah, saying, ¹⁰ “Give this message to Hezekiah king of Judah: ‘Do not let your God, in whom you trust, deceive you by saying that Jerusalem will not be delivered into the hand of the king of Assyria. ¹¹ Surely you have heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all the other countries, devoting them to destruction. Will you then be spared? ¹² Did the gods of the nations destroyed by my fathers rescue those nations—the gods of Gozan, Haran, and Rezeph, and of the people of Eden in Telassar? ¹³ Where are the kings of Hamath, Arpad, Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivvah?’”

Word reaches Sennacherib that another army is on the march, and so he cannot press the siege as he would like. But before he turns to deal with that threat, he sends Hezekiah a letter, and it is a masterpiece of pride. Read what it dares to say. It goes straight after the one thing holding Judah steady, their trust in their God: do not let your God deceive you. Then it piles up the record of Assyrian conquest as proof, listing nation after nation and god after god that could not save its people. The whole argument rests on a single unspoken assumption, that the God of Israel is just like all the rest, one more helpless idol soon to be added to the list. It is a bold and blasphemous letter, and it is the very thing that will bring Assyria down, for the proud king has just put his contempt for the living God in writing.

Isaiah 37:14–20 (BSB)

¹⁴ So Hezekiah received the letter from the messengers, read it, and went up to the house of the LORD and spread it out before the LORD. ¹⁵ And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD: ¹⁶ “O LORD of Hosts, God of Israel, enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth. You made the heavens and the earth. ¹⁷ Incline Your ear, O LORD, and hear; open Your eyes, O LORD, and see. Listen to all the words that Sennacherib has sent to defy the living God. ¹⁸ Truly, O LORD, the kings of Assyria have laid waste all these countries and their lands. ¹⁹ They have cast their gods into the fire and destroyed them, for they were not gods, but only wood and stone—the work of human hands. ²⁰ And now, O LORD our God, save us from his hand, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God.”

Here is one of the most beautiful pictures of prayer in all of Scripture, and I would have you linger over it. Hezekiah takes the terrifying letter, carries it up to the temple, and spreads it out (פָּרַשׂ) paras, pronounced pah-RAHS. Strong's H6566, to spread out, stretch forth, open wide. The word is a simple, homely one. It is what you do with a cloth or a scroll, unrolling it flat and open so that the whole of it lies exposed to view. Hezekiah spread out the letter before the LORD, and in that plain gesture there is a whole lesson on how to pray. He did not merely mention his trouble to God; he opened it out completely in God’s sight, holding nothing back, hiding none of the threat, laying the entire thing before the eyes of the One who could actually do something about it. This is what faith does with its fears. It does not carry them in a clenched fist or bury them out of sight. It brings the letter, whatever the letter happens to be, and spreads it open before the throne of heaven, trusting the living God both to see it fully and to act. before the LORD. He does not hide his fear or minimize it or carry it alone. He opens it wide in God’s presence, as if to say, Lord, look at this, You read it, You answer it. And then hear how he prays. He does not begin with his problem; he begins with his God. O LORD of Hosts, enthroned above the cherubim, You alone are God over all the kingdoms of the earth, You made the heavens and the earth. He sets the whole crisis inside the greatness of God before he ever names the crisis. Only then does he ask, honestly admitting that Assyria really has destroyed the other nations, but drawing the true distinction: those were only wood and stone, and You are the living God. And do not miss the deepest cry of his heart. He asks to be saved, yes, but for a reason higher than his own survival: save us, so that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You alone, O LORD, are God. That is a prayer God delights to answer, because it wants above all things what God Himself wants, the glory of His own great name.

Isaiah 37:21–29 (BSB)

²¹ Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: Because you have prayed to Me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, ²² this is the word that the LORD has spoken against him: ‘The Virgin Daughter of Zion despises you and mocks you; the Daughter of Jerusalem shakes her head behind you. ²³ Whom have you taunted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel! ²⁴ Through your servants you have taunted the Lord, and you have said: “With my many chariots I have ascended to the heights of the mountains, to the remote peaks of Lebanon. I have cut down its tallest cedars, the finest of its cypresses. I have reached its farthest heights, the densest of its forests. ²⁵ I have dug wells and drunk foreign waters. With the soles of my feet I have dried up all the streams of Egypt.” ²⁶ Have you not heard? Long ago I ordained it; in days of old I planned it. Now I have brought it to pass, that you should crush fortified cities into piles of rubble. ²⁷ Therefore their inhabitants, devoid of power, are dismayed and ashamed. They are like plants in the field, tender green shoots, grass on the rooftops, scorched before it is grown. ²⁸ But I know your sitting down, your going out and coming in, and your raging against Me. ²⁹ Because your rage and arrogance against Me have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will send you back the way you came.’

God answers, and notice first why He answers: because you have prayed to Me. The prayer spread out in the temple has been heard, and now the living God speaks against the proud king. Read God’s reply to Sennacherib’s boasting slowly, for it is magnificent. All that swaggering about I have climbed the mountains, I have cut down the cedars, I have dried up the streams, God overturns with one quiet question and one staggering answer. Whom do you think you have been taunting? You have raised your voice against the Holy One of Israel. And then the truth that pulls the ground out from under all Assyrian pride: those conquests you brag about were never yours to boast of, for long ago I ordained it, in days of old I planned it, and now I have brought it to pass. Sennacherib was only ever an axe in the hand of God, and an axe has no business boasting against the one who swings it. God knows this raging king altogether, his sitting down and his going out, every proud word, and He will lead him home like an animal turned by a hook and a bit, back the very way he came. There is no more thorough dismantling of human pride anywhere in Scripture.

Isaiah 37:30–35 (BSB)

³⁰ And this will be a sign to you, O Hezekiah: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what springs from the same. But in the third year you will sow and reap; you will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. ³¹ And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root below and bear fruit above. ³² For a remnant will go forth from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the LORD of Hosts will accomplish this. ³³ So this is what the LORD says about the king of Assyria: ‘He will not enter this city or shoot an arrow into it. He will not come before it with a shield or build up a siege ramp against it. ³⁴ He will go back the way he came, and he will not enter this city,’ declares the LORD. ³⁵ ‘I will defend this city and save it for My own sake and for the sake of My servant David.’”

Then God gives Hezekiah a gentle sign to steady his faith, a promise woven out of ordinary life. For a season the land will feed itself, what grows of its own accord, but by the third year the people will be back to the settled rhythm of sowing and reaping and planting vineyards, a picture of peace restored and roots sunk deep again. The remnant, that word so dear to Isaiah, will take root below and bear fruit above, and the LORD stakes His own zeal on it. As for the great Assyrian, God’s promise could not be plainer: he will not enter this city, he will not shoot a single arrow into it, he will not so much as raise a siege ramp against its walls. He will turn and go home the way he came. And hear the two reasons God gives for saving Jerusalem, for they are the same two reasons He saves us still: for My own sake, that His name be honored, and for the sake of My servant David, that His covenant promise be kept. God defends His people to guard His own glory and to keep His own word, and there are no surer grounds in all the world.

Isaiah 37:36–38 (BSB)

³⁶ Then the angel of the LORD went out and struck down 185,000 men in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning, there were all the dead bodies! ³⁷ So Sennacherib king of Assyria broke camp and withdrew. He returned to Nineveh and stayed there. ³⁸ One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer put him to the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. And his son Esar-haddon reigned in his place.

And then, in a single night, the whole crisis is over. No battle is fought, no Judean sword is drawn. The angel of the LORD goes out, and in the morning the vast Assyrian army that had made the world tremble lies still in its camp. We should read of such a loss of life soberly, without any relish, for these were men, and a great many of them. Yet the point the Scripture presses is not the number of the fallen but the truth it proves: the living God had said He would defend the city, and He did it entirely by His own hand. The mighty Sennacherib, who had boasted that no god could stand against him, simply breaks camp and goes home a defeated man. And the end of his story seals the lesson. The king who had mocked the God of Israel while trusting in his own god is struck down in the very temple of that idol, by his own sons, exactly as the God who cannot lie had foretold. The proud voice that rose against heaven is silenced, and Jerusalem wakes to a morning of deliverance it did nothing to earn. This is what happens when the living God rises to defend His name.