Our present Sabbath School Lesson Quarterly on the book of Isaiah has become one of my favorites in many years. I have always cherished the message of this great book, and have long wished we could spend more than a single quarter studying it!
A week ago we studied one of my favorite stories in all the Bible—the deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrian army by the angel of the Lord (II Kings 19:35; Isa. 37:36). Few narratives in the Scriptures offer such dramatic evidence of God’s power to save those who find themselves “up against the wall” in one fashion or another.
It isn’t difficult to imagine, not only the physical desperation of Judah’s leaders in the face of what till then was the world’s mightiest military machine, but even more the spiritual implications of what was happening to God’s covenant community. The northern tribes of Israel had already been taken captive by the same savage power, dispersed by their conquerors in some of the empire’s remotest provinces (II Kings 17:5-6; 18:10-11). Bitterest of all was the awareness that persistent apostasy, idolatry, and wickedness of every sort on Israel’s part had brought about this humiliation (II Kings 17:7-18).
Now the kingdom of Judah was all that was left of the chosen nation. Indeed, only Jerusalem was left, as Assyrians had captured “all the fenced cities of Judah” (II Kings 18:13; Isa. 36:1). How, the goodhearted in Judah (including King Hezekiah and the prophet Isaiah) must have asked, can God’s promises to His people ever be fulfilled if the covenant nation is obliterated? How will the promised Messiah come through Judah’s royal line if the Davidic dynasty is exterminated by a heathen conqueror?
Defiance
The eighteenth chapter of Second Kings creates a scene that must have struck horror into the hearts of God’s faithful remnant. Standing at the foot of Zion’s wall, in the highway of the fuller’s field (Isa. 36:2), an Assyrian officer known as the Rabshakeh, or cupbearer [1], offered defiance to Israel’s God.
Whether or not the Rabshakeh knew the significance of this spot, we are not told; but it was here that a scant few years before, the prophet Isaiah had offered assurance to Hezekiah’s wicked father, King Ahaz of Judah (Isa. 7:3). The past missteps of Judah’s monarchs had led the chosen people to this moment of shame, as a pagan ambassador sought to displace their trust in the God so many of their countrymen had betrayed.
We can read the Rabshakeh’s words in Second Kings 18 and Isaiah 36:
Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered at all his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria?
Where are the gods of Hamath, and of Arpad? where are the gods of Sepharvaim, Hena, and Ivah? have they delivered Samaria out of mine hand?
Who are they among all the gods of the countries, that have delivered their country out of mine hand, that the Lord should deliver Jerusalem out of mine hand? (II Kings 18:33-35; Isa. 36:18-20).
We can likely guess the embarrassment and shame convulsing the hearts of Hezekiah and his chief ministers as they rent their clothes at the Rabshakeh’s words (II Kings 18:37; 91:1; Isa. 36:22; 37:1). Horror at the Rabshakeh’s blasphemy was, in all probability, only part of the reason for this; what else could they expect from a pagan propagandist? Most of all, we can be sure Hezekiah and his fellow leaders were heartsick at the calamities that had befallen the chosen people because of their sins, thus—as in David’s case so long before—giving “great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme” (II Sam. 12:14).
But Assyria’s defiance at the God of heaven didn’t stop with the cupbearer. The Assyrian king Sennacherib himself got into the act, offering his own challenge to the Creator of heaven and earth. In a letter he sent by special messenger to Hezekiah, Sennacherib declared:
Thus shall ye speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying, Let not thy God in whom thou trustest deceive thee, saying, Jerusalem shall not fall into the hand of the king of Assyria.
Behold, thou hast heard what the kings of Assyria have done to all lands, by destroying them utterly: and shalt thou be delivered? (II Kings 19:10-11).
Prayer and the Prophet
The Assyrians, having lodged their attacks directly at Israel’s God, could now only be answered by God Himself. The Bible is clear that when contending with the adversary of our souls and his minions, we are to actively do our part. That’s why the apostle Paul speaks of how we must “work out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God which worketh in you, but to will and to do of His good pleasure” (Phil. 2:12-13). It is why the same author exhorts the Christian:
Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God (II Cor. 7:1).
In preparing for the invasion by the Assyrians and the siege that would likely follow, King Hezekiah followed this same principle of divine-human cooperation. The Bible describes all the elaborate military and other preparations that the king made in anticipation of a possible siege (II Chron. 32:2-6), including the construction of the famous tunnel to bring water from the spring of Gihon into Jerusalem (verse 30).
But when we have done all that is within our power to do, it is time to let God take over. And that’s what King Hezekiah did when threatened by Sennacherib. He went to the temple to pray, took the Assyrian tyrant’s letter with him, and “spread it before the Lord” (II Kings 19:14; Isa. 37:14).
I’ve had to do that a couple times in my life. I too have faced dilemmas whose outcome I did not know, and where I’ve felt helpless against external forces. The best thing to do when confronted with such challenges is to “spread them before the Lord,” as Hezekiah did. The king’s prayer in that awful hour is recorded in Second Kings 19 and Isaiah 37—one of the most earnest, moving prayers in all the Bible.
Acknowledging God as both the Creator and Ruler of the heavens and the earth, he admits the truth of the Assyrian boast that they had subdued all the surrounding nations and thrown their gods into the fire (II Kings 19:17-18), “for they were no gods, but the work of men’s hands” (verse 18). Hezekiah continues:
Now therefore, O Lord our God, I beseech Thee, save Thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that Thou art the Lord God, even Thou only (verse 19).
Notice Hezekiah’s ultimate concern—not his own safety, not even that of his people. Being impaled, skinned alive, or subjected to other tortures practiced by the Assyrians was not uppermost in his mind. The honor and glory of the God of the universe was what mattered most to Judah’s monarch.
What is most amazing about this story is how quickly God gave His answer. As in the experience of Ellen White, who was at times inspired by God to send messages days in advance of the events her testimonies described [2], we read in verse 20 of Second Kings 19 of how Isaiah the prophet had a message waiting for Hezekiah as soon as his prayer was finished, meaning he undoubtedly wrote it before the king even knelt in the temple!
God’s message to the Assyrian king offered a stinging rejoinder to Sennacherib’s mockery and pride, ending with words we would all do well to remember:
But I know thy abode, and thy going out, and thy coming in, and thy rage against Me.
Because thy rage against Me and thy tumult is come up into Mine ears, therefore I will put My hook in thy nose, and My bridle in thy lips, and I will turn thee back by the way by which thou camest (II Kings 19:27-28; Isa. 37:28-29).
Have you ever felt the Lord’s hook in your nose? His bridle in your lips? Or am I the only one? But here God declares to this pagan king that He is the One who presides over the affairs of men and women, that He knows all our secrets, our comings and goings, and that by His will the greatest army the earth had seen up till then would suffer a defeat never to be forgotten.
Therefore thus saith the Lord concerning the king of Assyria, he shall not come into this city, nor shoot an arrow there, nor come before it with shield, nor cast a bank against it.
By the way that he came, by the same shall he return, and shall not come into this city, saith the Lord.
For I will defend this city, to save it, for Mine own sake, and for My servant David’s sake (II Kings 19:32-34; Isa. 37:33-35).
Deliverance
That very night, the Lord gave His answer to the defiers of His will and His people:
And it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand: and when they arose early in the morning, behold, they were all dead corpses (II Kings 19:35; Isa. 37:36).
Ellen White tells us it was Christ Himself who sent this angel on his mission of death [3]. From the cupbearer and the general staff down to the ranker soldiers, the waterboys, and the cooks, the angel left 185,000 dead in a single pass!
That’s how our God fights. That’s why we can trust Him.
The Assyrian king received word of his army’s fate while awaiting the approach of an Egyptian army pledged to come to Judah’s aid [4], and fled at once to his capital city of Nineveh (II Kings 19:36; 37:37). But he had not long to reign. God had declared through Isaiah concerning Sennacherib that “I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land” (II Kings 19:7; Isa. 37:7).
And so it was. The Biblical narrative tells us what happened:
And it came to pass, as he was worshiping in the house of Nisroch his god, that Adrammelech and Sharezer his sons smote him with the sword: and they escaped into the land of Armenia. And Esarhaddon his son reigned in his stead (II Kings 19:37; Isa. 37:38).
One of the greatest poems of all time, penned by one of history’s great lyrical artists, recalls this pivotal triumph in the following stanzas:
The Assyrian came down like a wolf on the fold
And his cohorts were gleaming in purple and gold
And the sheen of their spears was like stars on the sea
When the blue waves roll nightly on deep Galilee.
Like the leaves of the forest when summer is green
That host with its banners at sunset were seen
Like the leaves of the forest when autumn hath blown
That host on the morrow lay withered and strown.
For the angel of death spread his wings on the blast
And breathed in the face of the foe as he passed
And the eyes of the sleepers waxed deadly and chill
And their hearts but once heaved, and forever grew still.
And there lay the steed with his nostril all wide
But through it there rolled not the breath of his pride
And the foam of his gasping lay white on the turf
And cold as the spray on the rock-beaten surf.
And there lay the rider, distorted and pale
With the dew on his brow and the rust on his mail
And the tents were all silent, the banners alone
The lances unlifted, the trumpet unblown.
And the widows of Assur are loud in their wail
And the idols are broke in the temple of Baal
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord.
---Lord Byron [5]
In the daily struggles of life, may each of us remember this power. May the idols in our soul temples be broken, and the besiegers of our hearts be withered and strown in the wake of total surrender to the God of deliverance.
REFERENCES
1. “Rabshakeh,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabshakeh
2. See Arthur L White, Ellen G. White: The Later Elmshaven Years, 1905-1915 (Washington, D.C: Review and Herald Publishing Assn, 1982), pp. 68-71.
3. Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 700.
4. ----Prophets and Kings, p. 361.
5. “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Destruction_of_Sennacherib
Pastor Kevin Paulson holds a Bachelor’s degree in theology from Pacific Union College, a Master of Arts in systematic theology from Loma Linda University, and a Master of Divinity from the SDA Theological Seminary at Andrews University. He served the Greater New York Conference of Seventh-day Adventists for ten years as a Bible instructor, evangelist, and local pastor. He writes regularly for Liberty magazine and does script writing for various evangelistic ministries within the denomination. He continues to hold evangelistic and revival meetings throughout the North American Division and beyond, and is a sought-after seminar speaker relative to current issues in the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He presently resides in Berrien Springs, Michigan