God Defends His City

Rowan Hilsden | Sep 01, 2019

Scripture: Isaiah 37:21-38

Isaiah 37:21-38 Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

God’s Answer through Isaiah

21 Then Isaiah son of Amoz sent a message to Hezekiah: “The Lord, the God of Israel, says, ‘Because you prayed to me about King Sennacherib of Assyria, 22 this is the word the Lord has spoken against him:

Virgin Daughter Zion
despises you and scorns you;
Daughter Jerusalem shakes her head
behind your back.
23 Who is it you have mocked and blasphemed?
Against whom have you raised your voice
and lifted your eyes in pride?
Against the Holy One of Israel!
24 You have mocked the Lord through[a] your servants.
You have said, “With my many chariots
I have gone up to the heights of the mountains,
to the far recesses of Lebanon.
I cut down its tallest cedars,
its choice cypress trees.
I came to its distant heights,
its densest forest.
25 I dug wells and drank water in foreign lands.[b]
I dried up all the streams of Egypt
with the soles of my feet.”

26 Have you not heard?
I designed it long ago;
I planned it in days gone by.
I have now brought it to pass,
and you have crushed fortified cities
into piles of rubble.
27 Their inhabitants have become powerless,
dismayed, and ashamed.
They are plants of the field,
tender grass,
grass on the rooftops,
blasted by the east wind.[c]

28 But I know your sitting down,
your going out and your coming in,
and your raging against me.
29 Because your raging against me
and your arrogance have reached my ears,
I will put my hook in your nose
and my bit in your mouth;
I will make you go back
the way you came.

30 “‘This will be the sign for you: This year you will eat what grows on its own, and in the second year what grows from that. But in the third year sow and reap, plant vineyards and eat their fruit. 31 The surviving remnant of the house of Judah will again take root downward and bear fruit upward. 32 For a remnant will go out from Jerusalem, and survivors from Mount Zion. The zeal of the Lord of Armies will accomplish this.’

33 “Therefore, this is what the Lord says about the king of Assyria:

He will not enter this city,
shoot an arrow here,
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.

This is the Lord’s declaration.

35 I will defend this city and rescue it
for my sake
and for the sake of my servant David.”

Defeat and Death of Sennacherib

36 Then the angel of the Lord went out and struck down one hundred eighty-five thousand in the camp of the Assyrians. When the people got up the next morning—there were all the dead bodies! 37 So King Sennacherib of Assyria broke camp and left. He returned home and lived in Nineveh.

38 One day, while he was worshiping in the temple of his god Nisroch, his sons Adrammelech and Sharezer struck him down with the sword and escaped to the land of Ararat. Then his son Esar-haddon became king in his place.

Footnotes:

  1. 37:24 Lit by the hand of
  2. 37:25 DSS, 2Kg 19:24; MT omits in foreign lands
  3. 37:27 DSS; MT reads rooftops, field before standing grain
Christian Standard Bible (CSB)

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