Isaiah 37:21-38 - God's Great Deliverance

Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: Because you have prayed to me concerning Sennacherib king of Assyria, 22 this is the word that the Lord has spoken concerning him: “ ‘She despises you, she scorns you— the virgin daughter of Zion; she wags her head behind you— the daughter of Jerusalem. 23 “ ‘Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! 24 By your servants you have mocked the Lord, and you have said, With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. 25 I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. 26 “ ‘Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, 27 while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded, and have become like plants of the field and like tender grass, like grass on the housetops, blighted before it is grown. 28 “ ‘I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. 29 Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came.’ 30 “And this shall be the sign for you: this year you shall eat what grows of itself, and in the second year what springs from that. Then in the third year sow and reap, and plant vineyards, and eat their fruit. 31 And the surviving remnant of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 32 For out of Jerusalem shall go a remnant, and out of Mount Zion a band of survivors. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this. 33 “Therefore thus says the Lord concerning the king of Assyria: He shall not come into this city or shoot an arrow there or come before it with a shield or cast up a siege mound against it. 34 By the way that he came, by the same he shall return, and he shall not come into this city, declares the Lord. 35 For I will defend this city to save it, for my own sake and for the sake of my servant David.” 36 And the angel of the Lord went out and struck down 185,000 in the camp of the Assyrians. And when people arose early in the morning, behold, these were all dead bodies. 37 Then Sennacherib king of Assyria departed and returned home and lived at Nineveh. 38 And as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, Adrammelech and Sharezer, his sons, struck him down with the sword. And after they escaped into the land of Ararat, Esarhaddon his son reigned in his place.

Target Date: Sunday24 November 2024

Word Study/ Translation Notes:

35 – save -yâsha˓, yaw-shah’; a prim. root; prop. to be open, wide or free, i.e. (by impl.) to be safe; caus. to free or succor:— × at all, avenging, defend, deliver (-er), help, preserve, rescue, be safe, bring (having) salvation, save (-iour), get victory.

“to deliver it,” is repeated in 38:6, and the verb is an integral part of Isaiah’s name. It also forms Hosea’s and Joshua’s names and comes to form the name of Jesus “because he will save his people from their sins” (Matt 1:21, niv).

36 – angel (of the Lord) - mal˒âk, mal-awk’; from an unused root mean. to despatch as a deputy; a messenger; spec. of God, i.e. an angel (also a prophet, priest or teacher):— ambassador, angel, king, messenger.

Thoughts on the Passage:

The prayer for deliverance from Assyria seems almost an afterthought for Hezekiah (v. 20), a spare petition embedded in the desire for God’s glory.

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. - Matthew 6:33

21 -it may be that Isaiah deliberately chose thus to write so that the written Word of God would stand in contrast to the blasphemous fleeting word of the Assyrian king.

21 - M. Henry - -Isaiah could have referred the king to prior prophecies (ch.10), forcing him to pick out n answer.

We must be ready to aid each other by helping each other search the Scriptures, suggesting the very passages to focus on.

To say “read the Bible” is often far too general to help a hurting soul.

We tend to cover our own ignorance or tout our own spirituality by simply referring to a passage without helping the person READ the passage.

How much more helpful is it to take the time to sit down, read, and work out he Scriptures together for our mutual edification?

When we give advice to another, let’s make that our pattern and practice. When you are in need of wisdom, ask gently for that very thing.

Realize that when you study, it is often for the sake of others that lesssons are taught. We may apply much to our own lives, but much is given to us to be shared.

God works His provision most often by giving you a bounty so you have something to share with others.

Has God given you a blessing or a bounty? It was never intended to make you fat or complacent or exalted: it was to give you something to share with others, His church, so we all grow together.

21 – Then – the full response of God to Hezekiah’s faithful prayer is what follows. vv. 6-7 are a summary of the same thing, delivered not to the faithful king but to his emissaries.

The primary difference between Isaiah’s terse response in vv. 6-7 and the full response in 22-29 is the intervening humbling of the king in prayer before God.

21 – God’s answer to prayer came from another: Isaiah.

Isaiah was not present in the temple when Hezekiah made his prayer, although his emissaries may have told Isaiah of his intention to seek the Lord.

Thus the Lord’s response through Isaiah identifies this as a response to Hezekiah’s secret prayer.

God speaks in the way He chooses, not in the way we might wish to hear it. Not everyone in Isaiah’s day, even the anointed king of Judah and heir of David, would hear the voice of God; only those who He chose would deliver His messages.

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. - Hebrews 1:1–2

22-29 – These verses are written in a poetic form like the other prophecies of Isaiah. This indicates to us that these are the revealed words of God, not a narrative or a commentary on their meaning.

22-29 – These verses contrast the temporary ascendancy of a man or nation, and compared to the eternal sovereignty of the Creator.

22 - Jerusalem, now a prone maiden helpless before a swaggering rapist, will mock her would-be conqueror’s impotence. The word order of the phrases emphasizes this point. Who is it that will despise the Assyrian? Zion’s virgin daughter, not some mighty hero. So as the oppressor slinks away, the intended victim will stick out her tongue at him and wag her head from side to side in derision (Ps. 22:8 [Eng. 7]; Jer. 18:16; Lam. 2:15). He could not do what he planned.

23 - What is particularly tragic in the whole picture is that Sennacherib lifted up his eyes to the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah himself had once seen this Holy One seated upon a throne, high and lifted up. But Isaiah’s sight had caused him to cry out in dismay over his own sin; Sennacherib lifts up his eyes but does not see the Holy One of Israel. He is blind; he knows not the true God. His sin therefore is the greater; his blasphemy is directed against that One whom Isaiah reverenced and served.

29 - There are times even in the lives of pagans, peasants or kings, where God will force a direction through hook and bridle, not relying on the meekness o cooperation of the creature.

Sennacherib thought he ruled his own life, but it is the sovereign Lord of Glory who turns the creature to the right and to the left to his appointed destination. The creature may buck or attempt to turn aside, but the great Rider is ever the Master of the steed (or more to the point, a mule).

Pain may be used to bring people TO God or to drive them away FROM God, all to His purposes and by His decree.

30 – The period of time in the life of the nation of Israel that had 2 back-to-back fallow years was the year of Jubilee – the 50th year following the seventh Sabbath year.

This deliverance will be marked by God as the Jubilee.

30 – That this is a sign is important. Normally signs come in advance of an event to build the faith. So what is this in advance of?

Although none of the commentaries I have consulted have dealt with the issue in depth, I think it is easy to see that the Assyrians would not simply notify the people of Jerusalem that the war is over. They are not within the range of the walls even as this message is given by God. So it would take a while before the people felt safe enough to venture far from the walls of the city. God is assuring them that they are safe even now in His land.

Some signs are aids to faith, like that in 38:7, but others, like this one, aid later recognition that God was indeed at work. Only after the third year, when vineyards bear their fruit again and Judah’s population is secure and reasonably prosperous, can they look back, remember the crowded city under siege, and know that Isaiah had spoken a true word from God. The sign offered to Ahaz (7:10–17) was like this.

35 – for the sake of My servant David – God is faithful to His past promises and His future promises. The Northern Kingdom had been obliterated by the Assyrians; the Southern Kingdom of Judah would endure as a people, even when they faced exile as well.

Much of that survival depended on the continued worship of the Living God; He sent prophets to them to keep them faithful and hopeful toward their restoration.

Psalm 76 - MH suggests it may have have been written due to this occasion - the deliverance by God of Zion.

76:10 - Surely the wrath of men shall praise You; the extremity of wrath You will put on like a belt.

God has no fear or strategy for His enemies; He needs neither. He decrees the end from the beginning.

All their railings, attacks, and words are like straw cast in anger at a mountain - useless and ultimately adorning His glory.

All the taunts and actions of men serve only to exalt God in His creation all the more.

Do martyrs weaken or strengthen the church?

Does privation cause you to trust God less or more?

Do trials pull you from God or toward Him in faith?

Sermon Text:

For the last couple of weeks, we have been looking at the story of the great finale of the Assyrian invasion of Judah.

In chapter 36, we saw the official, the Rabshakeh, coming to taunt and scare the defenders of Jerusalem into surrender.

And then last week we saw that the Assyrians had heard rumors of the kingdom of Cush coming to fight against them, even as they surrounded Jerusalem by fighting the cities of Lachish and Libnah on the southwest side of Jerusalem.

Then in the first part of chapter 37, we saw the good king, Hezekiah, send his messengers to Isaiah to ask him to pray for Judah while the king went to the temple to personally pray to God.

Beginning in the 21st verse of Isaiah 37, we read this morning the Lord’s reply.

But I really don’t want this to be simply a history lesson today

You probably didn’t wake up thinking “I need to learn some good history today” anyway.

This morning I want us all to spend the next half-hour or so considering how remarkably awe-inspiring our God is.

And as we look at how the Lord describes Himself in this passage, I hope we all feel a little smaller, a little more fragile, and a lot more humble to be in the presence of the living God.

And at the same time we are exploring anew our unworthiness and insignificance in comparison to Him, I hope we all are overwhelmed by the worth and the significance He has given us through Jesus Christ.

It is almost easy for us to get carried away with our own understanding or our own wisdom about the things of God,

But while sometimes we may be absolutely sure we have everything we need to know about God figured out,

The truth is that we know very little about Him.

We know only the bits He has revealed, and even those things we have very little understanding of.

It is like we are blind, and we think we can describe Mount Everest by holding in our hand a pebble picked up from its base.

And if we are prideful or boastful, we think that Everest should be something we could put our own arms around since the pebble seems so small.

Or at the very most, it is a hill we should be able to walk around in, at most, an hour.

One of the hardest things for us to get is the vastness, the glory, of God.

We use big words: eternal, infinite, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, all-loving, divine...the list itself is almost endless.

And that is where we see the biggest mistake made by Sennacherib, the king of the Assyrians.

Whom have you mocked and reviled? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes to the heights? Against the Holy One of Israel! By your servants you have mocked the Lord… (23-24)

When he sent the Rabshakeh to taunt Judah and to mock God, he thought he was just dealing with a philosophical problem.

That’s what people who follow idols do.

An idol is nothing more than a person MAKING UP a god they can control, and by whom they can control others.

The Assyrians had marched through and conquered dozens of cities, and each of them had gods they had bowed down to,

Made sacrifices to,

Prayed to,

And trusted in.

And none of those gods had saved them from the Assyrian army.

So the Assyrians trusted their so-called gods with their lips, but they trusted in themselves and their armies in reality.

They trusted that their armies could beat any other armies.

And so the gods they carried with them might be able to do some little something, they thought, but they didn’t need for their gods to do much:

They were strong enough for themselves.

But Sennacherib wasn’t dealing with a philosophical problem any longer.

He wasn’t even dealing with a religious problem, really.

He had come up against the Living God, and HE IS NOT AN IDOL.

He wasn’t created by men – He created all men.

He cannot be understood by men – not if we have all eternity to learn.

He had lifted his voice, challenged the ONE GOD who would answer in His own defense – the Lord God of Israel.

That poor Assyrian king hadn’t even taken the time to see how great our God is.

How He has preserved His people.

How He has made promises that will always be kept.

He just came out shouting his insults and blasphemies against God thinking he was speaking wisdom and logic.

Just like all atheists do.

They say “Who is this Lord? I’ve never seen Him.”

Like any God worth the name would be commanded by their childish and foolish wishes.

But here in our passage today, the king finds out he has insulted the God who replies, the God who hears and speaks, the God who sees, and the God who moves all things in His will –

He has insulted the Sovereign Lord.

And the Lord God will respond in His time to every insult by His mighty power.

And the Sovereign Lord answers both prayers of faith and insults – but in very different ways.

Each of these two kings learned that.

Verse 21 tells us that Isaiah sent God’s reply to Hezekiah’s prayer.

Notice, God didn’t speak directly TO Hezekiah – He used a mediator, a prophet.

I remind you again of Hebrews 1:1-2:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. - Hebrews 1:1–2

God still uses a mediator to speak with His people:

Jesus, our great High Priest, offers our prayers and petitions to God.

And His Holy Spirit speaks to us through the word of God, the Scriptures He has given us.

That is, in effect, exactly what we see in action in our passage today:

Hezekiah prayed in faith, and Isaiah wrote God’s words down and sent them to the good king.

Isaiah was literally writing BIBLE here, because what he wrote is recorded word-for-word – in the Bible.

I pray we learn to do that more – to search the Scriptures together for God’s answers to our prayers.

A lot of the time, we are quick to offer opinions.

Sometimes we might even include a verse that supports our particular opinion.

But when was the last time, when someone brought a difficult problem to you, that you said, “Let’s sit down and search the Scriptures together.”?

I get it – it might take a lot of time.

We may have places to go or things to do.

But if we believe God speaks through His written word, do we EVER consider MAKING the time to search it together in response to a problem?

Are we ready to commit THAT MUCH time for a brother or sister that is struggling?

Or, if you are the struggling brother or sister, do you REALLY want God’s answer enough to spend the time searching the Scriptures,

Or were you really only looking for someone to support your opinion?

Now I realize I may be putting myself or Aaron on the spot, but for matters that are not obvious to work out, bring us into the conversation and the study.

We will pray with you and search the Scriptures with you.

Particularly if there is a sin or difficult situation you are seeking God’s word on.

That is why God has given us His church to help train and tend us into His holier people.

Not only were these 2 kings to learn that God answers, they learned that God is Lord over all.

It is He who knows the end from the beginning;

It is He who ordains everything that comes to pass.

It is He, as we have seen over and over again, who raises up nations and peoples and who causes them to fall.

And in our passage today, we are not just seeing a PROMISE of how God will do it; we see Him carrying it out.

Sennacherib boasted:

With my many chariots I have gone up the heights of the mountains, to the far recesses of Lebanon, to cut down its tallest cedars, its choicest cypresses, to come to its remotest height, its most fruitful forest. I dug wells and drank waters, to dry up with the sole of my foot all the streams of Egypt. (vv.24-25)

See how he boasts:

I have a vast army.

I have conquered the rich nations and the fertile nations.

I have built my home in splendor.

I have fed myself with the best.

And I have eclipsed even the mighty Egypt, so that the great wealth of the Nile flows to me.

But the king of Assyria was a fool:

God says:

Have you not heard that I determined it long ago? I planned from days of old what now I bring to pass, that you should make fortified cities crash into heaps of ruins, while their inhabitants, shorn of strength, are dismayed and confounded...I know your sitting down and your going out and coming in, and your raging against me. Because you have raged against me and your complacency has come to my ears, I will put my hook in your nose and my bit in your mouth, and I will turn you back on the way by which you came. (vv.26-29)

There is NOTHING Assyria did that God did not CAUSE!

God brought it to pass.

The mighty Sennacherib, who may never have heard the Lord’s name prior to his invasion, now is told that all his exploits were simply ordained by God in His timing.

When Job was demanding to know why he had been afflicted thus (while never asking at all why he had been blessed so), this was God’s reply to him:

“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb, 9 when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, 10 and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors, 11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’? 12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place, - Job 38:8–12

But I would bring to your attention that this message from Isaiah was never delivered to the king of Assyria;

It was delivered to the humble king who made a faithful prayer – Hezekiah.

He got to discover God’s ways and His reasons.

Sennacherib would only discover the truth after he was murdered by his sons for all that power he thought he had,

And in the next moment, he stood before the righteous judge of all creation, and he heard the terrible words from the mouth of God: GUILTY!

Send him away to the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

He knew God was there enough to challenge and taunt Him;

He believed in Him enough to dispute with Him.

But he wouldn’t bow the knee to Him,

Wouldn’t repent of his sins in humility and seek God with his heart.

I can think of no greater tragedy than to be blessed by God with success and wealth in this world,

Only to find they kept you away from the true treasure of our loving and merciful God for eternity.

God loved sinners so much that He sent His only FULL Son that whoever trusts in Him would not die and be subject to God’s punishment, but would instead have life forever.

It’s not a philosophy;

It’s not cold doctrine.

It’s not some formula we recite.

It’s not some model prayer you pray.

It is the Living God offering you a single way to eternal life – through faith in Jesus Christ.

God forgive us when we forget that and speak of the gospel as if it were our opinion, simply the way WE believe.

Paul explains it this way:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith, as it is written, “The righteous shall live by faith.” 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. - Romans 1:16–18

For every person, the end will come down to one or the other: life or wrath – both unending.

Both are the outcome decreed by the only Holy and Righteous God.

And that is why we call, with all our hearts, for people everywhere to repent and trust the gospel of Jesus Christ.

There is no other way to be saved.