Isaiah 36-39 raise a big question for any serious Bible reader! Isaiah prophesied during four kings’ dramatic reigns, but there’s very little history narrative in his book, apart from these 4 chapters. So: what’s so very significant about these particular events that they get recorded in the Bible? What do we learn for our lives?
They tell how in 701BC Jerusalem was besieged by the Assyrians, one of the cruellest, most brutal armies of history. (The horrific tortures they inflicted after capturing nearby Lachish are depicted on their basreliefs that are now in the British Museum.) In ch36 the Assyrian commander (Rab-shakeh) comes to demand Jerusalem’s surrender. What follows gives us at least three lessons to turn into prayer for when we face crisis.
Above all, as so often, the basic question in this critical time will be faith. `On what are you basing this confidence of yours?` he demands (v4). `Do not let Hezekiah persuade you to trust in the Lord when he says, “The Lord will surely deliver us”… Do not let Hezekiah mislead you when he says, “The Lord will deliver us”` (vv15, 18-20; 37:10-12). First, then, let’s pray for a trust to develop in us that will dominate our thinking in emergencies! It’s not easy when faith means going against this world’s dominant forces (look at v8 where Rab-shakeh scornfully offers Hezekiah 2000 battle horses if he can find the riders for them). That can be, not an intellectual problem (intellectually we may well know we are best to trust God), but rather a serious emotional challenge, one that we have to rise to.
(What makes it worse is occasionally the world is right! In v6 Rabshakeh speaks scathingly of how Jerusalem’s godless politicians had been looking to Egypt for protection; and he says exactly what Isaiah had said in chs 30 & 31. Sometimes the institutional church’s critics are right! Lord strengthen my faith!)
OK, second big lesson: What is God really like? `If you say to me, “We are depending on the Lord our God”—isn’t he the one whose high places and altars Hezekiah removed, saying to Judah and Jerusalem, “You must worship before this altar”?’ (v7). No, because those were not His altars! But sometimes to survive a crisis we must be willing (and it can make us seriously unpopular) to think hard and precisely about the doctrine we rely on, and then stand firm on what is true. Again in vv18-19 Rabshakeh demands, `Have the gods of any nation ever delivered their lands from the hand of the king of Assyria?`, and in particular, `Have they rescued Samaria?` Samaria had indeed been smashed; so now Jerusalem had to be doctrinally certain that their different beliefs meant they were right with God, and so, unlike Samaria, they could expect His protection – ie, that the situation of the worshippers in Samaria (and the worshippers of the other religions Rabshakeh mentions – false religions, we must be willing to say, 37:19) was different in an absolutely vital way. Lord help me be willing to think like this! (In the end the Assyrian king’s own god didn’t stop him being murdered by his sons, 37:38.) And then v10 demands that Jerusalem think hard about false prophecy: Rabshakeh says, `Have I come to attack and destroy this land without the Lord? The Lord himself told me to march against this country and destroy it.’” His other statements show this is false, but again they have to be discerning and not let themselves be disturbed by it.
Then there’s a third lesson in 36:16-17. Rabshakeh makes the materialistically attractive offer that, if they surrender, they will be taken away to `a land of corn and new wine, a land of bread and vineyards`. That is, as against having to trust the Lord and face the likelihood of a horrific siege and maybe brutal massacre. All they had to do for safety, and for pleasure, was let Assyria, not God, be their Lord. Lord please help me see when I’m doing this, and to change course!
So then ch37 shows us how to handle crises like this. Hezekiah is seriously scared; `he tore his clothes and put on sackcloth` (v1), and his words to Isaiah – `It may be that the Lord your God will hear the words of the Rab-shakeh` (v4) – show his faith, though real, is not doing well at all. (Just like Abraham’s in Gen 15:8, and the early church’s in Acts 12:15; and each time, despite this, God delivered. Isn’t this encouraging?) But Hezekiah does the crucial thing: he brings the whole desperately bad situation before the Lord (v1), and when Rab-shakeh’s letter comes he `spreads it out before the Lord` (vv14-17). He‘s certainly not shallowly confident, but realistic (`It is true, Lord, that the Assyrian kings have laid waste all these peoples and their lands. They have thrown their gods into the fire` (v15)). But he’s able to face the terrifying situation because he still has a tiny `mustard seed` of faith in God.
And he does five things that we can note down for if, or when, crisis comes to us:
• He sees the need to repent (`This is a day of rebuke`, v3); presumably for his earlier lack of faith in allying with Egypt against Isaiah’s advice, which has led to the Assyrian attack and so many cities of Judah already being brutally taken;
• He’s reached the point of brokenness (v3) about Jerusalem’s own self-sufficiency – the issue Isaiah had spoken to so often – because he knows Rabshakeh’s boast in 36:8 is reality;
• Before anything else now he focuses on the greatness of God, worshipping, absorbing, vitally, who God is (v16; just like how Isaiah will prepare the Jews for exile in ch40);
• Then this one is crucial: he works at seeing the whole situation through the priority of God’s glory (37:20; and cf v35), not his own. Effectively he’s thinking, what in this situation will advance the gospel?: `that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that you, Lord, are the only God!`
• And, knowing what this God is like, he prays! And incredible deliverance comes – with God’s total and final removal of the Assyrian threat, vv36-37 – `because you have prayed to Me` (v21). `We don’t have if we don’t ask God!` (James 4:2).
So then, very practical this week, and we see why these particular events were recorded: five ingredients to write down somewhere and remember, for how we face this kind of major crisis if it comes…
