Isaiah Communicates To King Hezekiah ‘The Word Of YHWH' Now Active Against The King Of Assyria (2 Kings 19:20-28).
As a result of King Hezekiah's prayer Isaiah was given a prophetic message, an ‘oracle' from YHWH (‘thus says YHWH') to pass on to him. Such an oracle was seen as not only spoken but active, as YHWH acted in accordance with His word. The semi-personalised Word of YHWH was going forth to accomplish His will (compare Isaiah 55:10-13. This would lead on to the idea of the fully personal Word in John 1:1-14; 1 John 1:1-4; Revelation 19:13). This oracle was, as so often, in rhythmic form, and was in the form of a message of rebuke to Sennacherib, although issued at a distance. It was not intended to be delivered to Sennacherib, but to be seen as an assurance to Hezekiah that ‘the word of YHWH' was at work. The oracle divides up into four main sections:
1) Judah's Scorn At Sennacherib For Setting Himself Up Against YHWH (2 Kings 19:21-22).
2) A Description Of The Boasting And Defiance Of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:23-24).
3) YHWH's Response That Sennacherib In Fact Owes All His Success To Him (2 Kings 19:25-26).
4) An Assurance That Because Of Sennacherib's Taunts YHWH Intends To Act Against Him And Transport Him Back Like A Captive Wild Beast To Nineveh (2 Kings 19:27-28).
In order to be fully appreciated the oracle must be presented as a whole.
Judah's Scorn At Sennacherib For Setting Himself Up Against YHWH (2 Kings 19:21-22).
“The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn,
The daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head after you.
Whom have you defied and blasphemed?
And against whom have you exalted your voice,
And lifted up your eyes on high?
Even against the Holy One of Israel.”
A Description Of The Boasting And Defiance Of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:23-24).
“By your messengers you have defied the Lord,
And have said, With the multitude of my chariots,
Am I come up to the height of the mountains,
To the innermost parts of Lebanon,
And I will cut down its tall cedars,
And its choice fir-trees,
And I will enter into his farthest lodging-place,
The forest of his fruitful countryside.
I have dug,
And drunk strange waters,
And with the sole of my feet will I dry up
All the rivers of Egypt.”
YHWH Responds That Sennacherib In Fact Owes All His Success To Him (2 Kings 19:25-26).
“Have you not heard,
How I have done it long ago,
And formed it of ancient times?
Now have I brought it about,
That it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities,
Into ruinous heaps.
Therefore their inhabitants were of small power,
They were dismayed and confounded,
They were as the grass of the field,
And as the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops,
And as grain blasted before it is grown up.”
Now Because Of Sennacherib's Taunts And Attitude YHWH Intends To Act Against Him And Transport Him Back Like A Humiliated Captive To Nineveh (2 Kings 19:27-28).
“But I know your sitting down, and your going out,
And your coming in, and your raging against me.
Because of your raging against me,
And because your arrogant attitude has come up into my ears,
Therefore will I put my hook in your nose,
And my bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back,
By the way by which you came.”
‘Then Isaiah the son of Amoz sent to Hezekiah, saying, “Thus says YHWH, the God of Israel, Whereas you have prayed to me against Sennacherib king of Assyria, I have heard you.”
As a result of Hezekiah's plea Isaiah sent to him an assurance of YHWH's response. Because he has humbled himself and prayed wholeheartedly to God, God has heard him. Note the description of YHWH as ‘the God of Israel'. Judah now represented the whole of Israel (and indeed contained many from the other tribes within its population).
“This is the word (Hebrew ha dabar; LXX ho logos) that YHWH has spoken (diber) concerning him,”
He assured Hezekiah that YHWH's ‘word' had now gone forth and would accomplish His will. When YHWH spoke His word it was the guarantee that action would result (see Isaiah 55:11). In these contexts the ‘word' of God can almost be paralleled with the idea of the ‘Spirit' of God as indicating God in action. This would later be personified in Jesus Christ Who was God's Logos supreme (John 1:1-4).
1). Judah's Scorn At Sennacherib For Setting Himself Up Against YHWH (2 Kings 19:21-22).
“The virgin daughter of Zion has despised you and laughed you to scorn; the daughter of Jerusalem has shaken her head after you.”
The picture is a vivid one. Sennacherib, through the Rabshakeh, had been ranting at Jerusalem, and seeing her as like a virgin daughter waiting to be raped, but this was now a picture of what the ‘virgin daughter's' response would be, mockery at his folly in thinking that he could set himself up against the God of Israel. The ‘virgin daughter of Zion' (pure and unspoiled and reserved for YHWH) despised him and ‘laughed him to scorn' (compare Psalms 2:4 where it is YHWH Himself who laughs at the folly of the enemies of His Anointed). She shook her head ‘after him', in other words once he was running away. This was probably in incredulity at his folly, and derisive wonderment at the fact that he had dared to defy the living God.
“Whom have you defied and blasphemed? And against whom have you exalted your voice and lifted up your eyes on high? Even against the Holy One of Israel.”
YHWH now drew Sennacherib's attention to what he had done. He had defied and blasphemed and lifted up his haughty eyes against none other than ‘the Holy One of Israel'. Nothing could be more foolish than that. The title ‘the Holy One of Israel' appears here, three times in the Psalms, twice in Jeremiah and twenty five times spread throughout the Book of Isaiah. It is thus typical of an Isaianic prophecy. It indicates His uniqueness and ‘otherness', as ‘the High and Exalted One Who inhabits eternity Whose Name is Holy' (Isaiah 57:15).
2). A Description Of The Boasting And Defiance Of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:23-24).
YHWH points out that what Sennacherib has done in his folly is to defy the Sovereign Lord of the Universe, as a result of his confidence in his massive (but vulnerable) human resources, and He goes on to describe the exalted claims that he has made.
“By your messengers you have defied the Lord,
And have said, With the multitude of my chariots,
Am I come up to the height of the mountains,
To the innermost parts of Lebanon,
And I will cut down its tall cedars,
And its choice fir-trees,
And I will enter into his farthest lodging-place,
The forest of his fruitful countryside.
I have dug,
And drunk strange waters,
And with the sole of my feet will I dry up
All the rivers of Matsor.”
Note the emphasis on the fact that he has ‘defied the Sovereign Lord (adonai)'. He needed to recognise that YHWH was not to be seen as like all the other ‘gods' that he had had dealings with, not even his own Ashur (whom he called ‘lord'). Rather it is YHWH Who is Lord of all, Lord of time (2 Kings 19:25), Lord of history (2 Kings 19:25). But Sennacherib had overlooked this fact and had defied Him with his puny chariots (compare Isaiah 31:1; Isaiah 31:3; Psalms 20:7). He thought that because he had so many chariots he could do what he wanted. He would prove to be mistaken.
The words that follow must not be taken too literally. They are building up a picture of extreme arrogance. No one in his right senses seeks to take chariots to the top of the highest mountains. The point is rather that with his chariot forces he had so taken possession of the land that even the highest mountains, where people thought their gods to be, were under his control. The Assyrian annals, however, do contain similar boasts that the king of Assyria in his chariot will reach even the most inaccessible of regions where none have been before, and he boasted openly of his achievements in taking his chariots into the mountains of Aram and Palestine.
He had taken over the very heart of Lebanon (its innermost parts). He is using ‘Lebanon' (which is a flexible description, like Gilead) in its widest sense as taking in a large part of the land that he has conquered in the south. And the pride of Lebanon was its tall cedars and splendid fir trees. But these will be cut down, leaving it bereft. Practically speaking they would be used to make siege engines and siege towers, or exported for profit, but the idea is as much a picture of the loss that Lebanon would suffer for defying him. The cutting down of trees unnecessarily was usually frowned on (Deuteronomy 20:19-20). To do so despoiled the land, for they took many years to grow. But Assyria did it quite callously.
Nowhere would escape Sennacherib's attention. He would enter their most distant and remote lodging places, and pierce the centre of their most expansive forests, for which they were so famous. He would extract water from their unyielding ground, digging wells, and drinking from those wells in foreign lands, wells which were far from home, and which had previously belonged to others. In other words he would make himself completely at home there, taking possession of everything both above and below ground.
And in contrast he would dry up whatever waters he wished, even ‘the rivers of Matsor'. This could be the Missor mentioned in the Amarna letters. On the other hand if we take Matsor as signifying Egypt expressed poetically, as some do (Egypt = mitsraim), this may indicate that his final aim was to bring Egypt under Assyrian control.
· The expression may indicate his previous victory over Egypt, which he saw as ‘drying up the rivers of Egypt' (defeating the army which made safe its border).
· It may be proverbial, in that the rivers of Egypt never dried up. Egypt was famous as the land which had no need of rain because it was permanently watered by the Nile (see Zechariah 14:18). Thus it may be intended to indicate his determination to do the impossible. He would dry up what everyone knew could not be dried up (it would be a typical Assyrian boast).
· He may simply have had in mind the ‘wadi of Egypt' and the border rivers which were at the southernmost end of Philistia (Genesis 15:18; Numbers 34:5; Joshua 15:4; Joshua 15:47) with the idea that he would quickly remove Egypt's defensive barriers, or even leave them without water (it is a boast).
· Or it may be that Sennacherib is depicted as saying that what YHWH had done when Israel had escaped from Egypt (dry up a mere sea; compare Psalms 106:9), he could do better when he invaded, for he would dry up all their rivers.
3). YHWH's Response Is That Sennacherib In Fact Owes All His Success To Him (2 Kings 19:25-26).
The point is now made that Sennacherib may think that he has achieved what he has on his own, but the truth is that he has only achieved it because it was YHWH's purpose. He needed to recognise that it was YHWH Who had taken him up and used him as His instrument (compare Isaiah 10:5-6; Isaiah 10:15), and that that was the only secret of his success.
“Have you not heard,
How I have done it long ago,
And formed it of ancient times?
Now have I brought it about,
That it should be yours to lay waste fortified cities,
Into ruinous heaps.”
YHWH asks Sennacherib whether he has in fact not heard that what is unveiling in history had been formed in the mind of YHWH from ancient times? What he needed to realise was that what he was thus doing was thus working out what YHWH had already planned, for now YHWH's ancient will was being carried out. It was He, (and no one else), Who had purposed that Sennacherib should turn all the cities he has referred to (2 Kings 19:12-13) into ruinous heaps. Thus in doing so Sennacherib had simply been carrying out YHWH's instructions.
“Therefore their inhabitants were of small power,
They were dismayed and confounded,
They were as the grass of the field,
And as the green herb,
As the grass on the housetops,
And as grain blasted before it is grown up.”
Indeed it was because YHWH was at work, and not because of Assyria's might, that the inhabitant of those cities had been deficient in strength (literally ‘were short of hand'). That was why they were dismayed and confounded, and so easily and quickly withered like the grass and vegetation in the countryside in the hot summer sun once there was no rain. The grass that some grew on the flat roofs of their houses soon withered and died in the glaring sun if it was not constantly watered (compare Psalms 129:6), and it was the newest grain that was most vulnerable to the sun. Thus they were an apt picture of weakness and vulnerability.
‘Before it has grown up.' Literally ‘before (it has become) standing corn'.
Now Because Of Sennacherib's Taunts And Attitude YHWH Intends To Act Against Him And Transport Him Back Like A Humiliated Captive To Nineveh (2 Kings 19:27-28).
So YHWH warns him that because he is aware of all his doings, and especially of his arrogance towards Him. In consequence He Himself will lead him like a humiliated captive back to where he came from.
“But I know your sitting down, and your going out,
And your coming in, and your raging against me.
Because of your raging against me,
And because your arrogant attitude has come up into my ears,
Therefore will I put my hook in your nose,
And my bridle in your lips,
And I will turn you back,
By the way by which you came.”
What Sennacherib should realise is that YHWH was aware of everything he did, whether he sat down, or whether he went out or in, and especially of his expressed arrogance towards YHWH (literally ‘his careless ease'), and his raging against Him.
The putting of the hook through the nose was a deliberately humiliating way of treating captive foreign princes and nobles used by the Assyrians, and there is a relief in Zenjirli depicting such treatment given to Tirhakah of Egypt and Ba'alu of Tyre, who were being led in that way (some years later) by Esarhaddon. The bridle in the lips might indicate the same, or have in mind the treatment of wild animals or horses in order to keep them obedient and submissive. Compare here 2 Chronicles 33:11 where Manasseh was taken ‘with hooks' to Babylon.
Note the gradual build up of his behaviour. First his sitting on his throne, then his activity in going out and in, and then finally his rising up in rage against YHWH.