B23-devotions

Isaiah 36:1-12

Devotions for Monday 16th June

1 In the fourteenth year of King Hezekiah, King Sennacherib of Assyria attacked all the fortified cities of Judah and captured them. 2 The king of Assyria sent his Commander in Chief from Lachish to King Hezekiah at Jerusalem, with a powerful force, and took his stance at the conduit of the upper pool on the highway to the ‘Washing Field’. 3 Eliakim son of Hilkiah (the master of the palace), Shebna (the secretary), and Joah son of Asaph (the recorder), went out to him.

4 The Commander in Chief said to them, ‘Tell Hezekiah that this is what the great king, the king of Assyria says: “What is this hope in which you have placed your trust? 5 I ask you this; are mere words sufficient plans and resources for battle? On whom are you depending that you rebel against me? 6 Look, you are trusting in the staff of a broken reed, Egypt, which pierces the hand of anyone who leans on it. Pharaoh, king of Egypt, is like this to all who trust in him! 7 Now if you say to me, ‘We trust in the Lord our God,’ is it not he whose high places and altars Hezekiah has removed, saying to Judah and to Jerusalem, ‘You must only worship before this altar’? 8 Come now, gamble with my master the king of Assyria: I will give you two thousand horses, if you on your part, you can set riders on them! 9 How can you possibly turn back a single captain among the least of my master's servants, whilst relying on Egypt for chariots and horsemen? 10 Moreover, have I come up to destroy this land without the Lord? The Lord told to me to march against this land and destroy it!”’

11 Then Eliakim, Shebna, and Joah said to the Commander in Chief, ‘Please speak Aramaic to your servants, for we understand it; do not speak to us in Judean within the hearing of the people on the wall.’ 12 But the Commander in Chief said, ‘Has my master sent me to speak these words to you and your master, and not to the people sitting on the wall, who are doomed with you to eat their own excrement and drink their own urine?’

To read more about this passage of scripture: go to the Bible study page

To read the questions and discipleship challenges for this text: go to the discipleship page

(Encouragement)

There is no life essentially better than yours

For the Lord to use for His will:

There is no time that will prove to be better than now

For deciding to do the Lord’s will:

There is no place better than the place where you are

For beginning to walk the Lord’s ways:

There are no circumstances better than yours

For the Lord to start a new work:

There is no greater potential in anyone else

For the Lord to prefer them, not you;

There is nothing greater than what you do for your Lord

For His glory will be found through you.

Alleluia!

Weekly Theme: The Bible

Pray today for all those people who still work on translating the Bible into some of the many languages which still do not have a version of the Bible. Pray God’s blessing on their work.

On-going Prayers

Pray for your local fire brigade
Praise God for all forms of renewal in the church around the world
Pray that governments around the world will respect civil liberties

For the full Bible study, click link above,

or for a brief review, scroll page down.

We now come to an intriguing part of Isaiah. The story line in Isaiah 36 to 39 is quite different from the rest of Isaiah, even the other part of it that is in narrative form, Isaiah 7 and 8, because although Isaiah figures relatively strongly in what happens, the story is primarily about King Hezekiah and the Assyrian invasion of Judea in around the year 701 BC (see below). This is a harrowing tale of what happens when a city is besieged, and some of the details are extremely unpleasant, as is the last verse of this passage. The big question we face is this; why is this story placed right at the heart of the book of Isaiah?

In the coming days we will follow through the story of the siege of Jerusalem and it is clearly a story which is intended to bring a spiritual message, primarily that when a people trust in the Lord, then He will bring them through the trials of this life. However, there is much more to Isaiah 36-39 than this, however valuable and encouraging this message turns out to be.

Isaiah prophesied in the eight century BC at a time of great change for the people of Israel and Judah, and many years later after the Exile of Judah in Babylon (during the sixth century BC), people began to look back and see that what Isaiah had said many years previously was fulfilled in a number of different ways in the centuries which followed. One of Isaiah’s key themes was that whatever happened on the political military scene, God would save a small number of His people (a ‘remnant’ – see Is 10:19f.) and He would return His own people to Zion (see 10:12,24,32, 12:6, 14:32 etc.). Isaiah also prophesied that God would eventually remake the world into a new ‘Zion’ of peace and security (see Isaiah 25,26, 35), but his prophecies had also been fulfilled in other important ways which enabled people to have confidence that what he said was from God.

Now, one of the important things Isaiah had said was that Judah and Jerusalem should not fear Assyria, but they should fear Babylon (see Isaiah 10:1-19, and also 13&14). This important prophecy lies behind chapters 36 to 39 which tell us what happened when Assyria invaded Judea and came to the gates of Jerusalem. It was dramatic, but Isaiah’s prophecies held good and the threat of Assyria was eventually dismissed. Isaiah’s worth as prophet was therefore enhanced dramatically by these events, and this is the main reason why the story is included in the book!

Our passage tells of the approach of the Assyrian troops, arrogantly taking their stance against Jerusalem and belittling the efforts of King Hezekiah (the son of Ahaz) to hold Jerusalem against invaders (36:4-6). The Commander of the Assyrian troops even had the cheek to say that the Lord had sent him against Jerusalem and ridiculed Hezekiah’s attempts to centralise the worship of God in Jerusalem (36:7)! Hezekiah had done a great deal to reinforce Jerusalem in an attempt to withstand the Assyrians; read about it in 2 Chronicles 32. But even with help from Egypt, it seemed that little could be done to save Jerusalem from the power and might of the Assyrians.

This is just the beginning of the story, and although things certainly appeared grim, we must remember that this story is in the Bible in order to explain that Isaiah was right. Isaiah had said that the Assyrians would do God’s work for Him (see 10:1f.) but he also said that God would save a ‘remnant’ of His people and save Jerusalem from the King of Assyria (10:12f.). Then, because Isaiah’s prophecies about all this proved right, later Jews trusted what Isaiah also said about God’s salvation and the coming of the Messiah, Immanuel (‘God with us’ - 7:14), and everything else he said about the coming Kingdom of God.

Going Deeper: (what you will find on the Bible study page)

Now we know why the passage is in scripture, we can read the story with more insight. The first thing we must do is to check out what is said here against how Hezekiah’s reign is described in 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles; then we can gain a good picture of what was really going on in the conversation between the representatives of the King of Assyria and King Hezekiah.

We praise You, Living Lord; for You have a plan for the whole of Your Creation from beginning to end. You have given us the privilege of living in Your world; help us therefore not just to enjoy the benefits of what we have been given, but also to look after our world, to maintain it and manage it; and so find fulfilment in living to Your praise and glory. Thanks be to God, AMEN