Isaiah 37

37:1 Hezekiah responded to the threats by seeking the Lord’s favor. • The king tore his clothes and put on burlap as a sign of mourning and prayer.

37:4 perhaps . . . God has heard the Assyrian chief of staff . . . defy the living God: Hezekiah’s hope was not based on Judah’s or his own goodness, or the presence of the Temple in Jerusalem; instead, it was based on God responding to Assyria’s blasphemy.

37:5-7 God answered that he would deal with the Assyrians and rescue the remnant of his people from their distress (see 63:9).

37:8 Libnah was a city on the Philistine plain near Lachish. Sennacherib was preparing to fight both Egypt and Jerusalem when he sent word to Hezekiah.

37:9 King Tirhakah of Ethiopia was then the ruler of Egypt.

37:12 The argument was that Judah’s god, like the gods of other nations already conquered by Assyria, would be unable to save Judah (see also 36:18-20). • Gozan, Haran, Rezeph, . . . Eden, and Tel-assar were cities in Mesopotamia.

37:14-20 When he received Sennacherib’s boastful threat, Hezekiah returned to the Temple and prayed for rescue. His prayer stands in contrast to Ahaz’s response to danger decades earlier (see ch 7).

37:16 God of Israel: Hezekiah was not taken in by the false claims of Sennacherib that the Lord was powerless. In his prayer, Hezekiah acknowledged that, because the Lord is the Creator, he is God of all the kingdoms of the earth. The Lord is sovereign over all kingdoms. • The mighty cherubim were located in the Temple atop the Ark of the Covenant, which was God’s throne in his Temple (see study note on Lev 16:2; see also Pss 80:1; 99:1).

37:20 you alone, O Lord, are God: Hezekiah was concerned for the Lord’s reputation, which Sennacherib had impugned. Hezekiah recognized that if the Lord defeated the Assyrians and their gods, his holy name would be glorified among all the nations of the world (cp. Exod 9:16; 14:4, 17-18; Josh 2:9-11; 1 Sam 4:7-8).

37:21 Because you prayed: Prayer is powerful; it moved God’s heart and was part of the reason why the Lord answered with this message of hope.

37:22 The virgin daughter of Zion: Jerusalem is personified as a young woman who mocks the Assyrian king (see also 3:26).

37:23 Whom . . . Against whom: Sennacherib’s speech was not so much an insult against Judah as it was against the Lord.

37:24 Isaiah seems to be familiar with the typical royal Assyrian boasts, including that they possessed the highest mountains. These words sound very much like those found in the annals of the Assyrian kings inscribed on the walls of their temples.

37:25 I have dug wells . . . I stopped up all the rivers of Egypt: Sennacherib’s boasts demonstrate his attitude of independence. However, the Lord alone is sovereign over nature (42:15; 43:19; 44:27).

37:26 I planned for you to crush . . . into heaps of rubble: Assyria was God’s agent of destruction, but the Assyrians did not realize that they were only a tool in God’s hand (see ch 10), fulfilling what God had planned long before (14:24-27).

37:28 you have raged against me: Assyria was utterly hostile to the Lord, which brought them even greater condemnation.

37:29 my hook . . . my bit: The Assyrians would be led away like animals, just as they had led so many of their captives away.

37:30-35 In this prophecy of salvation, Isaiah assured Hezekiah that Jerusalem would be spared and that the remnant was under God’s protection. The names of Isaiah and his sons anticipated God’s rescue (see 7:1–11:16). The book’s record of God’s presence and rescue provided assurance that the Lord would always have a remnant that he will protect and rescue.37:30 This year . . . next year . . . the third year: Because of the Assyrian siege and its destruction of agriculture, the people of Judah would not be able to plant and harvest as usual. The promise that life would resume after the siege assured them that God was with them and would provide as they carried out their everyday activities. They needed to develop their trust in God over a period of three calendar years in the confident expectation that God’s word would be true (cp. 30:15, 18). Perhaps the point was that after rescue from the Assyrians, it would be too late in the present year for fall planting. They would have to wait until fall in the second year to plant again, and they would reap their first crop in the spring and summer of the third year.

37:32 The passionate commitment of God includes his energetic zeal to keep his promise, the best guarantee his people could ever have (see also 9:7).

37:33 armies . . . arrow . . . shields . . . banks of earth: Despite their advanced military technology and great power, the Assyrians would not succeed against Jerusalem.

37:35 for the sake of my servant David: God had promised David a perpetual dynasty (see 9:6-7; 2 Sam 7:8-17).

37:36 The angel of the Lord was a special heavenly agent through whom God worked on earth. Often his role was to communicate special messages (see Gen 16:7-14), but sometimes he brought judgment (see 2 Sam 24:16). • killed 185,000 Assyrian soldiers: The Lord began to fulfill what he had repeatedly promised—rescue of Jerusalem and judgment of Assyria (see Isa 10:16, 33-34; 30:31; 31:8).

37:38 One day: Sennacherib was probably killed in 681 BC, about twenty years after his withdrawal from Jerusalem. • Esarhaddon was king of Assyria from 680–669 BC. It is ironic that Sennacherib, who mocked the Lord, was killed by his sons in the temple of his god.